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On the Bright Side

April 30, 2013 in Alumni Blogs, Kemie's Blog by Kemie | Permalink

I would say this this past week was our first (much needed) dose of spring. The sun has been shining all week and it has done so much to lift the spirits of everyone on campus as we deal with the difficult events of the other week and prepare for the onslaught of final assignments.

Another example of positivity in Harvard Square

Another example of positivity in Harvard Square

I had a difficult time figuring out how to share my perspective on the tragedy at the time, but I could write a novel about the outpouring of love and support in the Harvard community since.  For example, I found the most inspiring email in my inbox earlier today. One of my blockmates forwarded me the link to a page for a Recovery Fund for a man named Jimmy who had been injured in the bombing at the Boston Marathon.  At first, the name didn’t register with me.  I did, however, notice that the message had been forwarded from email list to email list, so I clicked on the link to the page out of curiosity.  When the page loaded, I instantly recognized Jimmy from our countless exchanges my freshman year.

As it turns out, Jimmy worked in the Freshman Mailroom (in the basement of the Science Center), so he interacted with many Harvard students interacted with him on a regular basis.  Checking your regular mail is a relatively impersonal experience (since each student has a personal mailbox), but in order to collect a package you check in with someone at the Mailroom Window.  Jimmy was often the person greeting students at the window, and in his position he has shared countless conversations with countless Harvard freshmen over the years, myself included.

I am not a particularly sentimental person, but I was touched to see how many of my classmates recognized the important role that Jimmy and the Mailroom staff serve on campus, and were willing and eager to share the link with their peers.  I wanted to take a moment and share it with all of you as well.

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Moving Forward

April 23, 2013 in Alumni Blogs by robertledniczky | 2 comments

Last Friday was, as Caroline and others have already said, a very surreal experience. They have already covered the day in detail, so I won’t repeat myself for the sake of doing so, but it was a great relief on Friday evening to receive the news that the dramatic events starting Thursday night had come to an end. To echo my comments from last week, once again the reaction of everyone from the various police forces to students on all campuses was truly inspiring, and although they attempted to blow us apart, the past week has only brought Boston closer together. My thoughts and condolences of course go out to the family of Sean Collier.

However, as is the nature of time, life continues, and while it is imperative that we remember the events and those who we tragically lost, it’s just as important that we keep moving and ensure we seek to make the most of the time we have. These past few days have, aside from the events of Friday, turned out of be one of the standout weekends of my time at Harvard. We are now into the full swing of racing season, and having beaten Brown last weekend, we moved forward to our first and only away race of the season at Princeton. We were meant to depart on Friday morning, returning Saturday evening, but as the campus was locked down on Friday, the whole schedule was pushed back a day. Princeton is about a 5/6 hour drive south of Harvard, depending on traffic, and having set off at 8:30am on Saturday, we arrived in time to get a quick practice in during the afternoon. As you can imagine a bus full of rowers is an entertaining place to be, and everyone was excited to get some good racing in against the Tigers (Princeton’s nickname)

A shot of us pulling away from Brown weekend before last (image courtesy of I. Belakovskiy/row2k.com)

The facilities at Princeton were fantastic, with a really nice stretch of water modified specifically for a 2000m rowing race. My race was the first up in the morning, and conditions weren’t ideal, with a stiff headwind and choppy water making things a little tougher. Still, we dealt with it, and had some great racing with Princeton, unfortunately missing out on the win this week. Other boats had more success however, including my friend James’ boat, and the first Varsity, ensuring Harvard kept hold of the Compton Cup. It was then back to the hotel for a very quick turnaround, James and I managing to transition from slightly sweaty unisuit to jacket and tie in less than 10 minutes, shower and packing included. It was a shame to spend such a nice Sunday afternoon cooped up on a coach, but that was the price to pay for a morning of racing, something all of us would agree was well worth it. We now move on to focus on our race next weekend, a three way against Navy and Penn, which will be another tough challenge that I know all the guys are getting pumped up for.

A sunny morning at Princeton (image courtesy of row2k.com)

It was nice to get away from Boston for the weekend after the events of last week, and has helped me to come back fully focused on school work again: having been away all weekend, and now approaching the penultimate week of lectures, its starting to pile up I can tell you! I still cannot believe I will be flying home from my first year at Harvard in exactly four weeks time, where has this year gone?! Spring term in particular seems to have flown by, its amazing the difference having Spring Break in the middle made. My plans for the summer have ended up a bit scattered. I was hoping to be working for the financial aid office but was unfortunately unsuccessful, and a potential trip to work in Paris to help improve my French also seems unlikely to go ahead now. I’m planning therefore to spend my freshman summer back home, taking the time to see family and friends, earn a bit of money, and do all the things I wish I had more time to do during the term: read unassigned books, go out cycling and running, and maybe, even maybe, pick up my violin for the first time in over a year. If anything, the events of the past week have shown me just how dangerous continuously putting off the things you want to do in life can be.

The Art of Cooking (and Relaxing)

August 15, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 4 comments

How do we tell a chef from an amateur, a piece of culinary art from mere lowbrow attempts at home cooking? Is there any real difference at all, and if so, on what expertise does this distinction rest?

 

This is the basic question that my research fellowship with Harvard’s Schlesinger Library attempts to answer. As summer is slowly winding to a close, so too is one of my post-graduation summer endeavor. Many days in an overly air-conditioned library have finally brought together an illuminating bit of research on the topic of culinary aesthetic shift from the post-WWI period in the United States to the post-1975 period.

 

To give you a bit of insight, I thought I’d feature a few of the clippings from my research below—all photographed from the culinary magazine Gourmet through-out different time periods.

 

Taken from a 1952 copy of Gourmet, during what many describe as the time of high modernism, this advertisement elucidates the proliferation of mass production and appeal to authority typical of products under the period of Fordist modernity.

Compare this to the advertisement below from Gourmet in 1975, featuring instead an emphasis on small batch production and eclectic (or D-I-Y, do-it-yourself) style.

While I’ve traced a number of factors that played into this shift in culinary aesthetics of which only one example is shown above, one of the most telling is the distrust of totalizing views of cooking as art that was so prominent in the 1950’s of French-cooking traditionalism and extensive chef training leading to a distinction between the chef and the amateur. Chefs-as-artists became co-opted into materialism completely through advertisements (James Beard) and more easily through television cooking shows (Julia Child) with the advent of TV.

 

Of course, this is all just to give you a flavor of what my summer has looked like, and also to show some of the truly interesting research materials at one of Harvard’s libraries. On a less scholarly but no less important side, summer in Cambridge has proven to once again offer a wealth of opportunities of leisure time for any student (or post-grad) who happens to be around for these few months.

On Sundays Cambridge closes down a section of the street between the river and Harvard Square allowing of jogging, walking, or bike riding without the innumerable cars to push you off on a sidewalk. During the summer though, they have a new program called Sunday Parkland Games where everything from badminton to hula hoops, along with team games (potato-sack race) and free yoga classes from Karma Yoga Studio! It was so much fun, it felt like being a kid again during our elementary school relay games.

If anyone is in the area, this will be going on for the next two Sundays and strongly urge you to come check it out.

Besides that, Fridays have also become a time of routine as the workday from 3:30-5pm for The Harvard Community Garden. The Garden has grown beautifully with the addition of its annual crops, and has been a great place to take free yoga classes put on by Harvard student and my Yoga-Teaching-Training classmate Kelly, as well as to take classes on everything from tea making to pickling. Most Fridays they even have a movie at the garden at night.

As the month comes to a final close, I’ll make sure to check back in one more time for more updates on spending the summer in Cambridge.

 

~Natalie

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Food and Fellowships

July 17, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 1 comment

I mentioned briefly before that the second half of my post-graduation summer would be filled with days on my computer in a café and scanning books in Harvard’s Schlesinger library—all part of the research grant I received from the Carol K. Pforzheimer fellowship. As I have just begun to immerse myself in this research, I thought I’d give a more in depth overview of the fellowship, the research process, and the information I’ve collected so far.

 

What’s great about the Carol K. Pforzheimer grant—like my thesis grant before it—is that the research topic can be on any anything as long as it utilizes the Schlesinger Library’s holdings. Grants are for expenses of up to $2,500 and the final research can be published in a variety of forms. The Schlesinger Library has a wide variety of holdings on women’s history, cooking, and poetry, among other topics.

 

My own specific topic is, “The Postmodern Culinary Plate”. Through this project I plan to compose a thesis-sized project to answer the question, “How do contemporary shifts in food and drink culture in America highlight an actualization of a postmodern paradigm within present American culture?”

 

I have begun to find and access old (before the 1980’s) food and beverage advertisements, particularly of popular products sold by large corporations (e.g., Folgers, Hostess, Wonder Bread). Film and photographs on microform held in Schlesinger are of particular relevance, as are magazines as well with advertisements in them. I will also find and access old cooking magazines from the early 20th century until now. This will help aid my subproject of understanding the move away from small-scale, artisanal food products towards standardization in America (assembly line, processed foods, rise of McDonalds, etc.) after WWI and WWII, and back again towards a revitalization in “artisanal” and locally made foods (as per the “localism” movement) today. Third, I will be researching the history and rise of chefs and specialists within the culinary field. Papers by individuals in the culinary field, including Julia Child, M.F.K. Fisher and others held in Schlesinger will be of particular relevance here. Fourth, I will use the Schlesinger collection of cookbooks to trace a history of certain food items that today have been subjected to deconstruction by molecular gastronomy chefs (e.g., Tortillas Espanola deconstructed by Chef Ferran Adrià, or the drink the Bloody Mary deconstructed by Chef Dave Arnold). Additionally, menus, letters and diaries that help place the evolution of a food will also be useful. This historical understanding of how a food gains its meaning (what it should look like, taste like, smell like) can then compared to the way that food is deconstructed (a tool of postmodernism) in contemporary culture, subverting the “meaning” of the food by exposing the multiple meanings within it (e.g., how using all the ingredients of a Bloody Mary but combining them in a different way presents a related though unrecognizable product).

 

Researching in Schlesinger has been unique as none of the books from the library can be checked out, nor can bags be brought upstairs; photocopying has to be done by librarians so bringing a photo camera is encouraged instead. To preempt this, I started out spending hours at nearby Diesel Café (in Davis Square, Cambridge) and Simon’s Coffee Shop (in Porter Square, Cambridge) to search out the books, microfilms, and archives before arriving at the library. Here’s a quick look at some of my current reading list:

 

1. My Life in France – Julia Child: (Autobiography), this text provides a history of the perceived qualities of an American cook in the 1950’s (seeking simplicity, timeliness, and an emphasis on early food preparation and reheating).

2. Tuning into Mom: Understanding America’s Most Powerful Consumer – Michal Clements, Teri Lucie Thompson: (Non-fiction), this book has a chapter describing how branding and the marketing of brands works to appeal to the consumer of a mother within a household.

 

3. The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States – William Roseberry: (Non-fiction), this article describes how the recent rise in gourmet coffee in the United States is not brought on by a new agency of the “yuppie” class, but actually is an extension of a post-capitalist society whereby the consumer only believe he or she is a political actor and is instead a mere chooser where all choices support the same political framework.

4. The Restaurants Book: Ethnographies of Where We Eat – David Beriss and David Sutton: (Non-fiction), this article describes how restaurants have become a space for theatre and performance that frames the symbolic economy of the “city” (where food and restaurant identity function as a center of consumption).

 

 

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Right Place, Right Time

July 1, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 7 comments

Follow your dreams. That seems to be a theme of my posts, but that is because I truly believe it. There are so many opportunities to do so at Harvard too—everything from growing your own vegetables, to engaging in political discourse, to theatre troupes with a long history. Yet the wealth of resources can also make us veer of course.

 

I (perhaps unfortunately?) was not one of the students that changed my major as often as I immersed in Lamont to study. Partly because all the departmental intro meetings often have delicious, free food at them, but mostly because for my first two years I was so entrenched in pre-college major that I didn’t give myself the freedom to explore callings that arose.

It wasn’t until junior year that I explored the Mind-Brain-Behavior Track Program & Philosophy Department. In senior year I took on classes in anthropology & history, and realized my dream was at the intersection of all of these courses, departments, and teachers: food education, nutrition policy, and cultural foodways.

 

Instead of jumping into a job the day after graduation, I took on a fellowship to research the artisanal food movement (which I begin this week!), and completed a yoga teacher training (YTT) program that spoke to my interest in healthy & holistic healing (complementary to nutrition). Its scary to take the road less travelled, but in doing so, you may just realize (as I did) that its the path your meant for.

 

Indeed, if I never stayed in Boston and did the YTT, I would never have met the amazing owner of the studio in which we did our YTT (Karma Yoga), Jesse Widner. Through Jesse I became involved with helping and expanding his non-profit C.A.R.E, (the Community Animal Rescue and Education organization) into new projects I probably will update more as the summer goes on and plans become solidified. I’ve found this work an extremely satisfying way of bring together my varied passions of community, yoga, healing, and education.

My YTT Tribe & Jesse in the middle at Karma Yoga!

So, wherever you end up, follow your desire and carve the path you want. More updates on a summer in Boston—including the beginning of the fellowship and my evolving working with C.A.R.E—to come.

 

~Natalie

 

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Cambridge in the Summer Time

June 17, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 8 comments

Harvard Square and the outskirts around it exude feelings of small town culture and community. At the grocery store you happen by your favorite coffee barista, and by the river you give a wave to a friend from MIT. So spending the summer here in Cambridge has been a real treat, filled with great community events and lots of areas to get some sun while enjoying the best the city has to offer.

 

This week was particularly great, with some awesome events this past weekend & some outdoor places on my list to visit. Check out this list below for some things to consider doing if you find yourself in Cambridge for the summertime.

 

Herbstalk, June 9th

  • What an amazing event! This past Saturday, I went with a few friends from my yoga teacher training (and even our teachers were there as well!) to the Somerville community space (The Armory) for an event on discussing and integrating healing herbs into our life. There were classes ranging from how to use herbs to make natural lotions, what herbs into integrate with aromatherapy, and how to heal diseased with natural herbs. Between the entire information download, you could stroll through the expansive herbal market place and pick out a favorite tea, homemade lip balms, or deliciously flavored honey.  The event was a hit in its first year and I expect it will continue again—if it does and you are here next summer, certainly check it out!

Taking a class on healing herbs in the warm sun!

Dragonboat Festival, June 10th

  • There are many events during the summer around here that celebrate the cities multiculturalism. This is just one of the many, but its location (taking place on the beautiful Charles River) was certainly a draw.
  • Our yogi tribe decided to make a weekend of it and headed over. The river was filled with boats decorated in vibrant colors and followed with the deep beat of the drums in each boat.

Watch the dragonboats go!

Farmers’ Markets, ongoing beginning around June

  • Time to rejoice—farmers market season has begun again! While the armory also hosts a winter farmers market, the full spread of summer vegetables and berries begin to emerge now as the farmers markets of summer open. The one nearest my summerhouse in Davis Square has just begun, and Harvard and the Food Literacy Project host their own farmers market near the Science Center beginning this upcoming Tuesday. If you’re in the area, drop by organic produce or kombucha on tap!

Get your fill of kombucha on tap, at the Harvard Farmers’ Market

Mt. Auburn Cemetery, on a clear day

  • Boston is a city full of history, and Mt. Auburn Cemetery is no exception. Built in 1831, this cemetery is not ordinary gravesite, but is filled with the headstones attributable to some of Cambridges’ historically famous elite including B.F. Skinner (professor and psychologist), Edward Everett (former US Secretary of State and Governor of Massachusetts), and John Rawls (Harvard philosophy professor), among others.
  • On top of that, the cemetery is a breath-taking place to visit filled with thousands of shrubs and plants along the hills, expansive ponds and waterways, and woodlands with more than 5, 500 trees of 700 varieties. Given this, the location is a favorite for Cambridge bird-watchers. Come on a clear day and ascended the main tower of the cemetery to get a 360-degree view of the city from up high.

The beautiful view from atop the Mt. Auburn Cemetery Town w/ my Cambridge & California friends

Walden Pond, during a warm to hot day

  • A bit of a drive, or else a ride on the commuter rail over, Walden Pond is the former home of Henry David Thoreau where he wrote his infamous book, Walden. The expansive pond is still full of forestry and wildlife, and it’s a great place to cool off on a hot day.

Taking a dip in Walden Pond

Cambridge Commons, on a sunny afternoon

  • Between all the gallivanting to and fro these great events and historical sites, you may hope to find rest somewhere and refuel. If it’s a nice day outside, try to make it out early and find a restaurant with a patio. The restaurant Cambridge Commons is a favorite choice of mine for just this. There are a group of wooden tables seated on the main street out on Mass Avenue. Located conveniently close to Harvard, Cambridge Commons has a great selection of food for a nice brunch out.

 

 

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Post-Graduate Life: An Italian Family & Yoga on the Grass

June 6, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 2 comments

Hi everyone!

 

My apologies for the sudden disappearance for the last few weeks: with post-graduation festivities and settling into summer housing and programs, things have just begun to smooth out.

 

My time as a student at Harvard may be over now (at least as an undergraduate), but that doesn’t mean I’ve let go of Harvard Square and the Harvard community so easily. This summer I’ll be participating in two programs in Cambridge, MA in conjunction with Harvard College: Harvard-Karma Yoga Community Yoga Teacher Training Certification Program (which I’m in the midst of right now), and a research fellowship with Harvard’s Schlesinger Library (which I will begun right after my teacher training is done).

 

Before I get into the amazing Harvard-Karma program and what its like beginning summer in Boston with a bunch of yogis, I wanted to give a quick update on the graduation festivities!

 

Graduation week (May 21st to the 24th) flew by, attributably largely—I believe—to the fact that I had 10 family members staying with me and touring Boston…

With my grandparents peering out to sea

My mum & dad at the wharf 

…and Harvard together.

Outside the freshman dining hall (Annenberg)

My aunt and her boyfriend hiding from the rain as we tour Harvard

Some of my family, such as my grandparents, had never been to Boston before and it was great taking the time to re-explore this place in potentially my last summer here. We even were able to cook a full family meal together and it almost made up for missing Thanksgiving these last four years! A child of Italian heritage, pasta, bruschetta, and cannoli’s flowed plentiful from the kitchen.

Many cooks in the kitchen, with my brother Adam and mum

A real Italian-style feast

My second family who has graciously allowed me to stay through the summer: my friend Dylan and his mum Pia

Graduation itself seemed to take place in the span of two. Wednesday was Class Day, which focused on just the Harvard Undergraduates graduating complete with hilarious speakers (Andy Samberg and Barney Frank) and four great student speakers as well. The whole event was less formal and featured a lovely pre-picnic before the speakers.

With the boyfriend before senior picnic

Senior friends at senior picnic

Commencement day was on Thursday and began early at 6am with a Senior Breakfast, church service, and was filled with tradition at every turn—everything from men in top hats to a full speech given in Latin! It was a whole day affair, but the ritual of it all was amazing to witness—traditions that have been around for hundreds of years it really makes you feel part of something larger than yourself.

Note the sports-announcer-esqu explanation of commencement and its many traditions

All of Harvard Universities’ schools from the Law School to the Business School to us undergraduates was presented and united together on Thursday as each of our respective school deans declared we had met the requirements to graduate and each graduating class broke our into much deserved cheers. After a final song from the choir and the local sheriff declare the event over, we all marched the deep drum of the Harvard band out to our undergraduate house. Once there we received our diplomas with family and friends in company: a perfect ending to a beautiful day.

 Bright and early on commencement day!

With my blockmate, Anita, at our house’s diploma ceremony

Diploma officially in hand!

When Friday morning rolled around, I was sad to bid farewell to my family members but was able to find solace in my new endeavor—training to be a certified yoga teacher. A recent program began between Harvard University and Karma Yoga studio in Cambridge where students received discounted 200-hour-certification in exchange for teaching yoga for free to underserved populations in our local community. I truly believe in the healing potential of yoga and meditation, and in its ability to show individuals that they can each become self-empowered—that we all have that potential within us!

 The whole group: Om Shanti~

I am truly grateful to be part of such a great community and to learn so much about myself and from others post-graduation. As many of my Harvard friends left town, it was great to be able to truly find friends and encouragement in this new program.

Teaching each other

Learning & growing together

…And jumping off the footbridge into the Charles River together…!!

Summer so far has been beautiful, if occasionally rainy, and I’m using the opportunity to take advantage of my last few months in Boston—exploring local farmers markets, opting into new classes and workshops I’ve always wanted to take, exploring amazing parks and greenery, and trying out new restaurants as well as old favorites. Next entry I’ll write back with some of the specific events I’ve been checking out in case you too ever find yourself around Harvard for the summer—it’s a wonderful place to be!

 

Until next time~

 

~Natalie

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Kirkland Formal: “Oh Kirkland, Oh Kirkland, You are good to me!”

April 27, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | Permalink

Sleepy penguins 

Cute animals have always been an obsession of mine. I’m a cat lover at heart, but something about aquatic, flightless birds planking mini-rock formations is just so adorable.  When I found out that the Kirkland House spring formal dance would be at the New England Aquarium in Boston, I couldn’t say no. The formal attire seemed to fit in perfectly with the tuxedo-adorning penguins.

 

This was the first formal where I ditched the boyfriend and went with all girlfriends: a reunion for the group of us that had known each other since year one at Harvard. As tribute to the coming end of four incredible years, my freshman roommate Anita wore the same dress as she had to our freshman formal.

My freshman roomate, Anita, & I

The troupe of all eight of us arrived together and we were immediately enamored by a loan seal attempting to get our attention. I wondered whether the fishes would be kept awake by the loud music at the formal, but saw as we wandered inside that the dance floor was held outside on the deck, providing a beautiful view of Boston waterfront all to the sounds of a student DJ spinning out tunes.

All the group ready to head to the aquarium 

The penguins slept soundly inside and fishes of all sizes and colors whirled around us in the main lobby, providing a glowing show among the silence. Even as my last undergraduate formal, it was one of the most memorable.

 Love-Bird Penguins 

~Natalie

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The View from the End of the Road

April 20, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | Permalink

 Lowell House Courtyard

Spring has sprung: see the flowers blooming! It was almost 80 degrees and warranting more classes to be outside. Less than a week left of classes, the last official classes of Harvard, and I can’t believe it!

The senior class committee has been sending out impending countdown announcements: 36 as of now. The days are still filled with last minute study, delving into extracurricular, and preparation for graduation. I’ve been attempting to take advantage of the local surroundings while I’m in the area; particularly study breaks in local cafes!

 

 Diesel Cafe, Davis Square, Cambridge

As for extracurricular, it’s been a Food Literacy Project heavy week. This Tuesday FLP hosted our annual Top Chef competition—teams from each of the Harvard houses (and the freshmen) who won a preliminary cooking competition came together in Annenberg (the Harvard freshman dining hall) and were each given thirty minutes to make an entrée and dessert to be judged by the Harvard dining services, including Executive Chef Martin Breslin.

The event was high energy and full of creativity and food passion. Check out some of the great dishes from the event:

 

Adam House Dishes

Leverett House Dishes 

Currier House Dishes [the two kids of a house tutor were the team!]

The winner was Winthrop house with a fattoush salad and apple tart. Check out the winners and their meal below:

 

In the meantime, I’ve been working on sales and marketing with a local company, helping put on events. With that, fellowships for the summer, and an offer to get trained in yoga with a Harvard community program (!), it looks like at least the next few months post-graduation are coming together, the first couple of which will be in Boston.

 The view from a dorm room in the Leverett Towers, featuring the Charles River

~Natalie

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Harvard Mindfulness Outlets and the Senior “Bucket List”

April 13, 2012 in Alumni Blogs by npadilla | 5 comments

Yoga at home in California at the beach!

As you can imagine, Harvard students feel a bit stressed with the school load and extracurricular, not to mention any jobs on the side. But lucky there are great recourses for the overworked mind. Two of my favorites are the prevalence of meditation and yoga on campus.

 

The law school (Hemenway) and undergraduate (MAC, or Malkin Athletic Center) gyms both have a variety of group exercise classes for free for undergraduates all through-out the week.  A number of these are yoga classes ranging from the common Vinyasa Flow style, to the more healing and relaxing Hatha style, each with classes from beginning to more advanced.

 

It’s amazing to me what an hour of your day dedicated to staying in the present moment with yoga can do for your concentration, energy, and positive emotions. I recently took one of special Sunday yoga courses, which change each Sunday to a more adventuresome focus. The one I did was on headstands and shoulderstands—after being in cheerleading and gymnastics for most of my pre-college life, this turned out to be a ton of fun!

Yoga headstands

Invigorated by the powerful healing aspect of yoga, I recently helped get my parents into it—after much persuasion, they are now both taking private lessons in it, liking it so much. Now that I’ll be graduating soon, I realize how lucky I am to have free yoga classes as many places typically charge $12 or more of class.

 

In an effort to extend the benefits of yoga to everyone in the community—for it should be something everyone has access too, not just though you can afford it—, I recently applied and got an interview for the Karma Yoga Studio Community Program, a Harvard-based student program that works with the local Harvard Karma Yoga Studio to provide extremely discounted yoga training to students (such as myself) who then will provide a certain number of community service hours of yoga teaching to underserved populations such as the homeless or high school students. I’ll keep you updated on how that process goes.

And, of course, mindfulness techniques at Harvard can be cultivated in the form of meditation. As part of my “senior bucket-list” (a list I started to try and complete all the things I’ve always wanted to do at Harvard before leaving), I finally went to the Harvard Meditation Club. I’ve done meditating at home and at the Harvard Women’s Center, but stop going to the Women’s Center one.

 

The Harvard Meditation Club has two weekly events, a teacher-led session on Tuesdays, and a student-led session and philosophical discussion on Saturdays. I went the Tuesday session and loved the energy that came with group meditation and discussion. I know I’ll get going back.

 

I’m about to take off for yoga class (Yin Yoga at Karma Yoga Studio), but thought I’d just provide my senior bucket list thus far:

 

Senior Bucket List

 

To Do

* Use the Leverett House Darkroom to develop photographs

* Eat at the local Greater Boston Buddhist Center

* Go to every (or the most possible) house’s Master’s Open House [we went to Kirkland’s yesterday for dessert and coffee]

* Apply for a DAPA (Drug & Alcohol Peer Advisors) Grant for a food-centric party with friends

* Go to the Harvard Observatory in the Science Center

* Check out Adam’s basement tunnels

* Go to a play, opera, or otherwise (two in mind so far!)

Art from the Adam’s House Tunnels

Completed

* Rock Climbing in Lowell House

* Harvard Museum of Natural History

* Fall asleep in a library [Cabot Library]

* Get lost in Widener

* Get a free water

* Go to Harvard’s 3am eateries  (e.g., The Kong, Felipe’s, Nocs, & Falafel Corner)

* Get a free DAPA water bottle

* Classes at the Innovation Lab

* Leverett Sherry Tasting with the Master

* Write for The Crimson

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