Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

Four out of 13 weeks for the Spring 2010 semester have already passed, and the fifth one is about to begin. Even though this is my eighth (and final) undergraduate semester at Hopkins, I’m still caught by surprise at how quickly an entire third of the semester has passed! As always, a lot has happened in just a month, from pursuing my academic goals to researching to participating in extracurricular activities to working part-time to catching up with friends and family members (both immediate and extended) at Hopkins and around the globe.

What I didn’t anticipate would happen this semester is a major undertaking that several other undergraduates and I started working on during the last few days of Intersession that has grown into a major project: organizing fundraising efforts for post-earthquake relief in Haiti. What I also didn’t anticipate happening this semester is how these efforts have caused me to do a lot of thinking about what I want to do with my life after graduating in May.

Becoming a physician has almost always been among my career considerations since I was in elementary school. (There were many phases in my childhood when being a physician was just one of several career paths that I thought were alluring.) To be even more specific, I’ve considered becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon or neurologist since my junior year of high school. Being a neuroscience major and doing a lot of volunteer work with elementary and middle school students during college have only helped to keep a career in pediatric neurosurgery or neurology a possibility in my book. They’re no longer the only areas of medicine I could see myself entering–and enjoying–someday, however. Over the course of the past month, I’ve come to realize that several events that have happened during my senior year have made me realize the beauty of emergency medicine.

As you might recall from blog entries, I spent much of the Fall 2009 semester collaborating with other officers in the Filipino Students Association (of which I’m the co-president this year) as well as officers in the Taiwanese-American Students Association in organizing fundraisers for the victims of typhoons that occurred in the Philippines and Taiwan from August to October 2009. These efforts included a fundraising banquet that featured performances from performing arts groups on campus, a silent auction, and a guest appearance by D.C.-based Filipina spoken poet Jenny Lares. I first got interested in organizing such fundraising efforts because (1) I had several relatives who were affected by these typhoons and (2) it was a no-brainer that it would behoove FSA to fundraise for typhoon victims in the Philippines. Despite these two semi-selfish motivating factors, I ended up getting much more involved with typhoon relief fundraising than I had originally planned, I loved the collaborative efforts that resulted between FSA and TASA, and I started paying more attention to news reports of natural disasters around the world in general.

Before the fall semester, I thought I had already done all that I could to think of others more than myself. I was wrong: the fundraising efforts of that semester opened my eyes just how much more I still needed to think beyond myself. On one level, I was conscious during much of the fall semester about the plight that Filipinos–including my relatives–were enduring after the typhoons. I often found myself realizing that as stressful as school can be, that paled in comparison with dealing with the destruction of three typhoons that struck within three weeks. On another level, getting in touch with members of TASA and becoming educated of the typhoon destruction in Taiwan helped me realize that I was only one of a large number people around the globe who were worrying about their loved ones affected by typhoons in the Asia-Pacific region.

Not surprisingly, I found myself at the end of the semester wanting to do similar fundraising efforts again–in fact, several of the FSA and TASA officers with whom I had collaborated agreed that we would like to collaborate in organizing at least one more fundraiser this semester. None of us imagined that an even larger tragedy would happen that would bring together not just members of FSA and TASA, but also several other student organizations in collaborating on fundraising efforts this semester.

During Intersession, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12. As many of you reading this blog entry might have already learned from news reports, the earthquake has resulted not only in hundreds of thousands (if not more) of dec, injured people, and displaced individuals; on top of those statistics, the destruction of the capital and surrounding areas of what already was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake has been monumental. This time, I didn’t even need to think: I knew I wanted to help out somehow. I had returned to Hopkins shortly before the earthquake struck Haiti, so I ended up being directed by JHU_Jessica (via a Gchat conversation we had, since she was at the time preparing for her semester abroad in Geneva) to an officer of SEA (Students for Environmental Action) who wanted to organize fundraising efforts for Haiti. Literally within hours of my first contact with that SEA officer, both of us ended up getting in touch with officers of other student organizations who wanted to collaborate with us–in less than a week, there were over 10 of us undergraduates forming an ad hoc committee that we hoped would organize large-scale fundraising efforts at the Homewood Campus, and even in collaboration with other campuses of Hopkins.

A little over a month later, that ad hoc committee has now become a young Center for Social Concern (CSC) organization called JHU Haiti Aid* that oversees a coalition of over 70 undergraduate student organizations and 10 academic departments and programs based at the Homewood Campus, that has now gotten in touch with similar organizations based at the medical campus and SAIS, and that is in direct contact with President Daniels’s office about our progress. So that I don’t use too many words describing some of the events we’ve organized, I’ll direct your attention to an article from The Johns Hopkins News-Letter: “Saturday for Haiti,” which was a major-scale day of fundraising held on February 20. (article has some quotes that are attributed to the wrong individuals–but the information about the events that occurred is mostly correct.)

(* Note that whenever CSC student organizations are founded, they have a “trial year” before they become official; since JHU Haiti Aid just started this semester, you might note that it’s not yet listed as an organization on the CSC website.)

As I’ve mentioned earlier in this blog entry, the amount of destruction that occurred in Haiti was, so we still have a lot of goals for the rest of the semester; we want to organize a few more large-scale fundraisers as well as organize some educational events so that members of the Hopkins community could learn more about and discuss the web of intertwined political, economic, and social issues in Haiti that were affected by the January 12 earthquake–and that are currently being affected by post-earthquake relief efforts.

To top off everything, all of these events happened just this weekend: a 7.0-magnitude earthquake striking Japan on the evening of February 26, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile on the morning of February 27 (i.e., yesterday), and there were tsunami warnings all over the Pacific Rim (in Chile, in Japan, in Hawaii, in the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada, in the Philippines, and in more nations); only within the last ~12 hours have the tsunami warnings been canceled by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Between the two recent large-scale earthquakes, the death toll has especially been higher (and climbing) in Chile, especially since the area affected by the earthquake there was much more populated than the area in Japan (not to mention that the earthquake was much larger). Those of us JHU Haiti Aid area already feeling an itch to help out Chile in some way as well while still keeping in mind our goals for relief in Haiti.

All of these current events have made us look up information online about earthquakes–did you know that it’s common for multiple large-scale earthquakes to happen annually, as listed in the U.S. Geological Survey’s website? (Kudos to you if you already knew that before the recent earthquakes.) What makes an earthquake particularly deadly depends on the infrastructure and the population of the area affected.

I don’t want to stop doing this kind of work after I graduate Hopkins in May; part of me wishes I were more aware of global public health issues (especially in the context of natural disasters) sooner in my college career, but I guess the adage “better later than never” applies here. For the reasons I was initially attracted to the medical field, I still am very much attracted to that field–but because of my increasing awareness of post-natural disaster relief around the globe, I’ve found myself increasingly wanting to become one of the physicians who use their medical expertise to provide immediate relief to people affected by such tragedies. As you may or may not know, there are many NGOs who have physicians, from well-known ones such as the member organizations of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the World Health Organization (WHO) to many smaller-scale ones (such as JHU’s own Center for Refugee and Disaster Relief). I recently found out from Class of ’07 JHU alumna whom I’ve known since my freshman year that she works with several ER physicians who rotate between working in hospital ERs here in the U.S. and going abroad to assist in international relief efforts–and, as you might guess after what I’ve written so far, I’m liking that idea.

Of course, there’s a long way to go until I become a physician. First, I have to finish what’s left my undergraduate career at Hopkins well. Second, I need to have a few productive “years off” (which I’ve decided to take for several reasons, both personal and practical). Third, I need to do the whole apply-to-med-school-then-get-accepted-to-med-school-then-go-to-med-school-then-become-a-resident-and-yadda-yadda shindig. Plus, as I’ve come to learn over my four years at Hopkins, one never knows what surprises (both good and bad) life will cast one’s way–who knows what I’ll experience during all of that! Thus, it’s still a long way to go until I finally can be sure of what I’ll do to support myself (and my family, if I end up having one).

Nonetheless, I’m finding a career in emergency healthcare and international post-disaster medical relief an alluring possibility right now.

N.B. I found the image illustrating this blog entry via Google Image Search.

Even though I’m already starting my fourth semester at Hopkins, the fact that I’m at the the beginning of another semester makes me feel like I’m experiencing something new and exciting. Here are three other things about this semester that are helping make it feel refreshingly new:

1. REUNION WITH LATIN: I studied Latin during middle school, and I enjoyed it a lot. My high school didn’t offer Latin, so I studied Spanish during high school instead. I thought it was fun to learn Spanish, but I missed studying Latin. Last year, I took the two-semester course “Elementary Latin,” since I didn’t learn enough Latin in middle school to study the language at an intermediate level. During the fall semester of this year, I wanted to take “Intermediate Latin: Poetry,” but it was in conflict with the rest of my schedule. This semester, I’m taking “Intermediate Latin: Prose” after almost a year of not studying Latin. Considering the fact that it’s been almost a year since I’ve last studied Latin, I initially was hesitant to enroll in this course. After talking with my classics minor advisor as well as the instructor of this Latin course, however, I’ve found that with a little extra effort, I could get back on track. So far, it’s taking me longer to read passages than I’d like. Nonetheless, everything that I’ve learned about Latin grammar is slowly, but surely, coming back to me. I love it! (Or, maybe I should say the following: id amo!)

2. REUNION WITH BALLET: I danced ballet from elementary school to high school. In the fall semester of last year, however, I didn’t dance ballet at all. (I’ll admit that it was because I wasn’t aware of the opportunities to dance ballet at the Homewood campus or at the Peabody Preparatory.) In the spring semester of last year, though, I found out about ballet classes that were taught at the Mattin Center on Friday evenings by a former member of the Bolshoi Ballet, so I spent my Friday evenings taking those ballet classes. However, the former member of the Bolshoi Ballet moved to Colorado during the summer. Therefore, in the fall semester of this year, ballet classes were taught at the Mattin Center on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (instead of Friday evenings) by Ms. Lisa Green-Cudek, an instructor at the Peabody Preparatory. These ballet classes were in conflict with my schedule, and the ballet classes taught at the Peabody Preparatory itself were in conflict with my schedule as well. Once again, I didn’t dance ballet for an entire semester. This semester, ballet classes are still taught at the Mattin Center on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons by Ms. Green-Cudek, and they’re still in conflict with my schedule. However, at the end of the last semester, a few students founded a student-run  ballet company, and one of my friends from the CSC Dance Program told me about it! Huzzah. Thus, at the first week of this semester, I found myself a member of the inaugural JHU Classical Ballet Company. Company members take turns teaching classes and choreographing pieces for performance; so far, we’re working on a classical ballet piece and a contemporary piece that we’re hoping to perform a few times this semester. Once again, I must say the following three words: I love it!

3. MENTORING: At the beginning of the fall semester this year, I signed up for the group STAND! (Students Taking a New Direction), which mentors at-risk juvenile youth. Because of various logistical problems, however, STAND! members weren’t able to do any mentoring for the entire semester. Last week, though, we finally met our mentees at the Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center’s Partnership for Learning, a program that helps first-time juvenile offenders who are struggling in school. At first, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to relate to my mentee, but we got along pretty well. Starting this week, we’ll be helping our mentees do their homework and use software programs meant to improve their literacy, in addition to trying to be overall role models for our mentees. Even though I was a tutor in the JHU Tutorial Project last year, it looks like my work in STAND! will still be quite different from other things I’ve done before; I’m both excited and nervous about it. Despite the fact that I got along well with my mentee the first time I met her, I still doubt sometimes whether I’ll be an effective mentor in the long run. Nonetheless, I intend to do my best, and I hope that I really will make a positive difference in my mentee’s life overall. By the way, this STAND! group isn’t to be confused with STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition.

Besides those three things, mostly everything else that’s in store for me this semester is a continuation of the fall semester or Intersession. Some, but not all, of those things include: studying, doing research, dancing salsa, teaching ballet to elementary school children after school, volunteering and working for the admissions office, and last (but not least), taking out time to hang out with my friends, especially my suitemates and my friends who’ll graduate at the end of this semester.

N.B. The first image is a painting depicting Cicero’s denunciation of Catiline before the Senate; in 63 B.C., Catiline was an aristocrat who plotted to overthrow the Roman Republic, but Cicero uncovered Catiline’s scheme. In my Latin class this semester, we’re reading the speeches that Cicero delivered to unmask Catiline’s plot and denounce him. By the way, I found all the images illustrating this blog entry via Google Image Search.

Until middle school, Halloween was fun because of the American tradition called “getting free candy by trick-or-treating.” In high school, Halloween was fun because of my high school’s tradition of holding a costume contest on Halloween itself or the last school day before Halloween. I don’t know what to say about college, however. I didn’t have a very fun Halloween, but it wasn’t horrible, either.

First, on Monday, October 30, there was a Halloween party for the Monday/Wednesday tutors and tutees of the JHU Tutorial Project (a community service program that tutors Baltimore City elementary school students on the Hopkins campus). Since I’m tutoring on Mondays and Wednesdays this semester, my tutee and I went with other tutors and tutees to the basement of AMR II, a freshman dorm that was the location of most of the Halloween activities for Tutorial Project. They included face painting, mask making, reaching one’s hand into a pot of “creepy” things, and/or reading Halloween books in one room; eating pizza and drinking soda or lemonade in the aforementioned room; and going through a “haunted house,” which was another room decorated to resemble one. At one point, we also went trick-or-treating at AMR I, another freshman dorm. I felt rather nostalgic to watch the Tutorial Project tutees become upset or happy over small things such as smudging the perfectly painted ghosts on their cheeks or getting their favorite candy from one of the people distributing candy.

Second, on Halloween itself, I experienced the other side of Tutorial Project trick-or-treating. During the time that the Tuesday/Thursday tutors and tutees went trick-or-treating, I was in my room–in costume–doing homework and waiting for children to knock on my door and scream, “Trick or treat!” It never happened. Only one round of children ventured near my room to trick-or-treat. When I heard their voices in the hallway, I peeked out of my room and saw that they were about to leave without going towards my room! By the time I grabbed my bowl of candy and re-entered the hallway, only one child and her tutor–who was none other than Xuan, one of my housemates–were there, so I let Xuan’s tutee get as much candy as she wanted.

I had about an hour until I had to go to an FSA dance practice, so I ended up doing a combination of working on homework, eating dinner, and talking with some of my housemates during that time. I then went to the FSA dance practice, in which we practiced for Culture Show (which will be on Saturday, November 11). After the FSA dance practice, I returned to my residence and talked with some of my housemates and did some more homework. Then, I went to an OLÉ Dance Group practice–like FSA, we practiced our Culture Show routine. Once the OLÉ dance practice was over, I returned to my room and went to bed after finishing my homework. By the way, during the entire evening (even during the two aforementioned dance practices), I wore my costume until I went to bed; the photo in this paragraph is of three of my housemates and me in our costumes.

That, folks, is my description of my Halloween celebration. Just so you know, however, there were several people who went to Fell’s Point (which is a neighborhood in Baltimore that has a lot of revelers every Halloween) to celebrate Halloween. There also were various Halloween parties on and around campus, starting from the week before Halloween until Halloween itself. So, if you love Halloween, don’t be scared away from Hopkins because you think it’s not celebrated here. It is! Anyway, was Halloween fun or not for me? Considering I celebrated Halloween on a Monday and Tuesday, with the holiday itself being the Tuesday, I think I had as fun a Halloween as I could.