Northeastern University

Elizabeth Sorenti

LAST BLOG. reflect on service learning. last time to reflect.

November 15th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

So this is my last blog … (tear). I am finally all done with my service hours. I have worked in so many different places and for so many different organizations that have to do with London or the whole UK. I have worked for Thames21, Breast Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research UK, London Air Ambulance, and Junior League of London. Service has been interesting to say the least. I have met so many people and been to parts of London I didn’t even know existed. I saw the beautiful Victoria Park, I saw the Kensington Town Hall, the Jubilee Place Shopping Mall, the Earls Court Exhibition, and the outside of a football game. All of these I would not have seen if I hadn’t signed up for service. Not only that but I talked to quite a few people about the United States and about what they think of it. Also, I had many discussions with people about London and what they think about it compared to what I think about it. Another aspect of service has been what it has taught me. I learned about how the Air Ambulance is charity based, and how much a football game really means to London. Not only that but I also learned about how big organizations like the Breast Cancer Research UK organize and promote in order to fundraise. Overall, my experience with service in London has been a good one, besides maybe the having to get up extremely early!

re-entry. thoughts about GOING HOME :)

November 10th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

So lets talk about going home. I like this blog because I get to actually talk about how I feel. I actually was just talking to my parents about coming home last night. I explained to them that I am ready to come home and just relax. It is time for me to go home. The one thing I am really excited about is seeing my nephew, Josh. He is 3 and a half years old and I miss him more than anything. Not only that, but my sister and I had just started becoming close, and she had a baby, my new niece Emma, on August 9th, two days before I had to leave. I saw the baby once. So for me, there is so much to go home to.

BUT… as I told my mom and dad last night, I feel myself starting to panic that I don’t have enough time here. I don’t have enough time to see and experience London. This is where I start to believe the whole “reverse culture shock” idea. Actually, not only that, but I feel almost British in some senses now. Like, for instance, I have tea almost everyday, and I catch myself saying “mate” instead of friend. This is home to me now.

I feel like when I go home, I am going to have a sigh of relief to see my family, and smell my home, and feel the comforts of my own comforters, and hear the annoying sound of my dogs bark, and the same sounds that I was used to hearing every night. I will be comforted by my mom’s cooking, the ability to drive, see my brother, and work again (believe it or not I miss having a job). Oh, and to see American money again… that’ll be weird! After I get all settled again though, I’m not sure if I will miss it in London or not. I know for certain I will miss sharing a room with Val. She never fails to wake me up in the morning or remind me to take my contacts out at night!

One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to actually start working towards my major. My major is engineering, and none of the classes I took here had anything to do with it. Some of the classes I had different views towards as well, which can be frustrating. But I got through it all. I am excited to show my final project for this class. Final projects mean almost done. I am SO excited about going to Boston as well. Boston is by far my favorite city ever. Boston has so much heart to it. Bruins season is going on as well, which I’m excited about. I’m excited about going to a school where I can go home for a weekend if I want to.

It’s weird too because I’m not going straight home. My mom is meeting me in Italy and we are traveling for a week. So I have a different feeling about the last day than everyone else. December 6th is coming close though… that’s when I’ll be home home for good. Or at least until January 7th.

10.4

November 3rd, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I would like to see people start caring for community as a whole more often as a simple change. People should stop littering and help keep our environment clean. This is a world problem. To stop littering would make everything cleaner for the children and it would save animals. I don’t think that it would stress people out to find a trash bin instead of throwing it on the ground. In london a productive thing would be trash cans on the streets. Also i realize some litter isn’t always from people, it is from the wind. I know that there are a lot of things in the thames river that were not intentionally put there. That is why organizations like Thames21 are very important. The service learning has inspired me to maybe set up an organization to clean the elementary school that is right next to my school. Every time i walk past there I see a bunch of trash. My dad always helps pick it up. Maybe I could get a group of people like my dad to help organize. I need to further develop my skills to be able to organize something like that. I think I could get it going though.

Global citizen ?

November 3rd, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Actually, I think that anyone that is part of the globe has to be counted as a global citizen. I feel that if someone is part of what makes up the world, then they have to be counted as a global citizen. Just because we might not know that some people even exist doesn’t mean that they aren’t global citizens. Thats like saying that if we don’t know a certain animal exists they aren’t part of the species that they come from.

The whole subject of what defines a global citizens is a tough one, because you can look at it from different angles. For instance, what defines a citizen? To be a global citizen does one have to be part of a civilization? and if that is true do they have to be civilized? because if that is the case, then not the entire human race should be counted as global citizens. But then there’s always the question of being civilized to what standards? There are so many different perspectives one could look at when asking what is a global citizen, that it is hard to exclude different persons.

Pretty much I’m not really sure what being a global citizen is. All I know is that I am one.

I’m privileged :)

October 27th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

So when you do something for others, it really makes you look back and yourself and say, “wow, you did a good thing.” That is the feeling I have been having while in London. Granted I haven’t done the most service here, but I’ve signed up for a lot, having to cancel because of prior commitments, which stinks. But, service always makes me look back and say, “Liz, you definitely made a difference today.” No matter how big the difference is, it still starts a new beginning for something, such as a person or an area. There are so many fun things that I have done, like go outside a soccer stadium to raise money. That was a lot of fun. Also, giving out medals to runners in a 10K run for cancer. Good for them. It makes me want to better myself by working out to better a community like helping raise money for cancer.

Looking back, I’ve been privileged to be able to go to London for school, and being pushed to do service is a privilege as well, because I’m being pushed to go out there and see what the actual community is like. It truly has changed my perspective a bit on London.

Alcohol. It’s different.

October 27th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Learning about the difference in alcohol between the US and UK is really interesting to learn. A huge difference when comparing the US with the UK is the drinking. Drinking is much more accepted here. The drinking age in the US is 21 whereas in the UK it is 18. Not only the drinking age, but the way in which people drink is different. In the UK, people drink as a casual thing. With dinner, they will just have a beer, or a glass of wine. It’s almost like a normal everyday thing. In the United States, everyone usually does that when they are out. In the UK, when one turns 18, it is not as bog of a deal as in the United States when someone turns 21.

When comparing laws, legal impairment is different in the two countries. In the US, it is restricted by time and by number of drinks and by gender. In the UK, the drink amount is more loosely proclaimed and the time limit is stated as in one outing, which could be any amount of time.

Also, when comparing commercials about drinking, the US is more tied with driving and are less serious. The UK commercials are more connected to what people actually do when they drink. There are many differences between the alcohol customs between the UK and the US.

exercise 9.6

October 20th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

exercise 9.6

1. My name is Elizabeth Anne Sorenti. I am a student in a service learning course while studying abroad in London. I am required to complete atleast 30 hours of service while in London. This past weekend, I collected money for London Air Ambulance.
2. This experience was well because we were outside of a football stadium right before the game was going to start. Everyone was just drinking and wanted to have a good time. There were a lot of people who didn’t want to give but then saw colleen and I dancing around asking for donations and cracked a smile, causing them to donate.
3. There weren’t really any obstacles during this event, besides the fact that people might not want to donate. In this case there is no way to make the situation better. If someone refuses to donate, they refuse to donate.
4. I did indeed accomplish my goals. Kanji and Danny were one group and Colleen and I were another. We decided to make it a contest to see who could lure in the most amount of people to donate. This made it fun, and Colleen and I were the winners! We ended up raising a good amount of money.
5. Next time, I wish that I could be more pushy about it. Also, I would get to the game a little earlier because there were a lot of people already there. A flashy outfit is another thing that always adds to the donations, so next time I would get me one of those.
6. The college cannot really do anything different to prepare me and my fellow students for service. In order to actually learn something from it, we kind of have to be stuck on our own to experience and learn.
7. The community organization, London Air Ambulance, didn’t really have a meeting spot, or someone to really tell us where to go, so everything was a little disorganized. To make it better, there should be someone there to tell us where to go, like stations.
8. I would explain this event as a fun event. It was cool to see all the people getting ready for the game by going in and out of the gift shop and all getting a drink at the bar. It was cool to see so many people volunteering for the London Air Ambulance as well. I had a lot of fun.

Well, seeing as this information is on my blog, everyone has access to it. From this experience, I would emphasize that London Air Ambulance is a charity based organization, and it needs as many volunteers as possible.

Changes

October 20th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

So, actually I haven’t really had too too much of a perspective change on London through service. The people are the same no matter what type of service you are doing, and there are problems that need volunteering no matter where you are. But, there is one thing that has changed my views of London through service. I would never get to see the parts of London that I have been without my service. Since Thames21, I have done three other service activities. Through these, I have seen areas of London that I probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I went to the Jubilee Place shopping Mall which I didn’t even know existed. Also, I went to collect money outside a football game. So far I have no been to one of those. It was so cool to see the people actually excited for a football game. There was a different feeling amongst the people. So, instead of changing the way I feel about London, service has just expanded my areas of London, causing me to see London as a bigger area with more different types of area that I would have realized otherwise.

8.4 The Disciplinary Lens

October 13th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

My major is engineering (very different than everyone else’s here!) Some skills that go along with engineering are as follows:

always approach a situation with a critical mindset; look at things more factually rather than emotionally; math obviously; problem solving and looking at things like a puzzle to solve; etc..

My community partner’s skills are very different. My community partners are good at the following:

talking to people; promoting; raising money; organizing raffles; etc.

Our skills are so different, but they work together greatly. I went to the fundraiser and went in with the mindset that i had a problem to solve and I needed to raise as much money as I could. The lady there, her name is Marie McNeil had set up the entire day. She organized a raffle and got donations from many different suppliers. She talked to the people the wanted to enter the raffle and I did my best to lure them in.

An engineer major has very different skills than a lot of other majors. Many of the organizations just want somebody who is going to come, do the work, and not complain.  That is me. I work perfectly with organizations. I show up, they tell me what to do, and I do it. End of story.

service outside zone 1

October 13th, 2009 by liz's blog :) | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

This past week I completed my service outside of zone 1. It was a Thursday morning and I went to the Jubilee Place Shopping Mall at the Canary Wharf Tube Stop. Rachael, Danny, Colleen, Chris and I all went to help raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. The five of us dressed up in pink camouflage pajamas with pink hats and stood out in the mall asking for donations for breast cancer research. The month of October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

It was troubling to keep getting turned down, and when I said, “would you like to donate to breast cancer research?,” and the people said “not right now,” I wanted to ask them… when? It gets really frustrating that people aren’t willing to throw a few pennies in the bin.

There wasn’t anything too extremely different about zone 2 than zone 1. The only thing that was different was that people were more in a rush because they were mostly on their lunch breaks and rushing back to work. Everyone was dressed in suits or really nice clothing.

Overall it was a great experience. Breast Cancer Awareness is something that I would love to keep helping out with. I am still talking with the company on when I can volunteer again.

p.s. i tried to add a picture but it didn’t let me.