Normally I try to keep my more controversial political beliefs in the dark when talking to people. But with this being our last blog post of the semester, I figured why not bring it up, especially with the exciting news I just found out about part of it.

This past year I decided to branch out of my comfort zone and into a political activism club on campus. After meeting some people at the fall involvement fair, I ended up joining the Planned Parenthood Generation Action club (PPGen for short). This spring semester I served on the executive board as secretary and I was just recently elected president for next fall! I am super excited about this and that is why I would like to give a short introduction about the importance of having a PPGen at Penn State and inform you all about some of what types of things we do on campus and beyond in helping others.

There is currently no Planned Parenthood near State College, so the focus of our club is more on politics and current events that Planned Parenthood is involved in. Most anti-Planned Parenthood people tend to argue that this organization provides so many abortions, etc., etc., but never really recognize how involved they are in politics, voter registration, and pushing for solutions to important issues of these natures.

The most common activity that we as a Penn State club do is phone banking for important issues of the time. This past year these events have mainly been focused on defending DACA and the Affordable Health Care Act. Protecting Dreamers and providing affordable health care are issues that are relevant to our campus, because you never know who around you may be at risk of deportation now or who cannot afford to go see a doctor anymore thanks to recent changes in legislation by a certain someone.

On a different note and separate from Planned Parenthood’s nationwide agenda, PPGen at Penn State has discussed the issue of unprotected sex around campus. To help stop the spread of STDs and help lower the risk of unwanted pregnancy in our area, we have been handing out free condoms. (Specifically, we have been handing them out in front of the Willard preacher, which has been both a good laugh and a realization of how toxic that man is to Penn State.) The university health center does provide free condoms to anyone who asks for them, but the process is a little confusing and not many people actually take advantage of this resource. Other than that, many argue that because condoms are somewhat expensive, they aren’t worth buying (news flash: box of condoms = less than $20, care for one child = over $1 million). We hope that by providing free condoms to students, they will be more likely to use them instead of opting for unprotected sex.

Although our activities are wrapping up for the end of the semester, we do still have one major event planned: a HUB takeover in honor of April being sexual health and STD awareness month. The goal of this event is to educate students about many different topics concerning sexual health, STDs, and just sex in general.

If any of you are interested in the few events that I have listed above and would like to hear about more that we do or how to join PPGen next year, please leave a comment below or talk to me in person!

As a requirement for my major (Biological Anthropology), I must take the course ANTH 45, Cultural Anthropology. With the intent of studying the more general-science-oriented version of anthropology, I was not expecting to apply much of what I learned in this class to my studies or, frankly, to my everyday life. However, over the course of the last few weeks, I have had a revelation about how much this topic has actually impacted all of my past knowledge.

Those of you who read my post entitled “Travel” a few weeks ago understand my opinions on how studying abroad and seeing the world enlighten a person and given a whole new dimension to life for those individuals. Well, this class has provided me with an even further breadth to my knowledge and understanding of others, without me even realizing that it was happening!

So far, this course has taught me to have a different outlook on mundane topics like learning, race, religion, gender, and more. I now feel that I can be more understanding of others and a better communicator of issues that take precedence in our lives today. I have realized how incredibly stupid so many aspects of our lives in the United States are and how important we think they are, when in reality they are only concepts invented in our minds in order to keep group solidarity in our nation. Had I never taken this course, I never would have discovered these things, formed new opinions about government and society, nor would I have achieved such a sense of connection to other humans of the world.

In revelation, I told my boyfriend (who I definitely don’t think has a strong conception of how others’ lives are so different from his and could benefit greatly from the influx of knowledge he would gain from ANTH 45) to take this course because he needs three more GS credits in order to graduate, and this course would be a great fit for him. But all I got was a curt response, expressing that he did not think any course not directly involved in his major was worth the time taking.

I told him he was crazy. If he went through his entire college career only taking courses in engineering or the like, what advantage would he have over other engineers entering the same field? The purpose of taking general education courses is to provide students with a broad range of knowledge in order to make them well-rounded and prepared for almost anything they may experience within their future careers and just in life in general. If this was not a necessary thing, then Penn State and all other schools and universities across the nation probably would have ditched the idea by now, but they haven’t.

It is incredibly important to expand your knowledge base while here at Penn State, and so I charge you all to do so to your full capacity. If you have the opportunity to take ANTH 45, I highly recommend it. Otherwise, take a class on a random topic that you have interest in, it will definitely be worth it in the long run.

With my previous ventures around the world and especially my recent trip abroad with my CAMS 25 class over spring break, I would like to discuss what travelling and studying abroad can do for a student in college. I am sure that many of you reading this desire to study abroad at some point before graduating, and I really hope that you will have the opportunity. Even just travelling can provide one with worldly experiences and help build one’s character, but studying abroad adds even more benefits to one’s life.

By visiting other places, one receives a better understanding of the world around them. By witnessing and living in the ways of other cultures, one gains a cultural appreciation of that country and further creates connections with the way that their own culture operates back home and therefore how their global comprehension of culture operates. I believe it is incredibly important for everyone to be able to experience the diversity of the world through culture, language, music, and more and travelling has proven the most essential way of doing this within my life span.

When abroad, one might not be hearing the language that they speak back home. By attempting to practice or learn another language while in a foreign country, one can much easier learn and grasp the information necessary to communicate there. In doing this, the appreciation of language and the strengthened communication skills gained greatly impact a person and therefore their surroundings as well.

Something that I am able to work on while travelling is my sense of direction. I am very poor with understanding my location at times, and especially when driving. By navigating new places abroad, I exercise this sense. Forcing myself to remember where I am and to remember what streets head where without the use of a map greatly assists me in location memory when I return home.

Finally, and probably most importantly, studying abroad or travelling the world allows one to create unique and lasting friendships with even the most unlikely of people. Because one meets so many different people while visiting other places, they are forced to interact outside their normal social circles. And, when travelling with a group, the same thing is arranged (except the variance in nationality). Learning to cooperate and form bonds with people of all walks of life is a quintessential skill that one needs in applying for and working a job as well as just socializing in their daily life.

Of course, everyone’s experiences in visiting new places will differ, however, much is always learned and gained. With travelling comes the exchange of information, which can lead to many great possibilities in any person’s life.

Many people around our age can remember television shows and movies like That’s So Raven, Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and more. Back in the early 2000s, programmers like Disney and Nickelodeon produced many loveable film pieces that I think we all can agree that we are nostalgic on and miss dearly.

But have you ever looked back and thought about how much these televisions shows and movies have altered your values and changed your life? Maybe some of you have, but most of you probably have not. In my view, these television programs helped to shape our generation into the progressive and change-inducing people we have proved to be today. How? – Through the introduction of values and situations into the homes of Americans across the United States.

Think about it, when Ellen came out as gay on television back in the 1980s, it may have been a shock to some people. But to others, because this was normalized on television, they easily grew to accept it and therefore accept other homosexual individuals. When you look back on televisions series from our childhood, you can see that similar things emerge.

Two particular scenes from the hit television series That’s So Raven stand out to me most when I think about this subject. The first scene is Raven having a vision of a company/store owner talking to her in a very racist way when Raven questions why she did not get a job that she was applying for. A clip from this scene can be watched here. From this, viewers can identify the racist remarks involved and because Raven explains how this is bad in society (which unfortunately is not included in the clip), racism is identified as something bad to us.

The second scene that I think of is Raven being criticized for her body shape by a fashion designer and she and a clothing model fight back and end up walking the runway together because they agree that all body shapes are beautiful. This scene can be viewed here. From this, viewers learn that no body is ever going to be the same as another one, and that is just how it is. Rather than scrutinize others for the way they look, they say that we should be confident in and love ourselves.

Whether or not these instances themselves ingrained into our heads the values that they represented, I am not positive. But I definitely think these scenes allowed for many topics to be brought up in American homes and therefore allowed for these values to be established within our lives. These film pieces have helped our generation to grow up to become a powerful strength within today’s world, and I think that was the goal of the television programs and producers. I hope that we can continue to take these lessons that we learned as children and apply them to our world and make it a better place for all to live in. (And maybe we should reinstate those shows rather than the uninspiring and questionable children’s television shows that they run today)

I apologize, but I cannot help but write another post about THON. Since the event was just this past weekend and the memories are still so fresh in my mind, it is all I can think about.

THON raised $10,151,663.93 throughout 2018, which is just amazing! This money will be used to pay THON families’ medical bills, go towards finding a cure for childhood cancer, and doing great things at Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

16,000 volunteers performed all sorts of various tasks throughout the weekend, but today I would like to talk about all of the things I was able to do FTK this weekend.

If you are not familiar with my association with the event, I am on an OPPerations (OPP) committee. OPP’s job is to maintain the sanitation and sustainability of the event, as well as setting up and tearing down the venue itself.

Last Friday morning, some of my fellow committee members were up and beginning set up at the Bryce Jordan Center at 06:00 (we were forced to use military time all weekend so we didn’t talk about times in front of any dancers). I was lucky and only had to start at 08:00. For 2.5 hours that day, I rolled out mats on the event floor and in the south annex, where female dancers keep all of their belongings and where all dancers eat throughout the weekend.

My committee was fortunate to be assigned the best set of shift times an OPP committee could get, so I didn’t have to be back at the BJC until 05:30-09:00 the following morning. On our first shift, we had 4 scheduled tasks: emptying trash and recycling on the concourse, restocking dancer bathrooms, emptying trash and recycling on the event floor, and taking out cart-loads of trash and recycling bags out to the dumpsters.

Our second shift ran from 18:00-23:00 that evening. It consisted of checking the cleanliness of donor boxes, collecting garbage from crowds in the stands, emptying trash and recycling receptacles on the event floor, restocking dancer bathrooms, and emptying trash and recycling on the concourse.

Our third shift ran from 08:30-12:30 on Sunday and was by far the most enjoyable shift we had. We first got to run the Giant Slides of Strength (GSOS; when a mat is laid down on the event floor and covered in baby powder and dancers slide down and receive a 10 second mini-massage), set up barricades around the stage, empty trash and recycling from the event floor, clear tables from the event floor, and check the cleanliness of donor boxes.

After this shift we all stayed for the final four hours of THON and then tore down the venue. My committee cleaned up the event floor and south annex mats and then loaded Penske trucks until 00:30 on Monday morning (it was a long day).

Most people would probably look down on OPP because of all of the seemingly miniscule tasks we perform THON weekend. But as an OPPerson, I am proud that I am part of the team that makes sure that the children with lowered immune systems can come to THON and not have to worry about getting sick, the dancers and spectators don’t have to worry about having an unclean place to stand or use the restroom, and THON can finally be considered a zero waste event on top of all of its other glories. FTK