ladies and gentlemen, coming in fall 2010…

rip papi and juanes

i love these ladies…

this postsecret and i have a love/hate relationship:

SEA Club’s Community Garden Blooms into Existence

On September 8th, 2009, the Students for Environmental Action and Awareness (SEA) club broke ground on PLNU’s first community garden. SEA’s Octopus’ Garden, named after the popular Beatles song, is located on the Nease Hall lawn. The garden is kept up by members of the SEA club, PLNU’s Physical Plant, and members of the Point Loma community that desire to be involved with the garden.

The community garden, which has been on SEA club’s agenda since last year, was headed up by current SEA club president Jenney Heffel, a sophomore Literature major.

“Before any plans were set in stone, members of SEA club went to visit San Diego Community College’s own community garden to get ideas,” explained Heffel. “It wasn’t until we saw how successful SDCC’s garden was that we really started to get excited about the prospect of starting our own.”

In order to start work on the garden, Heffel first had to write up a proposal and present it to the PLNU cabinet to be approved. Heffel and SEA secretary Daniel Virden spent about 2 months writing the proposal and coming up with funds for the garden.

This past July, Heffel received news that the garden had been approved by the cabinet and board of directors. Members of SEA returned back to Point Loma during LEAD week to start ripping up the grass, tilling the soil, and putting up the fence.

“We had so much support from the community and especially from Physical Plant. They donated scraps for the fence, plants, and even an irrigation system to keep the plants watered,” Heffel said. Jim Payton and Cathy Conner from Physical Plant were especially supportive of the garden, contributing labor and help in the preliminary planning of the garden and throughout the entire process.

In addition to Physical Plant’s support, SEA club received donations and discounts from local nurseries and hardware stores like Armstrong’s, Lowes, and Home Depot. “Without so much help from Physical Plant and the community, the garden never would have been a possibility,” noted Heffel.

SEA club started off their first crop by planting tomatoes, various types of lettuce, carrots, zucchini, onions, peppermint, peas, bell peppers, and even a pineapple. The club also planted pumpkins, but Heffel explained that the little sprouts won’t make it this year due to weather conditions.

“What I’m most excited about are the purple carrots and the Swiss chard,” explained Heffel. “Those vegetables are cool and colorful, like rainbow veggies. How awesome is that?”

Besides the prospect of colorful vegetables, SEA club is also excited about the impact that their new garden will have on the PLNU campus. “Now that the garden is underway, everybody in the SEA club wants to see it expand,” explained Heffel. “We really want it to catch the interest of students and faculty and for it to foster community involvement at Point Loma.”

And catching interest it is. SEA club has already gotten several emails from students and businesses pledging support and looking to become involved with the garden. “Ultimately, we would love to see more PLNU approved gardens springing up around campus,” said Heffel. “It would be great to have a garden for each dorm. SEA club is looking to provide the opportunity for students to engage in the environment in a tangible and rewarding way, and we hope that the community garden does just that.”

postsecret

daydreamer

Thinking Outside of the Box

      I spent this past summer in a box. No, but really….

      For the past 3 months of summer, I lived on campus and I worked in the Welcome Center. I worked the box 40 hours a week in 8 hour/day shifts. My main responsibilities included waving at drivers, answering questions, and just sitting. And sitting. And sitting. Needless to say, I had quite a lot of time on my hands. I would like to say that during the course of my shifts, I finished some great pieces of literature like War and Peace or Anna Karenina, but it’s just not the case. I did, however, finish all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the complete boxed set of Gilmore Girls.

      My time in the box was interrupted in mid-July, when I got on a bus headed down to Southern Baja with 19 fellow PLNU students. The previous semester, I had signed up to be a student leader for YouthWorks, a Point Loma Mexico missions program that sends high school students down to Baja for 2 weeks each summer to work and fellowship. Honestly, I wasn’t too excited to be leaving for Mexico, what with the current Swine Flu hype and especially with the reactions that I recieved from numerous persons upon telling them my travel plans (“What?! You’re going to Mexico? It’s like… the most dangerous place in the world right now!!”). As I stepped on the charter bus in Tijuana that would take us down to the tip of Baja, I felt a sense of dread. I regretted agreeing to come on the trip in the first place.

      Two weeks later, I couldn’t have felt more different. My time in Baja was absolutely… indescribable. And it’s not that ‘mission trip complex’ speaking , where you swear your life has been changed, but then a week later you’re back to the same old habits. No, Mexico for me was something different. I’ve never felt more peaceful or more, myself than when I was down there. I spent my days painting churches, traveling by bus for hours on end, and speaking enormous amounts of Spanish (and Spanglish). I skipped stones in the Sea of Cortez, walked along the boardwalk in Cabo San Lucas, and tried cactus (nopales) for the first time. I hung out with ninos of all ages, sang my voice horse, and cried more times than I can count.

      I have so many beautiful memories stored up from the trip, but there’s one in particular that sticks out in my mind. I remember it was dinner time and the sun was setting over the city of Los Cabos. We had just finished a long, hard day of painting and moving rocks and all other sorts of random tasks involving manual labor. We were all hot and sweaty, exhausted and ravenous. I grabbed a plate of food (fresh fish tacos) and a glass of jugo (juice). All the benches were taken, so I sat down right on the pile of gravel in the middle of the church’s courtyard. The Southern Baja wind blew softly around me, causing a few stray strands of hair to dance across my face. I closed my eyes and tuned out the chatter of the group around me. Next door, the cock-fighting roosters in their cages tutted and crowed and shifted their beautiful plumage. To the right of me, a dog barked and children’s laughter rose up from the dirt street behind. My dad once told me that we need to “celebrate what’s right with the world.” In that moment, there was so much around me to celebrate.

      I would say that I left a piece of my heart down in Baja. I connected so deeply with the culture, the language, and most importantly, the people. I hope to go back soon and meet with the friends I made, friends from Tijuana, Mexico City, and La Paz.

      I may have spent most of my summer in a box, but I definitly was pushed to think out of it during my time in Baja.

dearest wordpress,
you have served me faithfully these past few months. it is with great regret and a heavy heart that i today i created a…. blogspot. accept my deepest and most sincere apology, and know that it was only done out of necessity for my intro to journalism class. won’t you ever forgive me?

with regrets,
laurel

first day of school in a nutshell:

My Future Decided

I am overwhelmed. And sitting in a box for 8 hours at a time with nothing to do doesn’t exactly help. I feel like all I do is think about the future and worry, worry, worry.

I’m a little weirded out that people are starting to move back on campus. For some reason, this freaks me out. Am I really ready for this next semester? So much responsibility, pressure, so many things to do. Classes, RA-ing, work, a social life? Can I do it all? I fear that I’m not ready for all of this. I mean, in my heart of hearts, I know that I can do it. I can do anything, really, if I put my mind to it. But what if I end up failing? What if I don’t get all A’s? What if my girls hate me? What if I’m too busy to create those close relationships that I crave? What if I can’t handle the confrontation that comes with being an RA?

So many unknowns, so many things to potentially blow up in my face if I’m not careful. But I think that I need to realized the honest truth – I really can’t control the future. I mean, sure, I can control how I react and act, but what happens beyond that isn’t on me. This is hard to accept, because I am the kind of person who likes control. I like to have a say in things. I want to know what’s going to happen next.

But I can’t know. God only knows (what I’d be without you?…). He’s already got my semester mapped out, He’s got the control. My future is decided. I need to acknowledge this and take a deep breath. God wouldn’t have given me the opportunities that He did if He thought that I couldn’t handle them. He’s got full confidence in me to be a good student, RA, friend.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Take a deep breath, Laurel, and relax. Everything’s going to be alright.