January
Hi All,
Happy New Year! 2019 so far is off to a blazing start and I can't believe we're already a month into the new year. It feels good to be back in NOLA after a restorative break at home. Upon return, I was immediately thrusted back into the groove of trying to balance schoolwork, volunteering and enjoying my time here in NOLA. However, the new year comes with new responsibilities. In addition to our Med Pharm and Principles classes, we have four interesting and challenging elective courses added to our weekly schedule. Most of these elective courses focuses more on open exploration of novel topics involving particular subsets of Pharmacology and presenting them to our class. One of them is Endocrine Pharmacology, in which we are reading about the many effects of stress through the book "Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers" by Dr. Robert Sapolsky and through discussion with our fellow classmates. So far the class has brought up very interesting topics for discussion and I look forward to learning more from the book and my classmates. The others include Neuropharmacology, in which we explore novel scientific studies in the field and present them to our class, and Environmental Signaling, where we're learning the different pharmacological agents/compounds we encounter in our daily environment. Right now we are actually helping out Dr. Mielke's project on measuring lead levels throughout New Orleans by picking up soil samples throughout the city. He is comparing the change of lead levels in soil pre- and post-Katrina. His study has huge implications for the community throughout New Orleans, particularly the children, who may be inadvertently be exposed to high levels of lead by just going to the park or playing in the schoolyard or even running around their own backyard.
As far as volunteering goes, this month I had a wonderful opportunity to attend one of the New Orleans Saints playoff games as a volunteer for Second Harvest. We sold 50/50 tickets to help raise money for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) which offers scholarships to black students and provide funding for the 37 different Historically Black College and Universities. It was a great opportunity to help such an impactful nonprofit organization and be able to support the Saints at the same time! We were able to raise over $80,000 for the UNCF and watch the Saint win; not bad for my first time in the Superdome! I'm also continuing volunteering at Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine. This time around, I'm helping with the Adult Beginner classes and so far it is just as great as last semester. This past week our lessons centered around beans and talked about the great benefits of eating beans as a complement to their meal or as a full entree. We also talked about different ways of portion control and how simple psychology can "trick" our brains into thinking we're eating a lot more food than what is actually on our plate.
It feels good to back in NOLA again and I can't wait for what comes next in the next few months as our program start winding down towards the end!
For more info on the United Negro College Fund: https://www.uncf.org/
For more info on Second Harvest NOLA: https://no-hunger.org/
January Service Hours: 14
Cumulative Spring Semester Hours: 14
Cumulative 2018-2019 Hours: 46.50
Happy New Year! 2019 so far is off to a blazing start and I can't believe we're already a month into the new year. It feels good to be back in NOLA after a restorative break at home. Upon return, I was immediately thrusted back into the groove of trying to balance schoolwork, volunteering and enjoying my time here in NOLA. However, the new year comes with new responsibilities. In addition to our Med Pharm and Principles classes, we have four interesting and challenging elective courses added to our weekly schedule. Most of these elective courses focuses more on open exploration of novel topics involving particular subsets of Pharmacology and presenting them to our class. One of them is Endocrine Pharmacology, in which we are reading about the many effects of stress through the book "Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers" by Dr. Robert Sapolsky and through discussion with our fellow classmates. So far the class has brought up very interesting topics for discussion and I look forward to learning more from the book and my classmates. The others include Neuropharmacology, in which we explore novel scientific studies in the field and present them to our class, and Environmental Signaling, where we're learning the different pharmacological agents/compounds we encounter in our daily environment. Right now we are actually helping out Dr. Mielke's project on measuring lead levels throughout New Orleans by picking up soil samples throughout the city. He is comparing the change of lead levels in soil pre- and post-Katrina. His study has huge implications for the community throughout New Orleans, particularly the children, who may be inadvertently be exposed to high levels of lead by just going to the park or playing in the schoolyard or even running around their own backyard.
As far as volunteering goes, this month I had a wonderful opportunity to attend one of the New Orleans Saints playoff games as a volunteer for Second Harvest. We sold 50/50 tickets to help raise money for the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) which offers scholarships to black students and provide funding for the 37 different Historically Black College and Universities. It was a great opportunity to help such an impactful nonprofit organization and be able to support the Saints at the same time! We were able to raise over $80,000 for the UNCF and watch the Saint win; not bad for my first time in the Superdome! I'm also continuing volunteering at Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine. This time around, I'm helping with the Adult Beginner classes and so far it is just as great as last semester. This past week our lessons centered around beans and talked about the great benefits of eating beans as a complement to their meal or as a full entree. We also talked about different ways of portion control and how simple psychology can "trick" our brains into thinking we're eating a lot more food than what is actually on our plate.
It feels good to back in NOLA again and I can't wait for what comes next in the next few months as our program start winding down towards the end!
 |
| Volunteering At The Superdome for UNCF |
For more info on the United Negro College Fund: https://www.uncf.org/
For more info on Second Harvest NOLA: https://no-hunger.org/
January Service Hours: 14
Cumulative Spring Semester Hours: 14
Cumulative 2018-2019 Hours: 46.50
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