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FISH

Let’s just say that last week (the week before Spring Break) was a rough one for me. However, thanks to the awesome support of the Fontbonne Community and my friends here, I have been feeling much better. And I’ve even started going to counseling sessions in Student Affairs with one of Fontbonne’s on-campus counselors to help me get to a better health & wellness state. I definitely recommend taking advantage of these services at Fontbonne if you ever think you might need it.

My Fontbonne Friends Isabella, Ariel, and I after my good little crying session. Can't keep those emotions bottled up! Seeking support is a good thing.

Since last week was so emotionally rough, Spring Break could not have come at a better time.  I only have a few days left of break, but I’ve been taking advantage of every second.

Here are a few things that I’ve been doing during my break:

I went to Kansas City with these lovely people and some other Fontbonne Students for a Service Trip through FISH.

FISH (Fontbonne In Service and Humility) is the service/volunteer organization on campus.

One of our service projects was at Harvesters, a food bank in Kansas City. We helped to sort some of the donations.

It snowed quite a bit while we were in Kansas City.

However, we made the most of the weather and hung out at the place we were staying at.

We even celebrated Nisha's birthday, a Student on the trip.

Isabella, an International Student from Taiwan, took advantage of the snow and built her first snowman!

We attempted to make a fort.

We later went to Dave & Busters to celebrate Nisha's birthday and get out of the house.

After getting back to St. Louis, I spent some time with my roommates and Jessica (a Fontbonne Commuter Student) to celebrate my roommate Emily's birthday at Build-A-Bear in the St. Louis Galleria.

Claire, one of my Fontbonne Friends and I hung out in Downtown Kirkwood, a suburb within St. Louis, and went through some of the shops.

The weather was much too beautiful not to enjoy walking outside.

We enjoyed some delicious Middle Eastern food from Ranoush.

I found this soap at a shop called Christopher's with a mustache design. (I love mustaches!)

Besides that, I’ve been trying to enjoy my break and relax, while also working on some Graduate School Applications. I think it’s been a pretty well-balanced break overall.

Here’s to the weekend!

Peace, Love, & Spring Break!

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Wow. I’m speechless right now thinking about the fact that I’m already a SENIOR in college in my last semester of undergraduate school.

I also can’t believe how quickly time has zoomed by! For example, I remember when my fellow Fontbonne friend Lara and I had just decided that we wanted to have a Benefit Concert focused on Human Trafficking/Modern Day Slavery sometime last semester. And the concert just happened on Friday. Crazy!

Of course, Lara and I have spent a lot of work on this event and we’re so relieved that we went through with it.

Like any event that I plan, I always worry about how many people are going to show up. However, why not take a risk once in a while? I never know what might happen until I try. As much as I would have loved the whole city of St. Louis at our show, the crowd who did show up was intimate and inviting. Plus, we raised at least $279 for The Red Thread Movement and The Covering House! How could we not be happy?

Not to mention that, but the performers were all local and lovely!

I’m definitely thankful to have had this opportunity to express my passion for social justice through being on FISH (Fontbonne In Service and Humility) and to have such a supportive community around me!

Peace, Love, & Freedom For All.

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Hello Fontbonne :)

Today is such a beautiful day! Everyone’s having an awesome time, yes? You better be.

I also believe we all know that SGA (Student Government Association) is sponsoring the Fall Festival TONIGHT in the AMC at 7:00PM. Many organizations will be participating with their very own activities. I, personally, will be with FISA (Fontbonne International Students Alliance) and FISH (Fontbonne in Service and Humility). FISA will have origami and a little scavenger hunt, as FISH will have pumpkin carving and advertising about their big service trips, coming up for next semester. Please come and have fun!

Now I would like to just recap on the interesting things that I did this week. Sunday: A few members from FISH–along with my twin sister, Mary, as a guest–went to The Bridge (a Centenary Methodist Church in downtown) to help serve food! It was pretty fun, and the chefs were awesome. There were three of them, and I think two of them are Alan and one is Steve. Anyways, our members who went were Andrea, Rayne, and Erica. Rayne started the plate with the macaroni pasta (hamburger style), I pass it to Andrea for bread, Erica served salad, and Mary finished it with a slice of cake. Sounds oh-so delicious! After we were finished with serving, Steve said we could eat, too. And yes, I loved the food. :)

Let’s rewind real quick. We did have a small inconvenience before going to the church. Andrea and Rayne already arrived to the place while Erica, Mary, and I had to park in a $5 spot. Unexpectedly, when Erica was paying for it, we were all out of the car and it was still on–with the keys locked inside. A little unfortunate, right? Man, we had a good laugh about that. So I told Andrea and Rayne about it and said that we will come later. Luckily, Erica’s boyfriend, Shay, was able to get her spare key from her dorm room! How awesome is that? :) While we waited, we just talked about all kinds of things, getting to know each other. It wasn’t such a bad experience! Everything turned out okay.

Monday: SAA (Student Alumni Association) had the Brown Bag Lunch with an alumni, Tony Effan. Basically, Tony talked to us about his experiences with Fontbonne and how he got to where he is now as a Wells Fargo Advisor. Pretty neat stuff. I highly recommend students to join SAA because you do get the chance to learn more about career development and about the things you can do to get better jobs.

Tuesday: Gaming2Gether’s Bingo Night! I was supposed to be there for volunteering, but they were pretty set so I just played. :D It was really fun! Bingo never gets old. I actually won one game, so I definitely benefited from that night.

Wednesday: No special event for me, but I did go to the Delmar Loop with my awesome buddies, Izzy and Ben. :) We went to Blick Art Materials to buy awesome origami papers for our fall festival activity. Then we decided to stop by Bubble Tea (my favorite!) to eat. Ben kindly paid for our drinks, then Izzy and I paid for our own meals. Sadly, I didn’t really get to eat most of my wonton noodle soup because I ate one piece of the “spicey” crispy chicken that Ben ordered. Why is that bad? Well, I’m pretty sensitive to spicey now, so I can’t eat any form of spiceyness anymore. That also keeps me from eating hot food because it hurts even more. I had my food to-go, so I was able to eat it later.

That’s all for now! Oh, I’m starting my own fundraiser for Dance Marathon by polishing and designing people’s nails: 2 designs for $2, 10 designs for $5. All of the funds will go towards the marathon, so don’t worry! If you would your nails done, just let me know!

Have an AWESOME day!

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This semester, sooooo many great events and activities have been planned for students. A ton of volunteer opportunities, as well as student activities have been organized to encourage more student involvement, and it is totally working.

I attended World Food Day at John Burroughs High School, with Fontbonne In Service and Hunility, or FISH earlier in October and it was an awesome experience. Basically, the team you are with has a table with stations of different components to add to the food bag as it goes from person to person, an assembly line.  We made enough food packages to feed 3,000 children from a community in Tanzania in about 45 minutes. Here is more info. http://www.stlwfd2012.com/home/about/

The Hunger Banquet was quite the surprise. This event was held by the Community Nutrition course, to help raise money for the Niger Hunger Relief Effort. The ticket was $10, and 100% of that went directly to the Relief Effort, which is a great feat. As for the banquet, I had no ideal what to expect. I was given a green ticket as I entered the doors, which meant I was “middle class,” so I got to sit in chairs. People with yellow tickets represented the lower class and sat on the floor, while people with red tickets were upper class and had the privilege of sitting at a very fancy dinner table. The upper class got a ton of food, real silverware, table cloths, and different drink options with waiters. The middle class got a scoop of rice and a scoop of kidney beans to eat with plastic forks and a tiny cup of water, while the lower class only got one scoop of rice, and no silverware; they ate with their hands. We heard informative presentations, watched videos and heard a lot of scary statistics.  It was a really cool experience.

Yesterday, we went to Soulard Market! The event was organized by Marielle Counts and the Environmental Club and I had never been so it was a really cool experience. I loved it. I wish I had a real life kitchen so I could totally utilize the market more but rooms in Medaille do not come fully stocked with a kitchen. Too bad. There were tons of vendors with fresh fruits, veggies, breads, pastries, jewelry, clothing, soaps,, everything you could think of! No peanut butter though, which I was super excited to buy freshly ground PB. But it is ok because I went to Eckerts Farm for apple picking the next day and I found some there!

Tonight, in honor of October, FAB, Fontbonne Activities Board is showing The Exorcist at 6 and then providing free tickets and transportation to The Darkness, a haunted house. I am not a fan of haunted houses, so I am passing on this one, but it should be a blast for everyone attending!

Also, because of the Cardinals games, they have all been streaming somewhere on campus! So convenient and a great way to share a common interest or the St. Louis spirit with fellow students!

I am so impressed with the events to get students involved and to allow for some fun this semester! Keep up the good work!

-Kelia

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Fat Free Talk!

by Jeanne October 22, 2012

Hello Everyone, I have been lagging with consistent, on time, blogs, but this week is full of good things (besides those Monday Blues)! One cause that is great and is a focus this week is “Fat Free Talk.” This means that you and those around should eliminate “fat talk” in conversations. You know the phrases [...]

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Nice week.

by Lizzie September 17, 2012

Good morning, people! Today, I just want to talk about how my week went. When I thought about it, I realized how busy I am. Isn’t that awesome? (Sure, sure.) On Monday,  I missed two of my morning classes so I could take my dear mother to the doctor for a check-up. It’s been a [...]

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End of semester..How about next year?

by Lizzie April 30, 2012

Can you believe it? It’s already the end of the spring 2012 semester! Wow, my freshman year of college has flown by so fast. And I’ll tell ya, I’ve had great experiences with the campus, organizations, and friends! For the 2012-2013 year, I have a goal of focusing 90% of my time into my schoolwork. [...]

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A Fish Tale

by Jeanne April 22, 2012

Hello Everyone, I just wanted to take a moment of silence for Clark Kent, the beta fish. This is supposed to be a photo journal about college life, and I believe this pertains to someone somewhere in college. When you are in college, pets with fur are usually not allowed. Fish are acceptable because they [...]

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“Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City”

by Elizabeth March 28, 2011

Now, I’ve never seen the musical “Oklahoma,” but I know a couple of songs from it, like “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” (and of course, the Oooo-klahoma one). How this relates to my life? Well, on Friday, I took part in the Fontbonne In Service and Humility (or F.I.S.H., but more commonly written [...]

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Happy Halloween!!!

by Erica November 1, 2010

According to my snazzy new-fangled phone I recently received from my parents, it was 46 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I definitely sensed the change in temperature when I stepped outside this morning. Speaking of this morning, I had one of the most challenging tests I’ve taken so far this year. One phrase says it all: Anatomy [...]

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