Sunday, April 25, 2010

Why I do Community Servce (and why you should too)

I love the community service work I do (which is why I write about it so much on this blog). Last weekend was CACTUS Annual Field Day Event and the first Community Service Semi-Formal, and both reminded me of why I do community service and how much I will miss the service community here at Tulane. So here is my list of top three reasons I do community service and why you should too.

Because you're helping out your community. What more of a reason could you want than that, right? The people in your community are the people that you interact with on a regular basis. Even if you don't realize it, their lives affect yours.

For me, I just want to make sure that the people around me are having the best quality of life that they could have. And Field Day was a great example of that. We had about 200 elementary school kids running around Bruff quad with various activities set up for them to do, and they seemed to having the time of their lives. One kid even told one of our volunteers that he "was definitely going to come to Tulane because we had so much fun here." (No one had the heart to tell him we didn't jump around on bounce houses most days)

Face painting was a big hit at Field Day.

Hula-hooping was also quite popular.

Because you meet the best people. Some of my closest friends I have met through my community service work. One of my good friends, Seth, always tells the story of how he actually started doing community service because he wanted to meet girls as a freshman. I don't really know how well that panned out for him, but I think he would agree with me in saying that community service is a great way to meet great people

Adam and Lea are two people I probably wouldn't have met if not for service work. This is us all dressed up for the semi-formal.

Because it's fun and rewarding at the same time. So if you're not sold on helping the community and meeting great people, then let me assure you that community service is great because it's fun as well as personally rewarding. It's fun because you can always find a form of service that meets your likes and interests. If you like animals, consider volunteering at an animal shelter. If you like kids like I do, maybe something like Field Day is your thing. It's also rewarding because you always leave at the end of the day knowing that you have done something to help someone else. And even Scrooge would attest to how good lending a hand to someone else is good for the soul.

Mike L. having fun playing football with the kids at Field Day

Cooper making a new friend while making fruit loop necklaces

Mike E. offering an origami flower to his new friend

Anyways, that's my pitch. Hopefully, I was able to convince you some. Bottom line: if you aren't already doing service, you should get out there and try it out. If you already are, keep on volunteering.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Crawfesting

Who doesn't love Crawfest?

Crawfest is a purely Tulane tradition that happens every year in April, and it's probably one of my favorite days of the spring semester. It's great! There are two stages set up on either side of the LBC quad with bands playing from 11am to 9pm including Trombone Shorty and The Revivalists (who were my favorite of the day).

The crowd of Crawfest revelers in front of the McAlister Stage

We brought out our blankets and towels, spread them out on the quad, and ate a bunch of free crawfish for the entire afternoon.

Everyone ate crawfish except Amanda who is actually afraid of them. Hah.

Holly showing off her muscles and Crawfest tattoo.

It was a lot of fun, and aside from being a little sunburnt, I had a great day! Hopefully I'll be in New Orleans this next year so that this won't be my last Crawfest...

It also happened that last week was also National Volunteering Week, and Tulane had a bunch of events for that, so I'll put up a post and pictures of that soon. Until then!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Spring Break

So I've been back at school for a week now (and what a crazy hectic week it's been), and I've been meaning to post about Spring Break, but it's taken this long for Bryan to put up the pictures from it that I wasn't able to. (Yeah, Bryan, totally blaming this one on you)

Anyways, he finally put the pictures up last night, so here's a blog in pictorial form detailing out trip. Enjoy!

What can I say that it was really fun. Especially to take a break from all the school work. But now I'm back at school with a lot to do once again (the end of the semester can get kind of hectic). But! I have so much to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Well, first of all the weather is absolutely beautiful. Like beautiful. Then this weekend, there's CACTUS's Field Day on Friday as well as the Community Service Council's Semi Formal (don't worry, there will be pictures galore from this) and then Crawfest on Saturday (also lots of pictures from this as well).

Anyways, glad to be back. Graduation in a little over a month. Eep!