Sunday, October 23, 2011

Community Action Day!


Yesterday Phi Chi and many of the other organizations on campus organized Community Action Day, an event that allows students to give back to the St. Maarten community by participating in one of a variety of projects which include: HIV screening, Diabetes screening, Alzheimer's screening, teaching breast self-exams, playing with the little kids from the ICAN orphanage, or the older kids from Crystal House. The day kicked off at 7:00 a.m. with a free breakfast for all the volunteers and also free T-shirts. Naturally my friend and I aren't morning people, and we managed to crawl into the rotunda at around 7:40 when pretty much all the T-shirts disappeared. My friend accepted the XXL shirt that was left and I did not, hence my not wearing a T-shirt in the above picture... but at least I was wearing green anyway. One of the coordinators did end up finding me a Small, so I was a happy camper in the end.

Seeing as I had already done HIV screening in a previous semester, I thought it would be more fun to spend the day at the beach playing with little kids from ICAN. The following are a few pictures I took for the day.





Aside from a bad sunburn, a few near-drowning experiences ( I realized I'm not a very good swimmer with children on my back) and a couple of wardrobe malfunctions (actually one girl just kept pulling down my bikini top when she was trying to catch me), it was a good day. The kids were very enthusiastic and had a great time at the beach. I got to meet some new people from the other classes and I was happy to spend the day with friends.

14 comments:

  1. Hi Andrea! My name is Jack and I recently got accepted to AUC, so it looks like I'll be joining you in January!! I just wanted to say that I really found your blog to be really helpfull in deciding between SGU and AUC. I was wondering, what piece of advice would you have liked to have before you first left for AUC?

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  2. The only piece of advice I can offer is just enjoy your free time as much as you can. Don't bother "pre-studying" it won't make a difference. Relax, enjoy life, because once you set foot here, it is a 20 month marathon of non-stop work.

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  3. haha near death experience, public nudity, giving back to the community.....that's an all around day

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  4. btw that comment above was me idk wtf happened

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  5. Hi Andrea,
    I have officially read every entry of yours in the past week and a half, or so. THANK YOU loads for taking the time to post. You may not realize how helpful your blog is, but it IS and very much so! :)

    I'm ready to be part of the AUC Fam as a recently-accepted Jan '12 student. Best wishes!

    -Edna (I promise I'm not a 107 yr-old lady despite my first name)

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  6. Congratulations on your acceptance Edna and thank you very much! I'm glad my blog helped you out. I'm sure I'll be seeing you next semester.

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  7. I'll be back once finals are done!

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  8. Andrea, you still aren't back!!!

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  9. I've been looking forward to your updates. Just want to let you know, I found one of your past posts very helpful -- the one where you compared the drop-out rate of all the top 4 Caribbean medical schools. I based my ranking of the schools (http://www.medicalschoolsuccess.com/top-caribbean-medical-schools.html) on that post.

    Studying in St. Maarten seems fun. At least it seems a lot warmer than the northeastern coast where my medical school is at.

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  10. I miss hearing about your adventure!

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  11. I guess she abandoned the blog.

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  12. this is a sad ending to the blog...gl andrea

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  13. I love your post. I will be going to UMHS St. Kitts, one of the top caribbean medical schools, next fall. This information is really making me even more excited about my own medical school experience and will definitely help me prepare better.

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