Halloween/Elections

For the past month or so I have been getting more involved with Rotary and other community service functions. This on top of my studies have kept my daily schedule full. This has finally helped me create a routine which I have gotten use too. Some of the events that I have gotten involved with include the Burj Al Arab swim. This is a charity event put on by MSF which involves swimming 1km around the Burj Al Arab in an effort to draw awareness and money for charitable causes. Another opportunity that we are arranging to help the local communities is volunteering at a special needs school. Tomorrow night we are going to a meeting for a new rotaract club that we helped create. It is just in it's initial steps but has a lot of potential. This will help a group of us figure out other service events in which we can partake in or create. Academic wise I finished midterms a few weeks ago and now am focusing on group projects and term papers due at the end of the semester.

Besides this, two memorable events that have occurred in the past month were Halloween, and the presidential election. Halloween night involved dozens of my friends from all around the world dressing up and celebrating a holiday that many were not accustom to. Everyone was very creative with their costumes and thoroughly enjoyed the holiday. It was also great to experience the presidential elections with a very diverse group of friends. This included several friends who are from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the hour difference, a large group of people stayed up through the night to finally get the results in the morning. When walking around campus the next day several people I did not know came to congratulate me on the results. This continued periodically for the next several days where ever I was, once people found out that I was an American. It defiantly was a historical moment and at times I wish I was in the states so I could see people's reactions.