January Check-In

With break coming to an end, I am excited for the new challenges that come along with this new semester. The new set of courses have me excited to delve deeper into topics that I am truly interested in and hope to contribute to meaningfully. 

Over break, I spent my time helping to organize a holiday party for families registered with the organization MUJER. These families come from difficult backgrounds, having dealt with domestic, sexual and financial abuse. Every year, we focus on the 15 neediest families within the program. We collected household and clothing donations for a bazaar, food donations for the event and for families to take home, and a number of gifts both for the children and parents, among other things. It takes a great deal of coordinating to manage all of the different activities and donations from so many backgrounds, but it is also rewarding to see how many people in the community want to help out. This project means alot to me, as I still remember learning to wrap gifts for this event at the age of six. So, no matter where I live, I always aim to come home in time to help out however I can. I feel very lucky to have been able to go back home early enough in December to help out with set up and planning efforts rather than just volunteering on the day of, as I have had to do in some years. 

January has been a whirlwind, with NOLA experiencing record-breaking levels of snow. Alerts from the local shelters about concerns for their animals in kennels inspired me to foster a cat. Having fostered about 7 pets in the past couple of years, I decided to challenge myself and asked them for one of their longest inhabitants who they thought would benefit from taking a break from shelter life. They ended up picking a cat named Gandalf who has never left the shelter since coming to them as a kitten. We are still working on his trust/anxiety levels, but I feel determined to make sure he learns everything he needs to be the best pet for whoever ends up adopting him. Hopefully by the end of the semester he will be nestled on my lap as I study why zebras don't get ulcers or the drugs for our neurology module. 

For the tutoring program I had started last semester, the directors of the WeMADE program wanted to focus on their spring competitions so we have restructured the program to be more focused on monthly seminars such as resume building rather than weekly tutoring. So, while I wait for them to find a good weekend to do the seminars, I will be exploring other volunteer opportunities in the area. In the meantime, I have been focusing on classwork, trying to get ahead in presentations for Dr. Mostany's neuropharmacology. I appreciate the flexibility that he and Dr. Lindsey are providing us for these presentations, letting me focus on areas that I am particularly passionate about. This semester's mixup from our traditional lecture-oriented classes is a nice break, although it is certainly keeping me busier outside of the classroom. 

December hours: 10