Every summer, 20,000 interns swarm Washington, D.C. The busy bees work at nonprofits, senators' offices and law firms; they buzz about on the subway; they share the succulent nectar of happy hour while waiting to jab some stinger into a sweet networking opportunity. Lucky for me, I live in the D.C.
The following is an account of third-year College student Hannah Woolf's journey from her home in Maryland to Nantes, France, where she is studying abroad this semester.
First-few-week fervor hasn't fizzled out entirely. I'm still running into friends I haven't seen since last year, still doling out my standard "How was your summer?" with an earnest shot of enthusiasm.
For many first-year University students, the year went like this: Blink. Fall semester rushed by.
A dozen buzzing ele-mentary schoolers nudge each other, edge in and crowd around a black-ink drawing displayed in the University Art Museum.
"Bienvenuti!" Modest signs displaying the Italian word for "welcome" in red lettering are taped to the glass doors of Jordan Hall, the University Medical Center's conference building, this week. The little signs are pointing to big things. Meant for a group of 21 cardiologists from Italy, the bienvenutis welcome the visitors to a three-day post-graduate interactive learning course at the University Medical Center.
Barely a day after last month's tsunami ravaged parts of Asia and Africa, a small group of University students thousands of miles away from the disaster began a conversation that has developed into a large-scale relief effort. Students walking by Minor Hall Monday night may have seen signs directing them inside to a major tsunami relief fundraiser that featured speakers reading survivors' accounts, a bake sale, tea, souvenirs from Thailand and raffle prizes -- one of which was a $100 gift certificate to Jaberwoke. Students may also have stopped by the Buffalo Wing Factory for a bar night last night that donated proceeds to post-tsunami aid. In mere weeks, what began as an exchange of words between second-year College students Caitlin Howarth and Daniel Pike and third-year College students Andrés Gil and Dina Hardy transformed into a CIO called UVA-SHARE (Students Helping Asian Relief Efforts) -- the organization responsible for these fundraisers and potentially more events in the future. "We were all talking online, checking the news and watching the numbers of deaths rise every hour," Hardy said.
Out of an industrial, no-nonsense file cabinet, Anthropology Prof. David Sapir gently pulled a stack of small composition books bursting with character.
With noon sun glowing on her freckled face, Claudia Ford sipped on a freshly made strawberry smoothie and glanced at three girls wearing pastel-pink tutus last Monday. "Oh, my daughter loves to wear those!" said Ford, a visiting environmental sciences scholar at the University, with an excitement normally reserved for kids in candy stores. She was talking about Vyanna, her three-year-old adopted daughter and the inspiration for her book, "Why Do I Scream at God for the Rape of Babies?", which she will be signing at Quest Bookshop today. Ford is also a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and works in international development. Ford met her future daughter at a hospital in Johannesburg on Dec.
Good times were had at second-year College student Stuart Farrell's house yesterday, as he and his pro-Bush roommates celebrated the Republican presidential victory with beer and fun for all. Drinking aside, Farrell said he was "pretty content" that Bush had won -- and not shocked. "I'm actually not surprised," he said.
