Tuesday, April 19, 201 1 I

Diary ofan

By Ustav Gandhi & Alex Miller
CAMPUS EDITOR & STAFF WRITER

So on day 3, our actual work began: The rea
son we’re actually here, all the way in Califore
nia, giving up our spring break to come out
and make a difference through some real come
munity service:

Excited as we all were, it really wasn’t a sure
prise when almost everyone was up at 7 in
the morning with incredible energy, lunches
packed the night before and breakfasts made
with superfast speed, all raring to go: The
morning was cold (nowhere close to the Chi,
cago norm, though) and the traffic jams gave
us ample time to bond over our epic ‘ASB
playlists’ 7 favorite songs contributed by every
member of the team 7 and believe me, that
was a diverse collection of some of the most
incredible songs we had ever heard, and was in
a way the perfect reflection of the diversity of
people who had contributed them:

Once at the site, after a little orientation ses
sion with our really enterprising site leaders,
we were split into groups and sent to two dif
ferent work sites 7 and it seemed that today we
were going to be helping with hauling lots and
lots of wood and metal into piles that were to
be recycled or discarded or set aside for storage
7 and there were pretty rough pieces of wood
and metal that we were dealing with here:

 

ISA shows pride on
campus through
new, fun events

By Ustav Gandhi
CAMPUS EDITOR

This past semester, the Indian Students Assoe
ciation (ISA) on campus has been very active
in organizing a number of interesting events
which have seen enthusiastic participation
from both the Exec Board and the student
population in general: Four members of the
current exec board, Danny Varghese, Shwetha
Gandhi, Sakshi Sahni and Urba Mandrekar are
either graduating this semester or in Deceme
ber, so this was a year where the freshmen were
trained to take on the responsibility from next
year

January 26, India’s Republic Day Celebration:
This was celebrated in the MTCC Auditorium
on Thursday, April 27, with a short orientation
of the current exec board members and then
an excellent TED talk screening, “Why Nations
pursue ‘Soft’ Power," where he talks about how
India is fast becoming a superpower W not just
through trade and politics, but through “soft"
power, and its ability to share its culture with
the world through food, music, technology,
and Bollywood:

February 17, Mehndi Night: For those of
you who don’t know, mehndi is also known
as “henna" It’s a beautiful temporary form of
skin decoration There was music, dancing;
everything involved to make this a classic and
beautiful evening

March 20, Holi: IIT celebrated the Indian fese
tival of colors at the Quad and the Delts House:
Holi , the festival of colors , is undoubtedly the
most funefilled and energetic of festivals: t’s an
occasion that brings in unadulterated joy and
mirth, fun and play, music and dance, and,
of course, lots of bright colors! Coesponsors:
Union Board and Delta Tau Delta:

March 31, ISA Cultural Night: There was Bole
lywood, there was the energy of South India,
there was Bhangra, there was a fashion show,
there were some beautiful multilingual sing,
ing performances 7 this show had it all: The
biggest night of the year was the ISA Cultural
Night, held on the 31st of March: ISA also
donated all the proceeds to the Mission India
Foundation a USebased charity organization
that focuses on child vaccination

Students are already looking forward to an
equally exciting lineup of events the upcome

ing year:

TechNews

campus@technewsiit.com

RYAN KAMPHIUS
UTSAV GANDHI

ASB'er: It's the final countdown!

An amusing skill that emerged amongst two
of our team members was of wrapping the
piles in plastic! Rani and Maria were complete
naturals at this unexpectedly diflicult job, and
by lunch on the first day we knew that we were
all definitely out of our comfort zone here:

Postelunch was also spent at the same site,
working in the store yard, and we were pretty
exhausted by the time we met the other group
and shared our experiences:

The other team, meanwhile, watched over
half of the students pack up their bags and
head off in the Chevy Suburbans: The group
left behind at the warehouse split into two
groups: construction and organization We
hauled buckets and boxes full of metal, tools,
nails, screws, and various other objects into the
shelving area, then split them into their respece
tive groups:

The trailer we were emptying seemed to nevi
er end: The other half of the morning was also
quite interesting: Cutting up wooden Iebeams,
we then attached them to become ceiling and
floor joists in the new back rooms:

The next day was installation day: putting
in drywall: Holding up drywall was quite an
interesting task, especially as putting it up on
the ceiling required holding it up with a very
interesting tool~our headsI

We also went exploring Berkeley the next
night: Getting frozen yogurt (again!) was one

DETAILS AND RE
Deposits can be

of the highlights of the night, but our carpool
also went into the records store, selecting a
classy country CD:

Using Erin as our tool, we pretended the
country CD was part of the ASB playlist: Chris,
our driver, tried to be as nice and understand,
ing as he could, but he couldn’t understand
why we all were cracking up until we got back
to the church and he ejected the CD to discove
er its true identity

The next two days were spent at a different
site, working with some new friends we made
who had come from Utah: They were really
friendly and we all got along with them really
well, especially Coach Neal: These two days
were spent actually constructing houses in a
site with seven of them getting ready, and our
jobs included putting up Tyvek paper to rene
der the walls waterproof (a pretty important
job!) and fixing up the windows, among other
things:

At the end of it all, we really thought we had
made a significant contribution In a way, it
was quite hard to say goodbye to our friends
from Utah: Those four days of our actual, real
service were incredibly rewarding, incredibly
fulfilling:

The most unforgettable moment of the trip,
however, wasn’t on the work site: And it was
unfortunate that everyone wasn’t there to ex,
perience it: Thursday was the day of the typie

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Paid oniine!

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cally gorgeous California weather, and in the
evening we were not going to go without tak
ing advantage of that:

After work, the group split up, and there were
a few who chose to take their cars all the way
to Point Benita, a part of the largest urban na
tional park in the United States, the Golden
Gate National Recreation Area: A secret jewel
of the Bay Area, Point Bonita is still an active
lighthouse: The US: Coast Guard maintains
the lighthouse and the National Park Service
provides access to visitors: It was the most
beautiful spot to witness the most beautiful
sunset overlooking the Gate on one side and
the endless Pacific Ocean on the other:

All credit to Coach Neal, who, having trained
there many years back, had a razoresharp
memory and knew exactly where to navigate
the car 7 even without a GPS: In many ways,
that was the cherry on the cake for us 7 as
we bade goodbye to our gracious hosts at the
Church on Saturday, as we drove over the
Bridge one last time on Thursday, as we ate our
final prepared meal, as we saw Chicago on the
distant horizon on the plane back 7 we just had
one sight, that of the waves crashing on to the
rocks at Point Benita, just one sound, that of
the seagulls encircling our heads, and just one
feeling, that of pure exhilaration, embedded in
our senses: ASB ’11 was in many ways, an un
forgettably ‘alternative’ exp erience:

GISTRATION