Stress During Exams is No Myth

What a busy time of year this is! Papers and exams have lately been occupying most of our time, but as we approach the end of the year, we can look back at a fun and productive first semester. Through our research of hidden tunnels, secret labs, and obscure history, we’ve discovered that there’s so much more than meets the eye on the Vanderbilt campus. We’ve all become a little more adept at handling the camera, and after the blockbuster success of our commercial, we can’t wait to assemble all of our film segments together to create an entertaining and informative masterpiece. After this hectic exam period ends, we plan to head to our respective home and relax and recharge, and come back in January ready to do some serious myth busting. There’s a lot to look forward to next semester: our public tunnel tour and the final film screening. On that happy note, Bust A Myth wishes everyone safe travels and a happy holiday!

Dear Vanderbilt, Massage That Stress Away!

Dear Vanderbilt,

November is crunch time. Professors attempt to get in all their last minute assignments, exams, and projects without regard for any of their students' well being. Sleep becomes a last priority and well, who has time for stress management?
This month, our group focused on using aromatherapy and massage therapy to help reduce our stress. From the perspective of someone whose stress always forms knots in my back, I was very very thankful that this was massage month. Instead of using our budget to buy massages, we were lucky that the annual Mega Stress Fest was this month at the SLC. At this Mega Stress Fest we got paraffin hand treatments and massages.
While the massages felt great and the paraffin hand treatments left our hands feeling so smooth, I felt as though massage therapy was a very temporary form of stress relief. My back felt great for a day and then before I knew it, the knots were there again! Yoga and meditation were very effective long term stress reducers, while the massage therapy was a very effective short term stress reducer.

Aromatherapy is something I didn't expect to help much. But you would be surprised how relaxing walking into a pleasant smelling room after a long day of class can be. The type of smell is important, I realized. An apple cinnamon scent is a lot less calming than a cool breeze scent in my opinion.
The other members of my group had varying preferences in scents ranging lilac to french vanilla. Aromatherapy is something I think is a easy, effective, long lasting method of relaxation.

Well that's all for now Vanderbilt. Stay tuned for more!!!!
*Interviews from the Mega Stress fest are coming soon.

Rowing in the South

 People start rowing for many reasons. In places like New England, rowing is a tradition. No one asks you why you join. No one questions your sanity when you wake up at 4:30 am and have to break through the ice to safely launch your boats. No one pesters you with annoying questions like: "How big are your canoes?" Sporting traditions are engrained deeply in society. For most of the world, this is soccer, cricket, etc. In America, we have our own traditions: baseball, America's pastime, and now football. Although rowing may not rank among baseball and football on the national scale, rowing is arguably the oldest sport in America and unique in the fact that it is also deeply ingrained in Western Europe. Why do sports matter? Why is it that sports play such a large role in defining our society? Perhaps sports carry such weight because they are communal events. People play sports together; people watch sports together. What do people talk about at dinner? Sports. What do businessmen make small talk about before signing deals? Sports. Even more importantly, ask most people where they learned about ethics, teamwork, or perseverance, and they will reply, "Sports." 

 Crew is not yet a tradition in the South, but the sport has been growing. This is essentially the founding time of rowing in the South. The reason why junior high and high school aged athletes start rowing are much different than those of the new rowers in the Northeast. Many of my friends began rowing in high school because the team did not have try-outs. Others started rowing because they wanted acceptance on a team that had a reputation for being inclusive. Some began rowing because they wanted the chance to compete on a national level. I began rowing because I hated golf and needed a new spring sport. I did not begin rowing because I thought that it would be a great physical challenge. I did not have aspirations to row in college. I had no concept of what rowing would become for me. I could not foresee the depths to which this sport would change me. 

 Recently, after receiving the news that my high school has decided to terminate all funding for the team, I have been reflecting a lot lately on why my friends and I started rowing. After five years of rowing, it is hard to remember. And, in many ways, it does not matter. I have become a better and more complete person because of rowing. It is the end result that matters. During these times, rowing must be preserved. Administrators and athletic directors unfamiliar with the sport cut rowing first in times of funding shortages. They do not realize that their actions will have a lasting effect on the status of the sport in the South. While it may not seems like it carries a significant influence, the decision of my high school to cut funding to the only high school rowing team in Georgia will have a lasting influence. It sends a message to the whole southeastern region where high school and collegiate teams, club and varsity alike are struggling for existence. It is in these times when the perseverance of the athletes to race competitively on a national level is most necessary, and that perseverance can be found in every member and coach of Vanderbilt Crew. 

--Erica Curtis

"Bridging the Gap": December Blog

This semester has ended well for us. At the beginning our group struggled with formulating questions that would challenge students to honestly respond about their social interactions with one another.   We then realized that we would not have enough time to do them all. We decided to do a panel discussion. Originally we were going to hold the event in Sarratt and have it open to the public, but we experienced problems scheduling available dates.  The group ultimately agreed to have our discussion in our faculty advisor’s (Dr. Laurie Woods) sociology class.  Since our project is sociologically based, we believed that a diverse class of students would produce optimum results. Woods’ class included various groups of athletes, student groups, ethnicities, and classes.  We spoke with the class on Tuesday, November 30.  Even after much preparation, each group member was still a bit nervous about whether students would be willing to give open feedback.  We knew that their willingness to participate was imperative to our project.  Amazingly, their responses greatly exceeded our expectations.  Students later told us after class that they enjoyed the discussion thoroughly.  They stated that it opened up a dialogue that would not usually occur on campus or off campus.  Our work this semester concluded successfully.

Sustainability Through Food: November's already over?

 Well, after a stressed, busy, (and yet, for Vanderbilt, normal) November in which our daily lives were all thrown happily askew for a week as we went home, we can all firmly say that flexibility was the theme of our month.   Strangely, although our individual paths went all sorts of crazy directions, they all managed to converge into one by the end.  Our planned big project for this month was to help Beyond Tutoring by cooking a meal for their kids or teaching the kids some cooking skills, but bureaucratic red tape unfortunately postponed this idea until next semester.  So, what did we do as we tried to rearrange our schedules to incorporate a new project?  Well, we actually did a lot.

Jose and Caitlin (your author) organized a group of Vanderbilt students to attend the School Of the Americas (SOA) protest at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia on November 19-21st.  The SOA is a US military academy that trains Latin American officers and soldiers.  Unfortunately, many of its graduates have atrocious human rights records, such as former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, yet the school is still open and running as normal.  Although the main focus of the trip was to learn about ending US militarization in Latin America (…and beyond), we learned an immense amount about the path of food from plant to plate, for the weekend also included many workshops by progressive organizations at the local convention center.

We met members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and attended a talk by the maker of the documentary Killer Coke.  The CIW’s modern slavery museum was astounding as we viewed the shackles with which people had been held as slaves in the Southeast US.  The slavery cases ranged from the years 1997 and 2008.  Coca-Cola, meanwhile, can be held guilty for a vast number of crimes ranging from supporting the murder of union workers in its factories in Colombia to child labor and environmental abuse in El Salvador.  (For more info, go to www.killercoke.org and www.ciw-online.org)

What does this say about the consumption of food in the United States?  The hegemony of transnational corporations seems to have become more important than the livelihood of countless human beings across the world, including Americans.  Surely there are better ways to feed and sustain ourselves rather than subjugating those that certain groups have decided are less than or deviant from the status quo.

Everyone else in our group learned new things about our groups theme or utilized knowledge that we’ve learned this semester as well.  For example, Hayley volunteered at the Dismas House and helped cook chicken alfredo, Lydia helped cook breakfast for dinner on her TBS retreat, and Sarah learned how to make her grandma’s sweet potatoes over Thanksgiving.  Lastly, we were finally able to do something as a group together.  We watched Supersize Me and learned even more about America’s food industry.

Beyond Tutoring - Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas

     Merry Christmas! This is Laynie from Beyond Tutoring, and this month has been filled with fun and educational events for us. First, we were able to celebrate all that we are thankful for with the kids on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This was our last Wednesday night tutoring session for the semester since finals are right around the corner. I will miss them over the break!

     Also, a couple of group members were able to attend a dinner at Dean Wcislo’s residence in the Commons with a speaker addressing the new movie Waiting for Superman and current ideas about public education in the United States. Although we have not seen the movie, it was interesting to be a part of the conversation with Doctor Catherine Loss, who is the director for the Master of Public Policy program and the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership and Policy. She brought up a perspective new that I had not considered, including many historical details about American public education and how it relates to the position we are in today. It turns out that schools have always been “broken” to an extent, and now they are being loaded with more and more responsibility as they are supposed to somehow level the playing field for all children from very different social and economic backgrounds.

     Finally, Friday night was the Christmas party hosted for the kids by the Black Cultural Center and the Commons. The kids were able to come to campus and make cards for the elderly and decorate cookies. We had a pizza dinner and then each child received a board game as a Christmas present from Vanderbilt. It was a blast to have them on campus and celebrate such a happy time!

Here is a picture of me and Lajuane from the week before Thanksgiving. He wanted to know what it would be like to have long hair!

These are two of the kids, decorating Christmas cookies at Crawford with us on Friday. They were delicious!

Commodore Cruise - Blue Man Group!

So before Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity of being a Commodore Cruise director for the Blue Man Group cruise! If you have never been on a Commodore Cruise, I would definitely recommend going on one. Not only are the events exciting (and free) but you also get to go outside the "Vandy Bubble" to engage with Nashville's community. So next semester, if you have the opportunity, sign-up for a cruise you are interested in and be prepared to be impressed!

Now, on my particular cruise, we started by going to dinner at Chappy's, which is a New Orleans style restaurant. It was delicious, and I especially loved the peach cake for the meal's dessert. At TPAC, our seats for the show provided a great view, and I was especially happy because no one sat in front of me. The Blue Man Group did an outstanding job during their performance. I particularly loved the ironic showcase of technology, since I have studying the pervasiveness of technology in our culture in some of my graduate classes. Besides the deeper theme of the show, the Blue Men demonstrated funny antics with the audience and created numerous musicak scenes, which were jaw-dropping. So if you ever get the chance to see the Blue Man Group, sign-up (and if you seats are close up bring a poncho).

Green Girls

This past November, the green girls completed their commercial for VIP.  Everyone had fun completing the video.  Each member tried to incorporate something about herself or something in the green girls project that was important to her.  We were excited that the commercial was not as time consuming as we thought; instead, it was entertaining and enjoyable.

Over Thanksgiving break, we decided to bring our new tendencies home with us.  While at home, our members tried to educate their families on going green.   We told our families the interesting activities that we had been doing over the past few months with VIP.  Each member got to share the new facts that she had found and the benefits of going green.  We tried to implement the policies that we use at school over break: we used reusable water bottles, we recycled, we took shorter showers; we unplugged appliances that were not in use and we turned off the lights when we left the room and house. 

We are all excited to continue our project over the next few months.  We are planning another dinner soon to discuss new topics and ideas for our project.  We want to start to plan for glass recycling at Vanderbilt.  We also want to start our plans for our trip to the power plant for our VIP event.  Additionally, we want to plan our activity of planting in the spring. 

Even though classes are about to end and finals are approaching, we are still going to keep up with our daily green activities. 

Be Green,

Liz

In the Mood for Food - November!

Hey y'all! November was "eating on a budget" for In the Mood for Food.

Our goal this month was to explore the correlation between budgeting and our food choices. This is definitely relevant for us because we've been working on the issue of how to use our budget to feed 24 people a meal every month, which definitely has not been easy!

There's a lot of research that supports the correlation between poverty and obesity. Why is this? Often processed foods, foods high in fats and carbohydrates, and fast foods are much less expensive than healthier options. Vegetables and fruits are fairly expensive, as are high quality meats, fish, and specialty foods. This means that a vegetarian, gluten free, or lean diet is almost impossible.

Restaurants like McDonalds can offer a meal for $4-5 a person, so we've decided to use McDonalds as our group meal this month. Because of Thanksgiving break, our meal is scheduled for next week - but we'll keep you posted on how this goes. The topics of our meal discussion will be:

Why is fast food so much cheaper than other options? (Information from Fast Food Nation, a book detailing the history and practices of the fast food industry will be discussed.)

How can we personally make choices to eat healthy while on a budget?

How can we as a community, state, and nation work to eliminate the correlation between obesity and poverty?

Here is an example of a low cost, delicious recipe! While it isn't as healthy as a salad, it includes 5 out of the six major food groups and is easy and tasty!

Chicken Pot Pie

1 can diced white chicken breast - $3.50
1 can Veg-all (or frozen vegetables) - $0.75
1 can cream of mushroom soup - $1.75
1 can cream of potato soup - $1.75
1 box of frozen pie crusts - $2.50
milk, flour, seasonings to taste (these things are minimal)

1. Line pie plate with crust. Mix ingredients together and pour into crust. Add milk and flour to your preferred consistency. Cover and crimp edges. Line edges with aluminum foil.
2. Bake at 425 for about an hour. Let stand to cool for around 10 minutes.

This is a picture of a pot pie I made. The crust fell apart but it was sooo good!

Here are some links for more information!

http://www.docshop.com/2007/11/20/obesity-and-poverty-examining-the-link

http://www.globalissues.org/article/558/obesity

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and I hope you all will think about the fiscal, social, and health costs of your food this month!

 - Ellen and the rest of In the Mood for Food

Filming the Commercial -- Asian Voice

Hello everyone,

This is Asian Voice group! October has been a great month. We did our filming about some of our group members. We went to different places around campus and enjoyed it a lot!! We found it is so interesting that we have similar yet different backgrounds and interests. Besides the filming, we are currently busy preparing to present us to the Commons students in November!! Since one of our group member- Tina, is an RA in the Commons, we get the chance to present ourselves as well as VIP group as a whole to the freshman! We will serve our favorite Asian style food—dumplings. We hope through our little effort, more and more freshman will apply to VIP! Midterm week is out there and our Asian Voice is out there as well!!

--- Asian Voice

Dumplings...Yum!

Beyond Tutoring

*sigh* It seems that we underestimated how long the paperwork and other bureaucratic hurdles can take. In late September, we supplied the Reverend with the permission forms and our finalized (but not anymore…) schedule. However, there was a massive delay because the Reverend wanted to talk to the parents about it, which probably took some time because he’s a busy guy. We also need an adult from the church to be present during the Saturday sessions, a requirement that is rather difficult to fulfill. In hindsight, we probably should have started the negotiations during the summer…

As a result, we probably won’t be able to start the Saturday sessions until next semester…  However, it’s probably not entirely a bad thing, because some of us are going to the Wednesday tutoring sessions hosted by the Black Cultural Center and several Commons houses. The same kids who are attending the Wednesday sessions will be attending our Saturday activities, so it’s good to get to know them beforehand. This is especially important for our group, because many of us are inexplicably shy around kids!

We’ve also started to read books to educate ourselves about poverty. One of the books we’re reading is called “When Helping Hurts.” A main points of this book is that anti-poverty efforts must be sustainable (i.e. not die off when the planners leave) and involve the community that is being helped. However, it seems that these conditions are rather difficult to fulfill. When our VIP project ends, the Saturday activities we’re trying to do will be discontinued. Also, it is difficult to get community involvement, because the parents of the kids are often busy. So our project is not actually “sustainable”…

On a brighter note, the kids painted pumpkins for Halloween last week!

Hard at work.

A vampire pumpkin!

Then, they went trick-or-treating at the Commons last Friday. Too bad we couldn’t join them, because we were too busy cramming for exams…

October for the Global Perspectives team

Hello esteemed readers! (Above are two of our speakers: Henri Benaim and Evelyn Hu)

I, Aaron Landis, have been charged with delivering this month's update, and a busy month it has been. Our group, Global Perspectives has been busy planning our recently held Speakers Panel along with several upcoming events you will certainly hear more about in the coming weeks. Our speakers' panel turned out very well. Roughly 30 people attended our conference on Chinese culture and economic opportunities. Our three speakers Evelyn Hu, Henri Benaim and Tommy Obenchain (who is a senior here at Vandy) gave excellent presentations and participated in a very stimulating question and answer session. We here at Global Perspectives extend our sincere gratitude to them and all of the people who made our event possible.



Until next month,
Global Perspectives (half of us pictured to the right)

Building an Ethical Identity

With all the tests the past few weeks, and just big workloads for all of us, we're surprised and glad that we've been able to find the time to invest into VIP that we have. Our group dinners have been particularly productive. They've given us a static time every week to meet, talk about the project, and discuss recent news in bioethics. I'm sad that we are unable to report on as many 'big events' as some of our peers, but as for internal development, which was our goal for the first semester, we've made some major headway. It's very gratifying to see the project take form so we will be ready to look outwards and deliver the final product next semester. We are all particularly excited to start interviews this next month. I wish I had more to report, but hopefully our work will reflect come spring!

-Nelson

Everything Will Be Revealed

The leaves are falling, the temperatures are dropping, and the myths are ripe for busting. Our project is rolling right along. We are still in a mostly research phase, but we've uncovered a lot of fascinating, shocking, and sometimes hilarious Vanderbilt lore and legend. We're all very eager to begin putting our findings into video format and begin posting to our YouTube Channel. The commercial gave us an opportunity to test our film-making skills and provided some valuable experience for when we begin to assemble our final video. Because our final project is a video, we decided a "trailer", rather than a commercial, would be more fitting. And my God: it's the cinematic experience of a lifetime. As we gear up to film our myth segments, we've been searching for campus resources to use. We're hoping to use a/v equipment from the Learning Resource Center, however, this may require some arm twisting. Once we get our equipment situation sorted out, things will start to heat up. BAM!

Daniel

 A scene from our dramatic trailer. It'll all make sense, I promise.

October Rowing

This month the Vanderbilt Rowing Club attended two away regattas. Hobb’s Island Regatta was in Huntsville, AL and Secret City Head Race was in Oak Ridge, TN. Both events were successful for our team. The Varsity Men’s 8+ and Women’s 8+ both took first at Hobb’s Island. The Men’s A 4+ and 8+ also took first at Secret City, the Women’s varsity 8+ took second at Secret City. At Hobb’s we raced (and beat) Alabama’s freshman team. This was a big victory for us because they are a NCAA sanctioned Division 1 team. They are comprised of recruits who are payed to row. Because we beat them by 22 seconds, Bama’s coaches decided not to be so embarrassed again and instead raced their varsity boat against us at Secret City. We lost there by a minute and a half. We were sort of disappointed and sort of flattered by this decision on the part of the Bama coaches. I have a friend on the Bama women’s team that told me they were jogging the other day and talked about how Vanderbilt’s Women’s team should start the road to becoming D1 because we are good competition for them. This was another flattering thing to hear.

We were all a little disappointed with our performance in the fours. Mainly this is because we didn’t have time to seat race for them so we can make an A and B. Instead we spilt up our eight by stern four rowers and bow four rowers. This made it hard for us to row well together and we didn’t medal in either boat at either race.

We had a morning practice last week for the first time this year. I actually love practicing in the morning. For some reason, when I wake up very early in the morning, I have more energy during my day. Especially when the first thing I do is work out. The row we had that morning in our 8 was the best we had had all fall. There is something magical about that early morning lake, watching the sun rise, going to breakfast with the girls when we get back to campus, I loved it. I was probably the only one, however.

As we move into November, we are looking at Head of the Hooch, our biggest race of the Fall season. The training is getting harder, and after the Hooch, we will move indoors for winter training, which is even harder. This is the time of the year I start to question why I row. Putting myself through physical agony every day for several hours certainly doesn’t seem like something I would want to do. But this time of year also reminds me why I row. I look around as the sun sets on the lake during practice, I remember laughing with my teammates while we stay overnight at regattas playing games and eating good food, I continue to see the reasons that I stay on the team, and the reasons I joined to begin with. I love rowing, and as much as it stinks to have to come off the water, I have been happy with our success this season, and look forward to the Spring Sprints more than you can possibly imagine.

Anna

Exploring Country Music in October

Hey y'all!

So October has been a pretty busy month for us as a group getting everything together, but in the past four weeks I have had some pretty spectacular opportunities (along with some of my group members) to begin to experience what living in Nashville and understanding country music really looks like.

The first opportunity came when Live on the Green, a free, Nashville-sponsored concert series, brought Band of Horses downtown to play a concert outside on October 7. Being one of my favorite bands even before I got to Nashville, it was really exciting for me to see them live, and to understand a little bit more about them stylistically. Having just released a brand new album this May, Band of Horses now identifies themselves as a completely "folk" inspired ensemble, a movement that grew out of country music in America in the last century.

Alex, me, and Evyn at Band of Horses

The next concert that I was fortunate enough to experience was a name that all fans of country music will recognize: Carrie Underwood. Emerging onto the country music scene only five years ago after she won American Idol, Carrie has taken Nashville and the world by storm with her powerful voice, winning several CMA's and celebrating an induction into the renowned Grand Ole Opry in 2009. Not to mention the fact that Carrie is an INCREDIBLE entertainer. Her take on pop-country style is fresh and engaging, but she knew how to make all of her fans happy, performing a duet of one of her singles with Randy Travis in a tribute to her Opry membership during the show. Four words to describe the show: glitter, glamour, and steel guitar. It was such a fun experience!

A view of the stage from our seats

Liesel and I enjoying the show!

And while this last concert technically happened on November 1st, I had to include it in this blog post, because it blew me away. Last night at TPAC I got to go see Mumford & Sons, with openers King Charles and Cadillac Sky. Wow. Just wow. Their musicianship was unparalleled, their grasp on Americana style and folk influences in spite of their London roots was inspiring. In fact, the lead singer, Marcus Mumford, mentioned during their set that he bought his very first guitar that he ever played in Nashville three and a half years ago, and described how significant it felt to be back in this city performing where, in a sense, he got his first shot. Besides the use of steel guitar, which was an obvious country instrument, the technique of the upright bassist, the plucking of the back-up guitarist's banjo and the brief appearance of a mandolin during "Winter Winds" all signaled to the audience that Mumford & Sons were country at their core, and the crowd response confirmed that they will be on the music scene to stay for some time to come. I'm so excited to see what new directions they will take and understand their music more in the context of their history (they brought out one of their biggest influences, Old Crow Medicine Show, during their encore to play a cover of 'Wagon Wheel'!)

Only a month into the project, and we're learning so much! We hope you're having fun learning with us as we continue to explore this great city that we're living in.

Y'all come back now, you hear!

Abby

Bridging the Gap at Vandy...now on Facebook!

Guess what time it is?!

Yes. November has arrived! Which means that the Bridging the Gap: Part I THE SURVEY is just around the corner. Our group has been busy finalizing the list of panelists, choosing the menu (You’re in for a treat!), and nailing down other last minute details. We are so excited to find out what the Vanderbilt campus thinks…which is why we have a Facebook page! If you haven’t joined, please check out Bridging the Gap at Vandy and comment on our latest discussion question!! The goal is to take from the conversation that takes place in these discussion threads, only those topics that are sure to interest you: the Vanderbilt campus. We also want to construct our panel questions around the conversation taking place among the students so that the event is rewarding and fun for everyone involved. So in addition to visiting our Facebook page (shameless plugging, I know!), make sure to come out to Bridging the Gap: Part I THE SURVEY on November 17, 2010 and 7PM!!!!! See you there!!!!

Bridging the Gap

D.E.A.R. Vanderbilt -- October Journal

Dear Vanderbilt,

This month, we learned about yoga and meditation.  Not many of us had experience with these forms of relaxation so it was a learning experience for all of us.  I used to think that yoga was boring and served no purpose, but after attending classes at the rec, it is a better workout than I had imagined, and the stretching and deep breathing really does help manage one's stress. After yoga, we got together as a group and discussed the benefits of yoga, so we could have a better understanding of how yoga was helping our bodies and minds through increased flexibility, increased blood flow throughout the body, and harmonizing the mind and body.

After the yoga class, we decided to do yoga on our own, focusing on meditation while doing the various poses.  Our research told us that meditation during yoga would help us learn to focus our thoughts, and help us maintain focus while doing our work so we could be more efficient and productive while studying, thereby decreasing stress.  We didn't see any immediate effects after this, but of course, we weren't expecting to because this type of training takes time.  We'll keep trying and see if we can achieve this state of heightened focus.  We did decide that we felt refreshed and relaxed after yoga, though, which was  exactly what we had hoped.

Overall, in our first month of studying stress relaxation methods, we had a very successful time and we got to bond over yoga and meditation.

Next time you feel stressed, try some yoga and/or meditation and see you how you feel afterward!
Hope you had a great October and have an awesome November!

Turkey Lasagna Dinner - Sustainability Through Food

Trial and Error

For this month, we made turkey lasagna for dinner, which the recipe came from Caitlin’s mother.  One lesson we learned from the recipe is trial and error. As we cooked our meal, we had difficulty reaching consensus of how we should set up the layering of the lasagna because some of us followed directions on the recipe or followed own instinct. We finally reached an agreement. The lesson taught from this meal is that we can never make a recipe perfect, it takes time and practice. The purpose of a recipe is to guide you in cooking your meal, but as a cook, we can make little changes on the way. As our group got together to eat our meal, we greatly enjoyed our turkey lasagna. At the end of the day, lasagna will be lasagna regardless of the order of the layers.

Before!

After!

In the Mood for Food - Vegetarian Month

Hey Everyone! In the Mood for Food explored vegetarianism this month. Despite that most of us are meat lovers this was an interesting experience. We all tried to strive for eating a vegetarian style meal once every week, or even one meal every day. A study showed that 7.3 million Americans are Vegetarians and that another 22.8 million follow a “vegetarian-inclined” diet.  Most reasons people go vegetarian is either to stay healthy from diseases, lose weight, to live longer, to build strong bones, to have more energy (as long as you make sure you keep your protein intake high!), to spare animals, and your plate is sure to be full of color :D.

This month as our monthly meal together we decided to do veggie burgers (just some advice: Boca burgers are better than Amy’s veggie burgers) with individual sides, which some included hummus with carrots and apples with yogurt. If you have any questions about vegetarianism or want resources we’ve found http://www.vegetariantimes.com/ to be very useful and fun :D It was fun to talk about the experience of trying to live a lifestyle very different from our (except for one of our members who is a vegetarian and shared what it is like to be a real vegetarian). We talked about how it could be fun to be a vegetarian but we would struggle to not have a carb heavy diet.

We also filmed our commercial for VIP explaining what we’ve done and how we’ve grown through this project. It’ll be shown at a VIPie event towards the end of November so can’t post details on what happened this month but maybe next month ;)

For fun here is a recipe we found: “Sweet Potato Salad with Apple and Avocado”. Since it is the fall season sweet potatoes are very popular and this is a fairly healthy main course meal with about 3g of Protein and only 179 calories! Go to http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/10866?section= for directions on how to make. It has apples, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, avocado, corn, pumpkin seeds, and sweet potatoes! A great vegetarian dish for the fall season! YUMMMM!  This is the recipe we recommend (its delicious!).

Hope you had a great October. We'll let you know Living on a Budget month works out next time!

Love,

In the Mood for Food

October 2010 by Dianna

             The month of October has been a very productive and educational month for us! Our project is definitely underway, and we are progressing at a steady pace.

This month turned out to have a theme: conserving water. It is amazing how many people are not aware of how much water and energy they are wasting every day.  All of us have decided to set examples for those on our hall and in our building by conserving water and turning out lights, especially in the bathroom.  Leaving the sink running while someone brushes his or her teeth wastes gallons of water! Also, we have made a few signs to put up in the bathroom, saying to limit showers and turn off the sink while brushing teeth. We have decided as a group to limit our showers to 10 minutes.  One day we will all take 5 minute showers then calculate how much water we saved. It is getting that time of year when people use more hot water and energy because of the weather, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be GREEN! 

Our biggest success of the month was the installment of a new water fountain on our hall! It hadn’t been working all semester, and after we wrote several notes and messages, a new water fountain appeared! We were really concerned when we saw it wasn’t working because people were going through several plastic water bottles a day instead of re-filling the same one.  We all know that is no way to save our environment or conserve water. Not only are we conserving water now, but we are also using less plastic, which is much better for the environment.

To see how much progress we’ve made, we have decided to approach the maintenance advisor of our building and ask him what else we can do to conserve water, energy, and heat. We noticed that our hall has been really cold lately, and while that is uncomfortable for us, it conserves heat for when it is actually 30 degrees outside. So to all our hall mates out there, pile on the blankets and sweaters! We are going to focus on heat and energy the next few weeks as winter approaches, but we are going to keep encouraging people to conserve water and set an example. If nine girls can do it, so can everyone else!

Be Green,

Dianna

VIP on the national stage

Hey, everyone, this is Shawn. We had the chance to go to Charlotte, NC, this past weekend and present at a national living learning conference, where we spoke for 90 minutes about VIP and how we tailored it based on your feedback. Fifty faculty and administrators from over forty schools listened to our talk “Grading on a Curve: How We Changed Our Living Learning Program Based on Assessment.” Through your project work—blogs, surveys, collages, posters, video journals, action plans, and a final report—you provide us with regular input that we study and act upon. So while the spring survey told us your expectations for VIP, the journals and updates help us determine whether we are meeting them. Moreover, we learn from you how you are growing in our three key areas: critical thinking, civic-consciousness, and self-awareness.

Critical Thinking	Civic-Consciousness	Self-Awareness
analysis	community service	self-critique
evaluation	values formation	self-correction
problem-solving	pondering the “good”	self-knowledge

Our ongoing assessment has two goals, to improve your VIP experience and to aid in your personal development. Ideally, you are learning how better to design a project and work in a group, while we are learning how better to offer fun and creative ways to enhance your VIP involvement.

The conference audience LOVED your work, especially the action plans and the video journals. I think they found impressive your level of intellectual curiosity, problem-solving, and organized planning. Special thanks to Beyond Tutoring, From You Guys to Y’all, and Sustainability through Food—who graciously loaned us their materials. Our goal was to show off your progress and, based on the feedback, I feel we succeeded in doing that. So kudos to you, because your work is being viewed on a national scale.

Green Girls Month 1 (actually!) by Aimee

This month, Green Girls held our first event of the year. All of us went out for dinner to discuss our plan of action over sushi. It was a fun way for all of us to hang out and discuss our green ideas.

Essentially, this month we were still trying to get our bearings and evaluate our own habits. We took a look at our own recycling habits, water consumption, and energy consumption. While some of us are ahead of others in terms of implementing more green habits, we are now all ready to move forward and begin our plan of action.

We are all very pleased with our group dynamic and how well we work together. Everyone is open to constructive criticism from other members to help the success of our program. We intend to hold another dinner in the near future to figure out a local event we could host and to hear about everyone’s individual progress thus far. The Green Girls are very pleased with the new water fountain the fourth floor of Vanderbilt received because we now have a practical means of filling up our reusable water bottles instead of being forced to resort to plastic water bottles. However, this is just one of the many changes we hope to see on campus! The Green Girls are off to a great start and we have high expectations for ourselves this year!

xox,
Aimee and the Green Girls

Global Discovery #2

Hello!
Aaron here with updates for Global Discovery's activity in September (and early October). First and foremost, we held our second movie event in the Commons with an excellent turn out. "Ringu," the Japanese inspiration for the American Film "The Ring" attracted roughly 80 students, and on a Saturday night of all times! A week prior to our movie event we held a general body meeting for students interested in our cause and saw a broad range, from freshmen to graduate students, all eager to help our little group grow. We've had two great months so far, and with a speaker's panel event in the works along with an international meet, greet and eat, the next months promise to be even better, if we all survive the classes and tests that is. I'd attach photos if I weren't technologically disinclined. Thanks for reading,

Global Discovery

Building an Ethical Identity

As the year progresses, its unbelievable that it's already October, and how our project has developed so far. We've done a good amount of restructuring and streamlining to our project, dividing our efforts into two phases: research/introspection, and engaging the community. We are well into phase one, and have been holding our weekly dinners, compiling a formidable collection of bioethics-centered articles and news, and discussing the topics at length to figure out what exactly is relevant. In addition, this next month, we will begin meeting with and interviewing authorities on various facets of bioethics and find what exactly are the "hot topic" issues as professionals perceive. We feel that the implementation of our project in phases will give it order and allow us to make the biggest impact with what we're given.

We feel that its important to have focus in our project, as what we're trying to do isn't just to make the community aware of specific issues of bioethical concern, but to change attitudes, and raise a broad concern for ethics in one of the most sensitive fields, medicine. As technology and medicine develops at the rate that it has and does, the specific issues are always contingent - while an ethical evaluation of particulars is important, this discourse can only happen when we are willing step back and reflect not just on the science, but on the values at stake. We hope that the questions that we raise don't just stand independently, but fit together to bring attention to the importance of bioethics as a whole.

- Building an Ethical Identity

Bridging the Gap: Under Construction

We have been busy this month, nailing down the details for our upcoming panel discussion to be held November 9th. Our panel will feature many student organizations including Greek life, VSG, Vanderbilt athletics, and more. This will be a chance for students on campus to talk about how they feel they fit into the Vanderbilt community. Also, we hope to address the interconnectedness of how students’s see their peers and themselves.

In addition, we have completed our Action Plan. Most importantly, though, we have decided on a mission statement that conveys what we plan to accomplish in a succinct sentence.

Mission Statement

The goal of Bridging the Gap is to open up dialogue among ALL students on campus about their place in the Vanderbilt community and their interactions with different groups and organizations on campus.

More to come soon! Including a Facebook page featuring stimulating conversation threads.

Be on the look out!!

Bridging the Gap

Myths in the Making

What would you like to know about your campus?!
This has been our greatest challenge this past month. With a few ideas in mind, we still want to know what there is on campus that would be fascinating, shocking, gross, cool, etc. to the rest of Vanderbilt's inhabitants. With such a diverse student body and faculty, there's bound to be a wide range of interests. So, we are ready to send out a survey. Yes, a survey, one of those things that we all receive in our email a couple times a semester. While most people just delete surveys without even opening them, there are those few that are willing to take 5 or 10 minutes in pushing buttons for a chance to win something. Although we haven't decided to bribe students to fill out our survey, please be one of those students. If you receive it, PLEASE DON'T DELETE THE BUST A MYTH SURVEY!!! Here's the student's advantage to filling it out: the students who receive our survey have the chance to tell us what they think is important to investigate and even possibly get their questions documented and cut into our final movie.
As we finish up gathering information on the history of our beautiful school, contacting faculty, and talking to students, we will start filming ASAP!
If you would, please send us any suggestions that you have in regards to myths, mysteries, or just a funny question you think should be answered.

Good luck on midterms!

~Alyssa Evans
  Bust A Myth

Self-cooking & Asian cuisine

This is the second blog post from Asian Voice group. September is the opening month of our sophomore year. We five girls finally become floor mates and have a lot fun visiting and sharing. Last Friday, some of our members attended the first self-cooked Asian dinner. Tarynn got this idea of self-cooking and it was proved to be a brilliant one. On Thursday, we drove to the Asian market to purchase the food for hotpot and chicken soup. Right after finishing our classes on Friday, we met up at the kitchen and each contributed one dish. The dish-making process was full of joy. Especially for making Asian dishes, we were experimenting and creating new recipes all the time, not to mention that hotpot would always warm the atmosphere. While having the dinner, we casually discussed about our next plan for the project. We agree upon the idea of hosting several movie nights and fireside chats. We are also planning to go on a field trip next semester. On this weekend, we will have our first formal meeting in which detailed action plan will be completed and responsibilities will be assigned. Look forward to our next group dinner and those awesome movie nights!

Sustainably Cooking Omelets

This previous Sunday we went to Davis Cookware in Hillsboro Village and learned about various types and brands of cooking utensils, especially knives.  We learned proper knife care and safety and how to tell when your knives are dull.  They also told us about the fine teas and coffees that they sell and about their free knife sharpening service. 

Our group did our first cooking project this evening.  We had four of our members with us because Hayley could not be with us this evening.  Two of our members, Caitlin and Jose, went out to the farmers' market and Harris Teeter and bought eggs, spinach, cheese, several types of peppers, avocado, salsa, basil, and other ingredients to make omelets.  Lydia, who has cooked omelets before, taught proper omelet making technique to the members of the group.  Caitlin taught everybody the best ways to cut and peel garlic and onions.  We used such sustainable ingredients as eggs from pasture-fed chickens, organic spinach, locally grown tomatoes and peppers from the farmer's market, and locally made salsa.  Jose and Sarah, who had never cooked omelets before, did a great job their first time!  Everyone's omelets turned out very well and tasted delicious!
We are so excited to be getting into our project!

DEAR Vanderbilt, Wake Me Up When September Ends

    Midterms are upon us. This means a mad scramble to fit studying, hanging out with friends and viewing the latest episode of Big Bang Theory into the precious twenty-four hours that make-up the day. And while at times this seems impossible, thousands of Vandy students have proven that yes, it can be done!
    While laying outside of Wilson today enjoying the beautiful fall weather and studying for my International Politics exam, it became apparent to me how such small things in our daily lives can relieve stress. Even though I had a midterm that would comprise a significant portion of my grade in less than an hour, I felt at ease basking in the sunlight. Ahhh, the simple pleasures.
This month, our group DEAR Vanderbilt conducted a survey to find out the causes of students’ stress and activities they enjoy to alleviate this tension. Again I realized how the small things allow people to escape from the stresses of everyday life. Many of the participants in the survey wrote that they work-out, talk to friends and family and sleep to combat stress. While none of these responses surprised me, I was taken back by the level students chose to rate their stress. When asked to describe their stress on a scale of one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest, the average was a six. Based on how much stress my friends claim to face due to homework, extracurricular activities and personal reasons, I figured the average would be higher.  When given the options of family and friends, school, social image, significant other, work and extracurricular activities as causing the most stress, participants selected school and extracurriculars. Personally I too find school and extracurricular activities the most stressful. Not saying the others aren’t stressful because they definitely stress me out from time to time, but the most prominent sources of my stress stem from school and extracurricular activities.
As I write this on a Friday afternoon (after my midterm and classes are over) and the weekend glimmers on the near horizon, stress seems far away for the moment. And even though it is, I know as soon as Monday rolls back around, it will be there to greet me again. But even though this is the case, I will enjoy every second of the weekend and when stress appears once again next week, I will at least have enjoyed my short break and the nice fall weather.

Peace out Vandy!

This pie chart represents the breakdown of the stress levels of our testing pool.


This chart shows the numerical breakdown of the causes of stress.

 

Beyond Tutoring

Our beyond tutoring team has been experiencing some unexpected hurdles with our project this month. Most of us have been going to the Wednesday night tutoring session to meet the kids and introduce ourselves to everyone.  After talking to the Reverend of the church facility we hope to use we realized how much more complicated our project was than simply inviting some kids to have fun with us on a Saturday morning.  We first had to check to see if it was alright to use the church as a gathering place.  The Reverend said we could as long as we had all the kids and their parents sign liability forms.  He also wanted us to send in a detailed plan so that he could talk to the kids’ parents, and have them be comfortable allowing the kids come join our project.  We have spent the last month coming up with plans for each Saturday.  We also prepared the liability forms and a flyer for the Reverend to give out directly to the parents.

We decided on having a theme for our project with the kids “Globe Trekkers”. Every meeting we will introduce a country or region of the world and have interesting facts as well as an activity that relates to the country or region.  We also plan on providing the kids with a passport booklet for them to keep and update throughout the year.  They can tape or draw in pictures, write interesting facts, and keep a memento of what all we have discovered about each place. They can also earn stickers by winning games to add to their journal. After accumulating so many stickers, they can receive a prize. 

We got the Reverend’s approval for using the church as a meeting place, and we are now waiting for all the liability forms to be returned to us before we can have our first Saturday meeting with the kids. We are scheduled to have our first session on October 23, and we will be learning all about the country of South Africa! 

From You Guys to Y'all - September!

           Hey y’all!  This is Lexi Zarecky presenting our first expedition with country music!  Because Nashville is country music central, we decided to start our project by exploring the downtown area and the effects that music has had on it.  A couple weeks ago, we drove downtown and walked down Broadway – even at four o’clock on a Friday afternoon the Honky Tonks are full of people and bands.  We started out by walking through the Charlie Daniels museum, which had memorabilia from his past shows and his life.  For those of you who don’t know who Charlie Daniels is (as many of us did not), he is a famous fiddle player who sings “The Devil Went down to Georgia”.  It was interesting for me to see this museum because I had previously seen him live at the Grand Ole Opry before the flood.  After the museum, we went into a couple of stores that sold cowboy boots, and talked to one of the shopkeepers.  They mentioned how country music tends to bring people together, and Nashville is such a friendly city that it seemed fitting that country music is centralized there.

            Finally, we went to a Honky Tonk that had a live band playing.  It was really crowded, but we got to listen to some classic country tunes (such as those by Tim McGraw and the Zac Brown Band), and witness everyone enjoying themselves and the country music surrounding them.  It truly seems that country music is a defining factor of Nashville at any time of the day, and that everyone embraces it.  I believe that country music presents stories that many people face everyday, and is emotional and truthful.  I believe that these characteristics also represent Nashville, and that the combination of the city and country music makes Nashville a truly unique and wonderful place.

            Oh, and a great majority of us went to the Nights of Sun Concert!  It was wonderful to see how country music singers are willing to put on a benefit concert in the middle of frat row!   Especially Love and Theft, which, though many don’t realize it, is a pretty famous country band!

That's all for now!

Lexi Zarecky, Sara Perez, Evyn Cosgrove, Liesel Burks, Abi Hardaway, and Alex Manthey

International Om Nom

        Hey guys! This month, In the Mood for Food has been busy exploring the corners of the world in honor of our international food theme. For the most part, we focused on finding international cuisine settings for our weekly meals together and planning our monthly event of cooking together. These past four weeks we explored food from sushi at Zumi's and ginger noodle salads at PM, to yummy tiki masala chicken at Bombay Palace. We were able to learn a lot about different countries and the foods they celebrate through our weekly dinners together this month.

       On another note, we were able to fit in our monthly do-it-yourself dinner this weekend with much success! Since this was our first time executing the dinner, we decided to pair off and create a total of five dishes. By the end of our cooking frenzy, we had made hummus (interesting side story, since the recipe called for a food processor and we had none, we resorted to shoving chickpeas into a ziplock bag and stomping on them with our feet..not pretty, but admittedly effective. If anyone is interested, here is the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Hummus-101577), a lovely greek salad, tomato and fresh mozzarella linguine pasta with grilled chicken (did you know that raw meat can be cooked in a microwave..?), a Chinese egg and tomato dish(note the unplanned theme of tomatoes..), and to finish off our meal, African banana fritters topped with powdered sugar (yumm!).
With content bellies, I think we rounded out our International month quite successfully!
We'll keep you all posted as we tackle Vegetarian month next!

Love from In the Mood!

Rough Month

Dear fellow VIP-ers,

Hello, Matt and Emily here. Last time when Andrew talked to you he discussed the love-hate relationship that crew tends to involve for all of us. Never has this felt truer than in this past month. Several of the varsity rowers got so fed up with rowing that they decided to quit, including one of our VIP members.

What to say about that? The team is basically our family, so when someone leaves, it hurts. We understand their reasons, so we’re accepting them and moving on with what’s left of the team. However, we now have exactly eight varsity men and nine varsity women, with no coxswains. As coxswains steer the boats and tell us what to do, they’re kind of important. Fortunately, we have a plethora of awesome novice coxswains and rowers, who are all ready to step it up and lend a hand to our struggling varsity side. We're really grateful for all of them.

Essentially, what all the anger, frustration, and sadness boils down to is a new question for our research this year. On one side, we’d like to ask why people row. On the other…why do people stop rowing? This question will be included in our documentary, featuring the VIP member who is no longer a rower.

In better news, we’re looking to get some fantastic footage this Saturday, at 6 am (yikes), of our first race of the season. We’re having a scrimmage against the Auburn and Georgia teams. This will be the novice’s first ever competition, which is super exciting in and of itself. We’re also looking forward to it, because they just started rowing by all eights this week. It’s going to be a crazy day, and we hope to be telling you about our success next month. Until then, VIP-ers!