Being a Turner Scholar/ Making Friends
I had my first Darwin T. Turner Scholars meeting either the first or second week after classes started. I had met only one other Turner Scholar (during the Honors retreat) and was worried that I would be an outcast among my fellow scholars. Instead, I ended up making some really great friends and met my best friends at the meeting. I had fun at every meeting (which took place every Monday) and bonded quickly with my fellow scholars. Outside of Turner, I became friends with my roommates, people I met through my classes, and people in my dorm. I made some very close friends, who consider to be more like my family.
My Lung Collapse
Around midnight on Friday October 26th, I began experiencing some extreme chest pains. I thought that the pain would go away and attempted to sleep it off. Within an hour I was in even worse pain and struggling to take full breaths. I called my father (a doctor) and told him my symptoms; he told me call for an ambulance and go to the emergency room as he believed my lung collapsed. With two roommates studying pre-med and another studying nursing, I knew I was in capable hands when they calmed me down, called the ambulance, and took care of all my hospital forms while the doctors and nurses examined me. They confirmed that my lung had collapsed (a spontaneous pneumothorax, which is caused by being young, tall, skinny, and athletic- or, at least, those are the common factors among young people that get a collapsed lung) and the doctors prepped me for surgery.
I woke up from the surgery with my mother holding my hand and two huge tubes coming out of my chest. My parents drove down right after I had called my father and my roommates had contacted all of my close friends and teachers and told them what happened. A few hours later, I was being transferred to my official room when my roommate, my parents, my friend, my two nurses, and I got trapped in an elevator. We were rescued after an hour of the hospital technicians working on the elevator. On Halloween I had to have another surgery because my lung kept collapsing. I now have a chunk of my lung missing and about twenty titanium staples in my chest. I have some super cool scars and my lung has not re-collapsed, so the surgery was worth the pain. I had to remain in the hospital for another four days for recovery. Going back to classes was difficult after being discharged, but thankfully my teachers were very patient in helping me to catch up on my work and anything I missed in classes. I was up to date on all my classes with a few weeks and continued life as normal.
I woke up from the surgery with my mother holding my hand and two huge tubes coming out of my chest. My parents drove down right after I had called my father and my roommates had contacted all of my close friends and teachers and told them what happened. A few hours later, I was being transferred to my official room when my roommate, my parents, my friend, my two nurses, and I got trapped in an elevator. We were rescued after an hour of the hospital technicians working on the elevator. On Halloween I had to have another surgery because my lung kept collapsing. I now have a chunk of my lung missing and about twenty titanium staples in my chest. I have some super cool scars and my lung has not re-collapsed, so the surgery was worth the pain. I had to remain in the hospital for another four days for recovery. Going back to classes was difficult after being discharged, but thankfully my teachers were very patient in helping me to catch up on my work and anything I missed in classes. I was up to date on all my classes with a few weeks and continued life as normal.
My Learning Community
I joined a learning community while I was scheduling my classes for my first semester. I am very happy that joined it as my fellow classmates were very nice and helpful. We were able to discuss projects, help each other study for tests, and we had people we could sit next to in our classes. They all wrote and signed a card for me when I was in the hospital. We bonded over tough assignments and had fun planning activities for our learning community. Our Better Place Project involved having a small carnival for a nearby preschool. We set up out booths inside the Recreation Center. My booth was designed to teach children about growing flowers. I sat by a small plastic pool filled with soil and taught the children how to plant seeds in the soil. I told them about proper care for plants and explained to them some insects are helpful to flowers.
The Holi Festival
The Holi Festival is a Hindu festival celebrating diversity. By everyone being covered in different colors, people cannot be immediately distinguished by their race, ethnicity, or gender. My friends and I enjoyed throwing the colored powder at each other. Everyone was laughing as they threw the powder and some enjoyed rubbing the colors into people's hair. By the end of the activity, everyone was covered in so many different colors and smiling.