Skip to main content
                Sweet Potato Festival has cemented itself as one of my favorite New Orleans events. The event, held at a local elementary school, allowed me to spend more time with the community relative to the other service events I attended. I got to work with the students as they made sweet potato smoothies using a bike blender, a bicycle flipped on its back and chained to a blender base. I honestly don’t know who was more excited about the bike blender; me or the youths.
                 Deshawn, an absurdly bright second grader, talked to me about the gardening program at the school and explained how they learn to grow vegetables and learn to cook healthy foods with their garden. I couldn’t help feeling a little jealous as I wished I had a garden at my elementary school. However, I was more impressed with the attendance at the festival, how well the community came together, the number of vendors and volunteers working for free, and the fact that Deshawn, a second grader, knew what a dicot was.
                In other news, the weather here in New Orleans is finally cooling down. It’s no Boston, but I’ll take the 50 degrees over the 95 we had earlier this year. Fortunately, Thanksgiving is coming up, so I’ll have my fair share of cold in a few weeks. But before then I still have 2 block exams, some MCAT material to work through and lab work to get done.  I don’t think the break could come any sooner.


 October Hours; 5
Total Hours; 13

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March was pretty much full of service and studying for the MCAT. Obvioulsy I preferred the volunteering over the time I spent with flash cards.  I volunteered at top taco fest which was great. I spent time at the ticket gate, checking people in and handing out wrist bands. Top Taco was a great event, we got to try so many tacos from a variety of vendors. Another volunteering event I did was working with Youth Leadership NOLA (YLC). YLC hosts events every Wednesday. I worked a vendor spot an event called Wednesdays at the square. MCAT is taking up most off my other time. I’m currently reviewing Organic Chemistry and boy is that fun. Interesting fact, S-thalidomide is teratogenic, and R-thalidomide is therapeutic (indicated for leprosy). It’s super cool how changing the stereochemistry of a molecule can completely change it’s chemical outlook. March Hours: 12 Total: 38
Post a Comment
Read more
The hunt for a good coffee shop in New Orleans continues. I have learned, however, when the clock strikes to 3 o’clock the night before an exam and you still need to learn the difference between Idarucizimab and Etaracizumab any coffee suffices. This month I finished with the cardiovascular and renal units, joined an intramural basketball team, got to see Ellis Marsalis play piano, and volunteered with my peers at Habitat for Humanity. The work done with Habitat for Humanity paralleled some of my projects from when I lived in the Dominican Republic. I think building homes is a very common form of service. After all, everyone needs a floor. While working in Las Canas, I helped pour cement floors in a few houses around the small impoverished town where I stayed. When individuals in an underdeveloped community get sick a dirt floor is a likely culprit. You can’t clean a dirt floor. Thus, any fecal matter that gets tracked in on shoes tends to stay in the floor. The floor being where ...
Post a Comment
Read more