AWW GT!

Those memes that show people dancing like crazy people at 8am? Thats my life for the first six weeks of the summer the past two years as an Orientation Mentor. Last year, I thought my love for being an Orientation Mentor could not grow stronger, but at the end of my second season of Orientation, I can say I proved myself wrong. This year I was student mentor for the Pepper Team. This meant I was a flex team, and helped students with advising in different college locations every day. I also held a leadership position this year in Orientation being a Central Stage Director with two other mentors. The three of us worked together in the month leading up to Orientation to write Central Stage and brainstorm what we wanted our vision to look like. Central Stage is a portion of Orientation where we offer students and supporters a fun performance and highlight different resources on campus and bits of campus culture.

Orientation offers me leadership development in so many arenas. I get the opportunity to expand my public speaking skills through giving daily hour-long presentation about academic requirements and speaking in a microphone on stage in front of 600 people every day. I am able to share my experiences as a CMU student and connect with students in order to help answer the questions and calm them with their nervousness of starting a new journey. I am able to connect with the professional staff that work Orientation and learn from them. I love this job, and I love the memories it gives me. I love seeing students make friends in my teams each day, and I love seeing them get excited about what their time at CMU will bring.

Orientation gives me a glow and confidence that few other things do. I have an incredibly strong support system from the other mentors, and I form some of my strongest friendships. Orientation staff is like family. This summer I am continuing to work as mentor for Transfer Orientations, and I will be ending my time at CMU next summer, the same way I started it, with Freshman Orientation, it just looks a little different for me this time around.

Power, Privilege, Oppression, and Intersectionality

In December, I was able to site lead an Alternative Break through CMU.  I site lead the Youth Development AB that went to Omaha, Nebraska to work with Youth Emergency Services, a non-profit organization that provides resources to homeless and nearly-homeless youth in the area. This AB challenged me in ways that other ones had not yet. Being a site leader, I had extra responsibilities, such as making sure everyone arrived safe, communicating with community partners, and facilitating community building and reflections with my group. I did this with a co-site leader, from who I learned from and problem-solved with. This AB also helped understand the depth of intersectionality more than my previous ABs had.

Through service we helped sort through donations, deliver donations, set up for a Christmas Service with the members of YES!, and help run the Christmas Service. Through working with the donations I learned a lot about how much privilege I have by having easy access to everyday products that I use and need. Specifically, I looked at this through the lens of being a woman. During service, I spent lots of time going through feminine hygiene products and was surprised at how many donations of tampons and pads there were. I then realized that if I had no income or way to pay for these necessities, I would have no way of getting them. Females NEED access to these every month, and it is something that is not often donated because it is overlooked. So, if you are looking to donate to a shelter, consider donating feminine hygiene products. I also learned from my community partner the terrifying statistic that once a female is homeless, within 90 minutes 43% will be a victim of sex trafficking. This AB made me think deeper about my privilege to have access to things that keep me safe and healthy but also how much of a privilege it is for me to even go on an Alternative Break. The ability to take off time from work and serve for a week is privilege. To have access to education is a privilege.

The Christmas Service was set up with donations from members and organizations in the community for those who utilize YES! to come and take what they need. This included, diapers, baby clothing, cooking utensils, toiletries, blankets, hats, gloves, coats, and clothing. Everything in the Christmas Service was brand new, it was a gift. This made me even more aware of my privilege because when I saw individuals coming through to take what they need, when given the choice of perfume/face masks or toothpaste/blankets, they chose the toothpaste or blankets or soap, because it was what they needed. They had the opportunity to take things that aren’t a necessity, and they would get excited about soap or diapers, because it was something they needed. I had one girl who was about 13 come up and ask me what all she should take in order to take care of her hair. In that moment, I realized that not everyone has access to learn about different elements of what we consider everyday actions, let alone have the materials to be able to do them.

I also learned how those in power are implementing policies that are harming these individuals. In Nebraska, one is not able to sign a lease for their own home or apply for a loan until 19. This means that the task of going to college or moving out is extremely difficult. This puts a large number of individuals without a home unless their parents can afford to help them once they are done with high school. It is disproportionately harming families from lower socioeconomic status areas and putting them in danger. This harm increases for communities of color, woman, and individuals with disabilities. This is one example of the way those in power have the ability to shape the lives of individuals.

Alternative Breaks never fail to make me realize my privilege and give me a resurgence in my belief that it is my responsibility as a person who has privilege to do my best to help those who have not had the privilege of being given access to the same things I have. I look forward to site leading another Alternative Break this summer.

Veggie life, part 2

Last year, I joined Student Advocate for Vegan/Vegetarianism because I had just begun my journey as a vegetarian. I had started restricting meat from my diet due to hearing about the health benefits of being vegetarian.  I joined the Student Advocates for Vegan/Vegetarianism (SAVV) because I wanted to learn more about not only why I should be vegetarian, but also better tips and tricks to making food while vegetarian that I did not know.

Throughout my second year as a member of SAVV my love for being vegetarian and knowledge of how the meat industry negatively impacts our environment has grown immensely.  Every meeting I learn more about how making a small change in my daily life, I am able to impact the world on a larger scale.  Not only do I have the opportunity to learn inefficient meat production is, but also how harmful meat production is to the environment.  The amount of chemicals that are pumped into meat to make it taste better and last longer in storage are harmful to the environment, and these chemicals are taking the nutrients that are meant to be “good” for our body away.  Also,  the way animals that are raised for meat production is cruel. My biggest takeaway from my second year as a member of SAVV is that there are additional ways that I can be conscious of the environment while being vegetarian, such as limiting my amount of food and plastic waste. Often foods that are convenient to buy as a vegetarian are packaged in insane amounts of plastic that are harmful to the environment. Additionally, when buying fruits and veggies it is not difficult to not eat them before they go bad. I learned ways to better manage my food waste and limit my plastic use as well. I also have become more aware of how where I spend my money is impacting the environment as well. If I am buying and giving money to companies that are harmful to the environment, there will not be change. It has given the knowledge and power to vote with my dollar!

SAVV has given me the opportunity to constantly learn and become more conscious of how the way things are sold, not just what is being sold, matters too. I am grateful for my growth into a conscious consumer.

The Saddest Cancelled Trip in History (not to be dramatic)

Last year I had to the privilege of going on the LAS in the D trip with my freshman cohort.  As members of LAS we serve on a LEAD team, and I was super excited when I found out I would be returning to Detroit as a member of the LAS in the D lead team.  As a facilitator of the Detroit Service Trip I would get the responsibility of being paired with another member of the LEAD team to help facilitate a group of freshman.

Through planning this trip, the LEAD team was getting really excited because we were working with our three LEAD team co-chairs to help them make the trip the best and most service and education oriented trip yet.  We had a chance to meet with the freshman who were going to be in our groups for the week to do pre-trip reflections to get their minds in the right mindset to learn and help foster change. Things were looking great, and we were ready to go.

But, weather in Michigan does not always let us get what we want.  The Thursday before the trip we found out the Detroit Service Trip had to be cancelled due to weather.  This was extremely shocking and disappointing. I was not only sad that I would not get to experience and grow from this trip, but I was also sad that there was a cohort of freshman who would not get to have the eye-opening experience that I had the year before.

Out of this happening I learned mostly that there are things out of our control.  I had my time to be bummed, but there are ways to learn outside of going on this service trip that I should embrace.  Others may not have been able to go on the exact trip I did as a freshman, but in that in no way means I cannot encourage others to take initiative and try to educate themselves.  I hope next year I get the opportunity to serve on the Detroit Service Trip LEAD team, so I can help make the difference I want.

Animals are Friends, not Food

For the past year I have been vegetarian.  I started restricting meat from my diet due to hearing about the health benefits of being vegetarian.  I joined the Student Advocates for Vegan/Vegetarianism (SAVV) because I wanted to learn more about not only why I should be vegetarian, but also better tips and tricks to making food while vegetarian that I did not know.

Throughout my year as a member of SAVV my love for being vegetarian has grown immensely.  Every meeting I learn more about why I should not eat meat.  The biggest take away I have learned from this experience is how inefficient meat production is, and how harmful meat production is to the environment.  The amount of chemicals that are pumped into meat to make it taste better and last longer in storage are harmful to the environment, and these chemicals are taking the nutrients that are meant to be “good” for our body away.  Also,  the way animals that are raised for meat production is cruel.

SAVV is an involvement I plan on staying involved in because I am constantly learning more and becoming more passionate about the topic of eating a plant-based diet.  I plan on being vegetarian the rest of my life, and this involvement has encouraged me to pursue being vegan at some point.

 

 

Future Dr. Varney

One of my involvements at CMU is the Pre-Medical and Osteopathic Society (PMOS). PMOS is an organization that helps provide students with the information and knowledge needed to be prepared to enter medical school.  I joined this organization with hopes of being on the right track to get accepted into a medical school.

From this involvement I have learned about the aspects of an applicant that medical schools look for beyond grades, and I have also learned about the skills that will make me a better and more effective medical professional in the future.  PMOS provides it’s members with lots of volunteer and primary care opportunities.  However, what I got most out of this involvement was the interactions with representatives from different medical schools.

Multiple medical schools send representatives that come and present on the school.  Before seeing any of these presentations, I assumed it would talk mostly about what type of applicant they want in terms of GPA, MCAT score, and list of involvements.  I have learned that the biggest thing in terms of medical schools is not the numbers of anything, but instead the values that each medical school holds to a high priority.  For example, I put a high value on leadership and community service, and not every medical school focuses on those two values.

The average medical school applicant applies to 16 medical schools.  40% of those applicants gets accepted into even 1 of those medical schools.  Pre-Med and Osteo Society has helped me feel prepared that I know what I need to do to pursue my dreams of becoming Dr.Varney.

 

 

Serving in the Mountains

This winter I had the opportunity to go an another Alternative Break through CMU.  Due to my summer job at the assisted living home, I had a large interest in the Elderly Alternative Break.  I was nervous when going into this Alternative Break that I was going to be constantly comparing my experience on this Break to my previous Alternative Break in the summer.  However, the experiences and services were so vastly different that there were very few ways that I could even put the experiences next to each other.

11 other students and I traveled in two minivans through the mountains to the small town of Waynesville, NC.  The town was one of the most interesting towns I have ever visited due to the large amount of economic inequality that was present.  There were trailers on the bottom of the mountain, but once you tilted your head up there were multiple million dollar houses.  Due to this, a lot of the population we were serving were those who were elderly and living in a state of fiscal disadvantage.

The first day we spent working with a center in Haywood County that serves the population of Elderly in the surrounding area.  We packaged over 300 holiday care packages for members of the Elderly community because due to the difficulty that living in the mountains adds to travel, they are unable to leave the house often to get food and other necessities, especially in the winter months.  The experience of packing the holiday care packages was further influenced by our service Wednesday, where we were able to personally deliver these packages to residents in the Haywood County and surrounding areas.  I will never forget one of my experiences with delivering one of the packages.  I knocked on the door and lady took a while to come to the door.  However, when she opened the door she was smiling from ear to ear. After giving my spiel about how I was a volunteer, and her exact response was “This is the highlight of my holiday season, and I look forward to it all year.”  The rest of the week I constantly thought about that interaction and how the small work we were doing was actually having a large impact on the people we were helping.

On Tuesday, we split into two groups and my group got to work with a man named Richard Reeves.  Richard Reeves is a man who I will remember for the rest of my life because of his ability to be selfless and give to others no matter what the situation.  Richard supplies wood to the people in the county who do not have the ability to heat their homes themselves.  He is retired and could be making an estimated million dollars off of this, but he spends all of his days doing this with no external rewards.  He does this all out of the kindness of his heart.  Richard is also one of the most humble people I have ever experienced.  While we were doing service with cutting and delivering wood with Richard, he insisted on buying us lunch, and was constantly thanking us for volunteering.

On Thursday and Friday, we got the chance to spend a lot of time with members of the Elderly community.  We visited centers in two counties that provided a place for those who are elderly to meet and eat breakfast and lunch.  One of my favorite experiences of the Alternative Break was being able to learn their favorite game, Joker.  This game is very similar to the game Sorry, only it is played with a wooden board and marbles.  The people in the senior centers were so competitive, and they made playing the game so fun.  When we were about to leave, one of the men at the senior center approached us and shared that his wife had recently passed away the week before.  His wife and he used to play Joker together a lot, so having a board in his house made him sad, so he wanted to give us some of his marbles and one of their Joker boards because he wanted us to enjoy it the way him and his wife did.

On top of the amazing service that I was able to experience on this break,  I also loved getting to know the members of my group through hiking and exploring downtown Asheville.  This break has taught me a lot about what type of leader I want to be due to the differences in leadership styles of my Summer Alternative Break site leader and my Winter Alternative Break site leaders.

Overall, this Alternative Break made me think deeply about how under-looked the issue of ageism is.  People stop thinking about giving to those who are elderly because it is not an issue that people find themselves being super passionate about.  For example,  even people on my break who knew about person-first language did not realize that this too applies to members of the elderly community.  This summer especially I am going to use my free time to assist members of my community who happen to be elderly to make sure they are able to meet all of their needs since they are not always able to do this on their own.

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“It made a difference to that one”

This summer I had the privilege of going on an Alternative Summer Break through CMU. Alternative Breaks (AB) work by having students sign up to work for a cause they are passionate about, not knowing where they are going or what they will doing.  12 students go on each break, and they meet weekly to become educated on the issue they are going to be working with.  A couple weeks after signing up, the group figures out what service they will be doing and where they will be going for their week of service.

Ever since I was little I have had this crazy amount of love for animals.  Since coming to college I have also become very passionate about the environment and saving the earth we live on.  So, I signed up for the break that deals with the issue of Animal Endangerment.  We found out that we were going to be traveling to Palm Beach, FL to help baby sea turtles find their way to the ocean, and yes, it is as perfect as it sounds.

So, me and twelve girls packed into two mini vans and drove to Palm Beach.  The first day there we spent time getting to know the area and visiting the GORGEOUS beach that we were going to be doing some of our service on.  We make our own meals throughout our week, so we went grocery shopping and set up at the Faith Lutheran church we were staying at.

Throughout the week we spent long days doing service.  We arrived at the beach at 6 A.M. every morning to work with the  Sea Turtle Conservation League of Singer Island.  We worked with this woman Debbie, who started the Sea Turtle program on Singer Island herself.  Debbie is a woman who, though I only spent a week with her, she has made a huge impact on my life.  Everything Debbie says inspires the people around her to do whatever they are passionate about.  She has had numerous jobs throughout the years and all of them were because she felt a pull to them at that time because it was her passion.  She said “I would get these brainstorms of what I wanted to do, and I had to do it.” She started the Sea Turtle program after already having children and having a career.  She wanted to save the turtles, and so she did just that.  Debbie does all of this program solely based on volunteering.  She and her volunteers, and us for the week we were there, spend 4 hours every morning walking the beach, helping baby sea turtles find their way to the ocean, excavating old sea turtle nests, marking new sea turtle nests, and documenting hatched nests.

After working in the mornings with Debbie, we would head over to the Loggerhead Marine Life Center to volunteer with them.  Loggerhead is a sea turtle rehabilitation center that helps rescue turtles of any age and nurse them back to health, to have them later released back into the ocean.  Loggerhead was the most amazing place I have visited to see animals.  They don’t treat the turtles any different than how a patient at a rehabilitation center that was a human would be treated.  When volunteering with Loggerhead, we did any type of work that they needed help with,  the majority of this being painting the pier they own.  We also helped them with yard work stuff in the front of the building.  Even though we were not directly working with the turtles at this point,  there is still so much reward to be gained from doing indirect service.

Our last service trip stop of the day was to MacArthur State Park.  While working at MacArthur State Park, we helped remove invasive species, trim trails, and clean up trash from trails.  This service was probably the service that was the most difficult for my group simply because we were usually doing service here at the peak heat of the day in long pants and shirt in the middle of August.  However, this work was work that really helped fire up my love for the environment.  Seeing all of the trash that is left around is heartbreaking, and so being able to help contribute to making the world a cleaner place was the ultimate win.

This trip taught me more than I could ever imagine.  Sea Turtles are endangered and only 1 in 10,000 sea turtles make it to adulthood.  Most nests have around 100 turtle hatchlings in them.  This means that a lot of nests are overall unsuccessful.  I saw a lot of nests that not a lot of the sea turtles made it to the surface of the sand alive because they get fried in the sand as a result of rising temperatures.   When sea turtles do make it out the sand, many do not make it to the water because of the amount of light that is on from buildings, hotels, and condos that lead them in the wrong direction. A lot of sea turtles are harmed once they get in the ocean because of the amount of trash that is left in the ocean. Overall, I just learned how much of an impact our everyday actions can impact the animals around us.  Even though so many sea turtles don’t make it to adulthood, and we can only help so many in a week, it is important to remember that we may not have saved all the turtles, but we were able to help some. Any is better than none.

A few things that I have started changing about my everyday life to lessen my carbon footprint and help support the environment:

• I was already a vegetarian before this trip, but this AB has reiterated my reasons for doing so
• I no longer use plastic grocery bags
• I limit my use of plastic straws
• I do not drink out of plastic water bottles

My AB was one of the best weeks of my life because of the work I got to do, and the people I got to connect with.  You can bet I will go on another Alternative Break this winter.

 

 

525,600 minutes; how do you measure a year?

To say the past year has been a whirlwind of emotions is to say the least. Through this year I have experienced so much growth in such a short amount of time.  As I look back over my freshman year at Central, it astounds me that 1 year ago I didn’t even know these people, but now they are my best friends.  So, here is a quick recap of the roller-coaster ride that was freshman year. (Cue the song Closer by the Chainsmokers).

When I packed my car the night before move-in day, it still hadn’t hit me yet.  My family had a bonfire with my grandparents and aunts and uncles to say goodbye, but the night was hitting an end and I still didn’t feel the sadness that I should have been feeling about leaving my home, my small little town, and my family.   I was saying my goodbyes and everything was casual, until it was time to say goodbye to my brother.  My brother is 11 years older than me, and even as little kids we were two tripping peas in one far off pod (lol).  He isn’t a super emotional dude, so I figured it would be a hug and an I love you and that would be that.  When we were hugging though he started to tear up and said “it’s just gonna be weird not seeing you everyday”.  It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how different things were going to be.  That was the first time I got sad about leaving home, and I blame him for me not getting on sleep the night before coming to school because I was so sad and scared that I couldn’t calm down enough to sleep.  The next day I should have been very happy to be moving in to start my year at college, but all I knew is that I was sad, and saying goodbye to family made me even more upset.  I tried to hide it, but through the first week I missed my family so much that I had a hard time enjoying myself.

That when my roomies come in.  S/O to my roommates (+Logan Palm) for putting up with my crazy weird self.  First semester I was all over the place.  I tried to hide it from my fam, but I was not my happiest self.  Thinking back on it I was my own worst enemy.  I loved high school, and coming into college I instantly expected every single friendship and experience to be better high school.  I was constantly comparing things, and I was never fully letting myself enjoy my self.  It was through this time that I made some of my best friends.  Logan Palm (LJP) became my best friend in such a short amount of time.  He helped me when I was sad and was considering maybe Central was the reason I wasn’t happy. But Central wasn’t the problem, it was me.  I learned quickly that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way, and I met my other best friend Kristina Slifco.  Kristina and me quickly became best pals, and it is crazy to me to think that I ever lived my life without her.   Kristina and Logan are the reason that I found my way to be my happiest self at CMU.

As rough as first semester was, I can honestly say that second semester has been the best half a year of my life.  This semester has allowed me to find my comfort here at CMU and learn what I need to do to make my self successful and happy.  This semester brought me the best friends I could have, and I think that has made all the difference.  Kristina and I continued to stay as close as ever (we are literally connected at the hip) (marathon hangouts).  On the real though, this semester I became best pals with Lucas Gustafson, and no person has brought me more chuckles than that kid. Lucas and Kristina are two people that I have the time of my life with even when we are doing nothing.   The three of us are never short on laughs, and when one of us leaves for even 24 hours we instantly all miss each other (we’re annoying I know).

As happy as I am now to be at CMU, I still think a lot about how much I struggled first semester.  I think the hardest part was thinking that no one else felt that way.  After talking to people who were older than me I quickly learned that it is a normal thing.  I think knowing that I felt that way is what makes me so thankful for CMU now.  I know that Central is my home and I could not imagine myself being any happier anywhere else.

You are probably reading this thinking “what the heck, what about her roommates?!?!?!”, but I was just saving that for last.  I got lucky enough to have roomies that were just as goofy as I am.  My roommate Molly is one of my best friends.  I am going to miss her like crazy next year while she is at the Disney College Program.

Some of best mems at CMU:

• Walking all the way to Kroger then to downtown then back to Barnes in the middle of night with Krisp
• Car jam sessions with Lucas and Kristina
• Acquiring the nicknames: Trash, Shleigh, Ash Varn, Trash Varn
• Pulling my first all nighter (feat. Lucas)
• Random dance parties w roomies

I am looking forward to next year and making more memories with the people I love at the school that I love. Fire Up Chips.

 

 

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