Newcomb

Hey all! Sorry it's been a little while since I last posted, but it's been a little hectic with midterms and then spring break (nothing noteworthy to speak of, though, since I went home to just relax for the week).

What I really wanted to talk about, though, was one of the great assets on campus for women (and men) which is the Newcomb College Institute. For those of y'all who don't know, Tulane University used to be for just men and its complementary women's college was Newcomb College. Even though classes were integrated in the 20s, it wasn't until after Hurricane Katrina that they two undergraduate colleges finally combined to form the Tulane-Newcomb Undergraduate College that it is today. Below is a picture of Newcomb Hall.



The Newcomb College Institute is what remains of the old Newcomb College and tries to keep the old Newcomb traditions alive. Even though the last Newcomb College class is graduating this year, Newcomb has a lot of great programming directed at the young women here on campus such as student groups, speakers, etc.

One of my favorite activities that Newcomb has is called "Friday at Newcomb". They provide a great lunch about three Fridays a month and also have really great speakers come in and speak about interesting topics. The best part? It's all free!

A student group that I am involved in is Women in Science. As a public health major, it's great to have a network of other women in the science field to connect with. We have a lot of professors come in to speak to us about whatever they'd like. They tell us about their research or sometimes just about their own personal experience with being a women in a science field. I've met some great people through Newcomb. Me with Mediha, Pearl, and Sam - three of the other executive board members of Women in Science (I am the Community Outreach Chair).


So that's a bit of Newcomb for you. Also, it's Destination Tulane all this coming month, so hopefully you'll see me around campus if you come to visit (which you should!).

CACTUS Field Day

I know I've talked a lot about CACTUS (the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students) already, but I'm really involved in it and love the community service activities I get to do because I'm involved in it.

Last Friday was CACTUS field day in which about 200 kids from various local elementary schools were invited to come play on Newcomb quad. CACTUS encouraged other student organizations such as Greek life, student government, ROTC, etc to come out and sponsor a table with different events for the kids, and we had kettle corn, snowballs, and even a rock climbing wall!

The boys of Phi Gamma Delta "mummifying" kids with toilet paper.

A member of the juggling club teaches a little girl to juggle.

Mostly, I sat at the Women in Science table. We had cookies and bought frosting and sprinkles that we let the kids decorate. It got a little (okay.. a lot) messy, but it was a lot of fun.

Lindsey helping a kid with some sprinkles

Other than that, I've just been really busy with school. I went to this "Undoing Racism" workshop this weekend that was really interesting and tackled a lot of issues surrounding race in New Orleans. I also had an Orientation Coordinator meeting on Sunday for next fall and I'm so excited to get to meet all the incoming freshman and help show them around (I'm going to be in Butler but they might move me to Monroe... so if you're living there next year, you'll probably see me around).

What else? Oh. Next week is spring break, and I'm going back home to California to just chill out for a bit. I am very excited for that.

Anyways, that's it for now! I hope everyone gets the chance to visit Tulane before they have to make their final college decisions!

Tulane Athletics

So I have so much work to do this week, so this is going to be a short post all about Tulane athletics.

If you didn't know, Tulane is a Division I varsity school in Conference USA. Currently, we have 11 sports ranging from men's and women's basketball to baseball to women's golf.

Currently, the big sport season that is upon us is baseball season. Our team plays at Turchin Stadium which is right on campus and had is inaugural season last season. I personally love baseball so going to the games with my friend is a good weekend activity (although since I have been swamped with work, I have done nothing of the sort as of late)

During football season, our games are played at the Superdome, and students are bused there for free. Below is a picture of my roommate, Arielle, and I last year with the school mascot, Riptide at the first home football game of the season. I love Tulane football; I even went to a game for my last birthday!

Anyways, definitely check out Tulane athletics. Our athletes put a lot of hard work and dedication to make our teams great!

Also, we just had prospective honors weekend here, and I hope that all the prospective honors students are having/had a good time!

Mardi Gras 2009

Hey everyone! So Mardi Gras weekend was last weekend, and I think I've finally recovered from all the madness. Mardi Gras was fun as always.

So let's recap. One of my really good friends from grade school, Yana, came to visit me for the weekend. She flew in on Friday night and stayed until Sunday evening. Basically, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we went to parades and caught lots of beads. The picture below is of my friends Amanda, Regen, and Meghan (apparently all wind-swept) after a parade on Saturday night. Notice that Meghan caught a feather boa... I was so jealous!

Here is a picture of my friend Ashleigh and me on one of the parade routes:


Here is a picture of one of the floats that we saw on Saturday:

On Sunday, I actually went to the French Quarter during the day to show Yana around, and she absolutely loved the French Market and the performers across from Jackson Square. It was a lot of fun; she's even planning our Mardi Gras costumes for Senior year!

On Tuesday, a few of my friends and I planned to go to the Zulu parade which was at 8 in the morning, but we were so exhausted that instead we just stayed on campus all day and ordered in Chinese food for dinner.

All in all, it was a great Mardi Gras, but I'm glad we're all back to reality now... well, kind of glad because now I have to study for an organic chemistry quiz on Monday and a sociology midterm on Tuesday.

Community Service Scholars and CACTUS projects

So I don't know if y'all know this, but I am a community service scholar. What exactly does that mean? (In case you don't want to click on the link). Well, I'm here at Tulane with a scholarship for doing community service work in high school (I was really involved with this organization which put on Girl's Economic Power Day that taught high school girls how to deal with all things relating to money).

What being a scholar entails is having to do forty hours of community service a year, going to various development meetings, and getting a mentor who would help me develop my own communtiy service project here at Tulane.

Last year, my mentor was a Senior named Brittany who I still am in contact with is one of my best resources even though she graduated. She was the project coordinator of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program at Tulane under our big community service organization the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students (CACTUS) and so I got involved with both Big Brothers/Big Sisters and CACTUS.

Now, my mentor is my friend Seth (pictured below) who has deemed himself my "life coach" and tells me that I need chill out because he thinks I do too much.



He is also a project coordinator of a project called Paint Rally which is a great project where we go out and paint schools almost every Saturday (contact him at srushton@tulane.edu or me if you are in town and want to volunteer a Saturday with us at Paint Rally!). Below is a cute picture of my roommate, Arielle, when she came to help paint a school (obviously not a clean task)

Basically, I love doing community service work and am glad I get to go somewhere where community service is really valued and needed. I have met some of my best friends doing community service and had a great time while also getting to make a difference. What else could you ask for?

Mardi Gras 101

Mardi Gras is coming up in a little over two weeks, and I am very excited! So, I thought would write about my past Mardi Gras experience to give you a little insight into what Mardi Gras has been like for me.

Since I am only a sophomore, I have only had one Mardi Gras last year, and it was so much fun! Everyone has this idea (at least I did) that Mardi Gras was spent on Bourbon St. doing things only seen on Girls Gone Wild to get a string of beads, when in fact, it is much more family friendly and less scandalous than that altogether.

It might be a little hard to believe, but believe it! I only went down to the French Quarter once during Mardi Gras last year and it was during the daytime before any of the parades started just so that a friend of mine from out of town could see what the Quarter looked like. Mostly, we spend Mardi Gras on St. Charles St. where the street is lined with tents and lawn chairs and barbeques and families waiting on the parade route. It's a lot of fun - kind of like a picnic except that everyone in New Orleans is invited! Below is a picture of Arielle and Amanda and me coming home from a parade last year (notice the abundance of beads!)

Here are a few fun facts about Mardi Gras:

- The actual date of Mardi Gras this year is Tuesday, the 24, but parades started running as early as this weekend! (the first being Krewe du Vieux) As a Tulane student we actually get school off on Monday the 23 and the next day!

- The parades that are the centerpieces of Mardi Gras festivities are run by social clubs called "krewes". Examples include the Knights of Sparta, the Krewe of Pegasus, and Krewe of Orpheus. These krewes also hold balls (usually masquerade) throughout the Mardi Gras season. Below is a picture of my friend Gerardo and me at a masquerade ball that Tulane put on last year.

- Gold, green, and purple are the colors of Mardi Gras!

- Despite what people think, all you need to do to get beads during Mardi Gras is stand there and hold out your hand! Seriously! You catch so many beads! In fact, most people bring ladders for the height advantage (the little kids who sit on ladders get the best beads!!)

- They don't just throw beads at people from parade floats! They throw weird trinkets, stuffed animals, cups, frisbees... you name it! At this one parade, Zulu, they throw coconuts to a few lucky few in the crowd! Of course, my friends and I managed to catch four between the four of us! (The one with the eyelashes and braids is mine! It's actually still sitting on my bookshelf!)

So that's a little bit about Mardi Gras! Did I mention I'm excited!

Amanda's Birthday

On January 28, one of my best friends, Amanda, turned 20 which means that we had to celebrate, of course!

It has become a tradition for a few of my friends and I to eat at this great Indian restaurant, Nirvana, on Magazine Street (I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before). Anyways, we were there the weekend before Amanda's birthday per tradition when I looked at the buffet line, and lo and behold, there was someone in the line who looked remarkably like Jennifer Coolidge (think American Pie, Legally Blonde, Best in Show, etc). I turned to my friends (Amanda, Arielle, and Meghan) who also agreed that the woman in line looked like her. Long story short after arguing if it would be rude to ask her or not, Arielle took the initiative to ask if she was Jennifer Coolidge, AND IT WAS! It was really exciting! We told her it was Amanda's birthday (and she wished Amanda a happy birthday) and even took a pictures with us:

Now I can say I've met a celebrity!

For Amanda's actual birthday, though, we went to this restaurant called O'Henry's which serves you a free birthday steak as long as you can show ID that proves it's your birthday. Needless to say, Amanda got her steak:

We just hung out the rest of the night with a bunch of our friends, recalling memories of living in Monroe (6th floor, represent!) and ridiculous hurricane evacuation stories. I think Amanda had a nice 20th!