Happy Moon Festival!

If you didn't go to the Moon Festival event on last Wednesday in the KBR, then you missed out on delicious mooncakes, origami, awesome performances by students and faculty, and karaoke! Okay, so maybe it's not THE most exciting way to spend Wednesday evening, but I certainly had fun. I like to think people appreciate our effort in making the Asian community feel welcome in this dinky town :).

I was a bit late for the event because it started at 4pm and my Zoology lab doesn't end until 5. Most of the first hour was just the "mixer" part, allowing people to walk around the tables, snack, and hopefully make some friends! I made it just in time for the next part of the event -- entertainment! Some of the Chinese international students sang a traditional song together, and a Chinese Mongolian international student performed a song in traditional dress as well! One of the ethnic studies professors, Wurlig Bao, has an amazing singing voice and shared it with us all at the event! If you ever have her for a class, she will gladly share it then, too. A student did a presentation explaining the meaning of the Moon Festival and the way different nations celebrate it. After all the performances, people lined up to receive mooncakes and more yummy treats. Then we started up karaoke to finish off the event :)

I thought this event turned out really well and we had a lot of people attend! I wish I could have done more to help -- thanks APASA, CSSA, and MCC for putting on such a great event for the community!

As long I have the luck when it really matters...

Unfortunately, I don't have a Naturalist Club adventure to share because I was at work getting certified for CPR and First Aid (about 3 months later than I should have...good job boss!) instead of tubing down the Trinity River (Boooo! But at least I won't be totally useless if my work client is in need of some life-saving! Which is useful, since I work in supported living services!!!). So instead of telling you about my non-adventure, I'm going to write about a club I forgot to mention in my first post.

Conservation Unlimited is the HSU student chapter of The Wildlife Society, and I just joined last spring. You have to pay to be a member, but it's entirely worth it to be able to attend workshops and events they put on! This semester I also enrolled in the class for Wildlife Conclave, which is basically to train the Quiz Kids of wildlife (did anyone else have Quiz Kids at their high school? I know trivia's totally nerdy but it's all stuff I need to know for my career later anyway!)! The quiz bowls are held at The Wildlife Society conferences, where wildlife biologists and students gather for workshops and field trips and all that good stuff.

This Fall's national conference is going to be held in Snowbird, Utah. Conclave gets some funding from the school to take students to these conferences, and also has a coffee table in the Wildlife & Fisheries Building to raise money for these trips. Of course, these trips can get a bit expensive ($220 registration fee per person, transportation, lodging for a week, etc.) so not everyone in the class can go all the time. The established conclavers are a given, but we only had enough funds to take 5 newbies (me being in the newbie category). Newbies had to draw straws for those 5 spots, and that's where all my luck for the week went! I have to miss a week of class, but it is so worth it! The Fall conference is the national (not regional) one, so that means it's mostly professionals and fewer students attending, which means I get to meet these awesome wildlife biologists! Not to mention a whole week of geeking out over whatever animals we get to see in Utah and learning from students and the professors going who all know tons more than I do!

Anywho, I already know what I'll be talking about for my next post, which will not be wildlife-related this time. APASA is helping host the Moon Festival on Wednesday, September 22nd in the Kate Buchanan Room from 4-7pm. Stop on by for yummy treats, karaoke, and more! If you can't make it, I will be writing all about it in my next post!

HSU here I am! ...now what?

I love following certain blogs but never ever EVER planned on having my own. Yet here I am writing my first post thanks to my English teacher, Susan Bennet. Since we only need to update the blog weekly, I have decided to write about the adventure of the HSU Naturalist Club! We go somewhere fun every Saturday morning and go birding, herping, etc.

I didn't join Naturalist Club until I returned to HSU after a year of academic leave. You see, I was very homesick after coming up to live in Arcata the first time. I grew up in Daly City, California which is the southern neighbor of San Francisco. I really thought I would love small town life but I didn't that first year. With seemingly nothing better to do than party every weekend, I got real tired of it real fast. A house party's a house party, and the lack of 18+ clubs or anything interesting killed me since I was just a wee freshman not old enough to venture the dance floors of the bars. I took a year of leave and ran on home to take a few classes at CCSF and work a bunch. I decided that if I couldn't transfer somewhere after that year, I would just go back to HSU and finish up my degree -- which is exactly what happened. I'm really glad it happened that way, though. I still feel lightyears away from civilization, but I've learned to appreciate that. I joined some clubs that made school seem a lot more fun than before, and finally started taking my actual major classes for wildlife. If I had been smart enough to do that in the first place, I probably would have stayed. The club I mentioned already is Naturalist Club. Last spring I enjoyed tubing in the snow, birding and herping at gorgeous places like Patrick's Point, and learning how to survive a night in the wilderness with just the clothes on my back and a knife. I'll mostly be talking about the activities in this club for my blog, but I might as well use it to publicize the events that APASA hosts as well!

APASA, the Asian Pacific American Student Alliance, is the other club I'm so happy I joined at HSU. Part of the culture shock I experienced when first coming to HSU was serious lack of minorities...HSU claims to be a very diverse campus but honestly, they're still working on making that a fact. I never even knew something like that would affect me until I moved to Arcata. I guess it's mostly the lack of delicious asian food that kills me. But after joining APASA, I met some awesome people that I can relate to on these kinds of issues and cook some yummy filipino food with! So aside from just talking a lot and eating a lot, APASA hosts events for holidays like the Moon Festival which is coming up at the end of the month. There's always food and fun activities and everyone in the community is welcome. Don't feel like you shouldn't come if you're not asian -- we welcome everyone to learn about our customs, stories, and fooooood. I'll be sure to keep you guys updated when the plans are all set for events like this!