There are officially less than two weeks until the semester ends (for me) and I get to go home! I’m really looking forward to having some time to get some solid rest and wind down from the last few months’ whirlwind, but I’m also very, very surprised at how quickly time has gone by. I’ve been having a series of “lasts”—last labs, last lectures, last discussions—and even though some of these have been the bane of my existence this semester, I’m oddly nostalgic as I look back on who I was before the semester had started and how far I’ve come.
This past weekend, on Saturday morning, I went to an event called “Mug and Muffin” through my church here, MERCYhouse—it was a chance to talk to and fellowship with women in the community and from UMass and other colleges in the area at the home of one of the ladies in the church, over some amazing muffins and tea and hot chocolate. Later that day, I attended an event at UMass called “Winter Ball” held by their Asian American Students’ Association. I had attended a similar event last year back home held by the Asian students’ association at Ohio State. This one was really fun and a pretty big deal, probably with several hundred students in attendance (or well over a hundred, at least), really good food (including some pretty bomb green tea ice cream—the food was probably from UMass catering; their dining hall’s ranked best in the country), and impressive performances from really talented students, including some from Amherst who are involved in Five College-wide performance groups.
(Some freaking fantastic food at Winter Ball at UMass.)
(With my "date" for Winter Ball, Ori, a friend also from AC.)
Between scrambling to put together final presentations and projects, I’m also in the middle of putting together several events for GlobeMed. I’m a co-director of a team within GlobeMed called ghU, which is basically in charge of educating and advocating for health justice and public health issues, and every year we typically put on one speaker event and another event called Human Rights Day dinner. This year the two fall very close together. Years of planning events for GlobeMed (and other groups) since the first semester of my first year has taught me that event planning is always stressful, so I’m glad that I’m not doing it alone (I have my co-director). But this is also my last semester in GlobeMed—after five full semesters, I’m transitioning out next semester but remaining in an advisory role, to focus on newspaper and classes—so I have an urge to push myself and see to it that these events are the best that they can be.
For yesterday’s speaker event, I had asked Dr. Li-Li Hsiao from Brigham & Women’s to come talk about kidney health (her specialty) and her experience with increasing access to health both in the U.S. and around the world. The event was held in partnership with our pre-health society, Charles Drew, and a kidney-health-related group on campus, KDSAP, that is actually mentored by Dr. Hsiao. For pre-med students, it’s often difficult to gain exposure to the medical profession, given that Amherst is a pretty small place and not everyone has medical connections outside of Amherst, but events like this bring in someone akin to a mentor to show aspiring doctors and public health experts what it means to truly care for others’ well-being, and to continue inspiring people to work toward that goal.
(After the GlobeMed event with Dr. Hsiao, who had also been a director of the Harvard Summer Research Program in Kidney Medicine in which I participated this past summer. Left, another Amherst student who's also an alum of the program and the leader of KDSAP at Amherst.)
I kicked off my weekend earlier tonight with a performance by Amherst’s gospel choir, Resurrect, in which several of my friends participate. It’s also getting to that time of semester where there are student performances left and right, when I’d love to support all of my friends involved in excellent dance and theater and musical productions (but really would need a time-turner to do so). Still, I’m always impressed by and in awe of everyone’s talent and dedication to what they love!