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