Kalysha Clark

I got a scholarship and an award!

Since this was Roots and Shoots first semester at NC State, the founders came together and decided they wanted to give back to the members by giving a scholarship to one student every year. They said the student would be someone who was involved with the club, who takes their knowledge from speakers and events to apply them to the real world, and one who they would be proud to call a member. I was chosen for this years award and was presented with a $100 scholarship from the founders.

I was beyond surprised and my mom happened to be at the meeting when they announced it, which was an added bonus. This money will help me pay for my outrageously priced books for the upcoming year.

I'm so blessed to have been a part of the club and am happy to be taking on a leadership opportunity next year. I can't wait to see what the year holds for the club.

So I'm really late at uploading these pictures, but to my defense, I have been swamped lately. As you may know, this is my last week of classes so I have a lot of assignments and I am even taking time from my 9 page argumentative research paper due tomorrow (which is almost done!) to post this for you.

Here are some of the pictures, I hope you enjoy!

I hosted my first program at NC State last night. I talked about it in a previous blog post where I mentioned that I had received a grant for it.

We chose to show the movie Trade and host a discussion afterward about international human trafficking.

We managed to stay under our budget tremendously and only spent $30 of the $50 we were given. We bought drinks and popcorn, we ordered the movie on Amazon, we printed flyers, and we made a Facebook event page. The event was sent out in lots of email circulars, including WISE, CSLEPS, and Chancellor's Leadership Program.

Everything was going smoothly.

Until the day before.

Kristine (the other girl running the program) and I thought it would be a good idea to have a "guest" speaker to host the discussion because we didn't know too much about human trafficking. A friend had given me the email of a girl who she knew was involved with a lot of human trafficking research. I contacted her (a week or so before) and she had recommended that we show Trade, since it was originally planned that we would show Taken. She said Trade was a better depiction. She was excited about our event and wanted to speak but wasn't actually able to because of time conflicts. So she gave me the email of another girl who would be interested. I contacted her (a few days before the program) and told her the plan. She decided to watch the movie herself and felt like some scenes may be too graphic if there were any sexual violence survivors at the program.

So she contacted the woman who had given our grant (the woman who leads the Chancellor's program) basically behind my back to tell her that she was concerned about the movie. I was then contacted by the leader of the Chancellor's program to tell me that we should give our viewers the number of the Rape and Sexual Violence Phone Line, which I felt was appropriate.

Then the girl who was supposed to speak said she felt like we should have someone from the counseling center on campus or from the women's center come to the showing. I called and called but no one was available (especially the day before!). The counselor's center recommended we reschedule, which was just not an option.

The girl who was supposed to speak and the head of the program were going to talk to each other and contact me. They never did. So I went on with the program. We seriously only had six people, including myself and Kristine. Only one girl who attended wasn't a close friend of either me or Kristine. So we had terrible turnout. I still gave the disclaimer and we provided the phone number. I also gave a verbal warning before any graphic scenes occurred.

And the girl who was supposed to speak? Never even showed up.

This event was supposed to give me and Kristine opportunities to be leaders on campus. I felt like it was hard to lead because everyone else was telling me how to do it. And they were piling it all on me the day before.

If I learned anything from this event, I learned:
-Watch a movie before you plan to show it to others, even if someone knowledgeable recommended it.
-Don't depend on others to come through with something. After all, sometimes you can only count on yourself.
-Don't expect things to go exactly as planned because they never do. (We had some technical difficulties with the projector and had the start the movie 15 minutes late.)

All in all, we educated a few people about the topic, so we did what we were supposed to. But I can't help but think this program wasn't exactly "successful".

Hopefully we'll get 'em next time.

That's right! I met the Chancellor of NC State and his wife on Monday evening. I'm in the Chancellor's First Year Student Leadership Program, a program envision and created by the chancellor and his wife, and we were invited to their home for light appetizers.

I had a fun and not-overly productive weekend.

Scholars, which is a program on campus that provides "opportunities that challenge University Scholars to develop as thinkers, citizens, and leaders and prepare them to achieve their personal and professional goals as they make their contributions to a democratic society", offered free bowling on Friday and since I have several friends in Scholars, I tagged along. I also plan to join Scholars if I can bring my GPA up a little bit. I think I would like it much better than the Honors Program.

Saturday, I spent the day hanging in my room and worked on my lab report, which is due Wednesday. The hardest thing about lab reports is finding sources to cite! Ugh. Then that night, my friends Maysen, Haley and I went to see the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. They should rename it "Extremely Sad and Incredibly Sad". No, really. The movie was good but it was just so sad! 

Today, I spent the day laying around and wasting time until I had a closing banquet for LIA, which lasted two and a half hours. It wasn't bad though. I got a certificate for completing my Discover 1 Class and a picture of Class #5 (which is my class). 

I also got set up for an interview this coming Friday for a local bookstore so I can buy back books from students. I heard the job isn't worth the effort because you don't hardly get paid, but any money is better than no money.

I'm meeting the Chancellor tomorrow! Ahh. 

I'm also seeing my friend Lauren, who I have hardly seen since Fall semester. Needless to say, I'm happy about that.

That about wraps up my weekend. Hope you guys enjoyed yours. I have a full week ahead of me, but I can tackle it. 

It's begun. The countdown until summer break.

The remainder of my freshman year is completely booked and I feel super overwhelmed. I had a biology test today, a chemistry lab practical and a short paper due tomorrow, a chemistry test on Thursday, a closing reception for LIA on Sunday, dinner with the Chancellor on Monday, a Roots and Shoots documentary on Tuesday, a biology lab report due next Wednesday as well as group volunteering, a 24 hour museum opening on Friday night and the list goes on.

I just want it all to be over with!

I'm trying to be productive and manage my time so that I can get through this mess of a month! Exams don't look like they'll be too difficult since I only have three, really, and one isn't cumulative.

That means my two hardest will be biology and chemistry and I will hopefully have lots of time to study for both of them.

Dorm life can be pretty beneficial, especially for a first-year student. Housekeeping cleans the bathroom for you and takes out the trash, you're (mostly) walking distance from class and from cool hangout spaces, you're always informed on events happening around campus and if anything breaks all you have to do is put in a work order and maintenance handles it for you.

On the other hand, dorm life can be pretty crappy. I was gung-ho about living on campus my first year. I was excited to get a roommate and become best friends with her and develop a huge social network of friends.

Well, turns out I don't like dorm life. At. All.

My roommate was super sweet, but the room made her sick! (We live in an older dorm and the ventilation system isn't the best.) So she moved out after first semester. I was alright with that. I wasn't mad or anything and I get a room to myself. Two desks, two closets, two beds pushed together to make a giant one. Heaven.

But when you go to a college where none of your high school friends went, you have to make new friends. And I struggled with that. I stayed cooped up in my room on the computer.

I have since made awesome friends, including some in the next dorm over who I will be living with next year and some from an awesome club I'm in.

Dorm life is still crappy.

The shower is TINY! The water pressure is terrible and you almost always get burned by the water.

The walls are paper thin and I can hear everything anyone around me says or does (very clearly, mind you), including those next to me and above me.

It's difficult to make your own food because (in our case) there aren't lounges on every floor.

The dump truck! Oh GOD, don't get me started on the dump truck! Every morning around 3-4 AM, the dump truck comes to collect the trash from our dorm dumpster. 4 AM! BEEP BEEEP BEEEEEP DUSIJLVBI CJUICHUI (That's the sound of the extremely LOUD clanging it makes as the dumpster hits the truck). I live on the side of the dorm where the dumpster is so I'm extremely lucky to hear that every single morning.....

The list goes on.

If you're not yet in college, make sure you weigh out the pros and cons of living in a dorm before you decide to do so.

I'll be living on campus for another long year, but that's only because I'm waiting for my boyfriend to finish school before I get an apartment.

Until then, I'll make do with what I've got, but next year, I'm definitely not living in the dorm I live in now!

A friend and I who are both in the Chancellor's First Year Student Leadership Program applied for a Mini-Grant ($50) from the Women's Center to do something to raise awareness about a global humanitarian issue.

We decided to hold an event to raise awareness for Human Trafficking. We plan to show the movie "Trade" in a common area in one of the dorm's and prepare handouts about what human trafficking is, why it happens and what we can do to prevent it. I was given contact information to a student here who is working with human trafficking and who is passionate about the topic. I contacted her and she's hoping to come speak at our event and host a post-movie discussion.

We plan on using the grant to get food and drinks (popcorn and sodas, really), the movie, and money to print flyers and handouts.

I'm really excited about it and even though we only have two weeks before the event, I'm hoping we have a good turn out!

To read about how to event turned out, click here.