Race for the Cure!

Yesterday morning was the Race for the Cure! We left at 6:20. Man was it hard to get up that early, but it was worth it! I've never done any kind of race for anything so I was really excited. It was a new and fun experience. We got to meet new people and we got to support our friend Wendy, whose mom just finished radiation. I learned a lot too. For instance, did you know that 1 in 9 women are diagnosed with breast cancer? all the more reason to do regular self-exams!
For the majority of the race we were walking along side this family that had a young son in a stroller. I must have made faces with him for like a mile! He was so cute.

Pretty Dresses!

I forgot! One woman that we helped in Mississippi owned a bridal shop that suffered a lot of structural damage. She desided to close shop instead of rebuilding so one of our teams helped clear out her store. As a thank you she gave every girl on our trip a dress. She even gave one girl a wedding dress! She was really sad to have to close her buisness. She'd had it for like 40 years. We took this picture and sent it to her to show our gratitude. Arn't we pretty.



In addition I would also like to inform you that frosted flakes is the greatest cereal ever. I have re-discovered it and have come to fully appretiate it's grrreatness. :-P

Its been awhile! Spring Break revisited

So yea, its been awhile. Things were just so crazy after Spring break with teaching and everything there was little time for food and sleep, much less blog.

So Spring break was pretty amazing. I don't even know how to describe it. We got to work with different families to help them gut and rebuild their houses. Its ridiculous how much distruction there is. We drove down in four vans, it took us 13 hours. The whole ride we were either sleeping or being silly, but when we finally got to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi everyone was silent and just stared out the window. Where there used to be a house there would now be cement steps leading to nothing, or a chimney standing alone. There used to be a Church behind this sign. Now services are held in a big tent near by. Sometimes there would be a trailer on the property with a family sitting on patio furniture outside, a little kid playing on a tri-cycle while his mom drags Debris to the curb. The thing that surprised me the most was how much hope those people had. I mean they stuck out this storm, some of them had to climb onto their roofs the water got so high, but they still had hope. They were all so thankful for our help. It would have taken ALOT longer for them to get things going by themselves. We helped gut houses, pulled nails out of wood for hours, put up drywall, mudded walls, sanded walls like our life depended on it. hehe the day we did a lot of sanding we all turned grey from all the dust in the air.

It was definitely close quarters in Mississippi. We stayed in the "icare village". Its basically volunteer headquarters. Volunteers from all over stay there. There are two huge circus tents, one is the community tent where food is served and groups can meet, and the other is where the beds are. Inside of the bed tent were small plywood rooms, so we had a little privacy but since the walls weren't insulated you could hear absolutely everything going on in the tent. I shared a small room (I'd give you numbers but I suck at estimating) with 7 other girls. They put as many bunk beds as they can in each room and in my room they could fit 4 bunks. The beds were about half the size of a regular twin mattress. It definitely took some getting used to, I almost rolled right off a few times, but it wasn't like I was expecting to stay in the luxury suite or anything.


Everyday we were down there we were split up into groups and each group worked at a different job site. On one of the days I worked with a few other girls to clean out this woman's house. She was a pack rat! She had so much stuff, it was really hard throwing some of it away but it was just so damaged it couldn't be repaired. Before we started working on the house John (one of the guys in charge of volunteers) warned us that after the storm the house was infested with bugs, rats, and cats, so we needed to watch out for rat poison and dead animals. :-P Don't worry we had gloves and masks. We found three dead rats while we were pulling the insulation out of the ceiling! It was quite the adventure. One of them had decayed so much you could see his skeletal structure! Heres a picture of me with two of the girls I worked with in the rat house. Theres always time to pose for a picture!


Its crazy how much money these people are getting for their houses from the insurance companies. Next to nothing! Because of some loop holes in their policies and the fact that they are not "technically" in a flood zone most people are in Bay St. Louis are getting about $7000 to cover all of the damage in their entire house!! $7000! That won't buy any means cover the cost of the damage to these houses. Their damaged so badly you can't live in them! The $7000 is supposed to buy a new roof, the only thing is what good is a roof when you don't have a stable house to put it on?


What I got most out of this experience is that this is everyday for these people. For us on the trip it was one week, a trip, a "good experience." But for them its life. To people not in that area it may seem like Katrina isn't an issue anymore, but that definitely isn't the case. Not only is rebuilding an issue, but finding the funds to rebuild and the funds to just survive is a major issue. So spread the word. They still need help.

All in all Spring Break was awesome. I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything. The people were so inspiring and I loved that I got to work with a few families.

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p.s. I am doing the Race for the Cure on May 6th. If you're feeling generous donate through my fund raising page! http://www.active.com/donate/komennctriad/xSQueen

Spring Break 06 is gonna rock!

So I applied to go on a service trip to Mississippi for spring break to help with hurricane relief. I applied last week and had an interview and everything and I found out today that I'm going! huray! I'm so excited.
Elon had a service trip down there during fall break too but I didn't really know about that one until it was too late to apply. So I was really excited when I heard that there was going to be another one during spring break! I don't really know all of what we'll be doing exactly, but don't worry, we have a couple of meetings before we leave so I'll know all the details later. I do know that we'll be doing some gutting and rebuilding and helping to sort and distribute donated items. I'm really excited about interacting with the kids down there too.


Heres a pic from the service trip during fall break. Click here to see more pics from the fall break trip.

first day of school

Today was the first day of spring semester 06 and boy am I gonna be busy! But then again it wouldn't be me if I wasn't busy during the semester. Not that I like being busy, cause I don't, I just keep piling things on until all the sudden I don't have time to eat, except in class that is.

I'll be teaching math and science in an upper grades (3-5) classroom this semester. I'm really excited because I've only ever taught in a lower grades (K-2) classroom. It'll be interesting to see what its like. We find out our classroom placements next week, so then I'll know exactly what grade I'll be in! I can't wait!

Residence Life is another busy area. Being an RA is hard. (pout/whine) I never thought so much could happen on one floor. Its alot more than I thought it would be.
One more semester this year. Come on Danieley Center G, we can do it!

I'm not getting as many hours at Campus Rec as I would like which is sad because less hours means less money. But I don't even know if I could handle more hours on top of my schedule already. meh. Maybe if I keep playing poker with the guys I'll make enough to cover my car insurence. ;-)

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Ok, so I know that Elon weather is notorious for being off the wall, but this is rediculous!! It is 68 degrees outside right now!! Thats almost 70! And is the middle of January. I was walking around in a T-shirt outside and I was actually hot at some points. Everybody keeps talking about how great the weather is and how wonderfully warm it is outside, and don't get me wrong, warm weather is great and everything, but I want my winter!! And people need to realize that you can't get a snow day if it doesn't snow!!

See, here in North Carolina, when it snows people freak out. Businesses close, school gets canceled, people board themselves in their houses until it all melts away. It doesn't take too much to get at least a delay. You just need enough. My freshman year it snowed like crazy, and then it would rain and ice over and snow somemore. We had to ice skate to class. And we actually got delays and even a few days off because of the snow. Imagine, a snow day in college! It was amazing! And the jokes you can play using snow are endless. So many good snow joke memories from that year... But before we can make snow jokes we need snow. But since my freshman year, Elon has not seen a snow like that. Nope. Its been warm and sunny damit.

On the bright side, at least the travel conditions are safer with no snow. But that doesn't make me miss it any less.

poopy

Ok, so this class I'm taking during winter term, gender and global leadership, is depressing me. Everything we talk about is just so awful, about how the big nations exploit the poor ones, how its impossible for these poor nations to get out of debt. And then theres human trafficing for labor, sex, slavery. i don't like it. I feel bad for being born here, for having these privliges that others don't just because i was born in the US. I feel guilty, almost.
sigh.
sad.
and then i feel even worse because i call up alex sad and upset complaing about how the world sucks and people, children, are dieing that shouldn't, and then i depress him. and i don't like depressing people! i'm a happy person! i like to be happy! but i can't just dismiss these issues because they make me uncomfortable. but at the same time i don't want to walk around moping for the rest of my life. i want to help. i try to help. i just feel like its not enough. i know that its not enough. poop.

public service anouncement
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/multimedia.html

be apart of the solution
http://www.supportunicef.org/site/pp.asp?c=iuI1LdP0G&b=45523
http://www.madre.org/

i really hope that i didn't depress you, and i'm sorry if i did. but i think if more people are aware of the situation and donate a little time or money towards the cause, the world will be less depressing for everybody.

i promise to try not to mope.
heres to making the world a better place!