Bi-weekly 2

So I had my first meeting with my Cardoner family group and that was cool. It looks like we are gunna be hanging out and doing homework together which is fine by me. I think our service thing is going to be walking dogs and stuff at a shelter that Olivia goes to sometimes with another organization on campus. I don’t like dogs much because my neighbor used to have three of them that hated me and would chase me all over(just super traumatizing, no biggie) but I think I’ll manage. I went to the Post Secret presentation and I think that would have been a great Cardoner event. It was very moving and he made it very personal for everyone in the audience. I think it would have been good for the Cardoners because it had a lot to do with turning adversity into something good. Not skipping over the hard times just because they aren’t fun, but embracing every blow because it makes you a better and stronger person. One thing he said that really stuck with me though was “The people most beat down by the world are the people most likely to change it”. I have found that to be relatively true in just the people that I know personally. It seems like the most motivated and the people who don’t let the little things get them down and the people who literally do turn the other cheek are the people who have had it the hardest. I think the message that the founder of Post Secret is giving (to share your secrets) is very important, mostly because of other people I am close to. I know people who never tell anyone things that have happened to them or that they have done or things they have seen, and it seems to eat them. A good friend and I used to be almost the same person when we were much younger. We both went through the same extremely traumatic experience together. I sought counseling and therapy, while he pretended to have never been a part of what went on. He hid it from the world, and, I think, himself very well for quite some time. Eventually, however, he started becoming very introverted and cut off from other people. It even got to the point when the only time I could see him was when I would just show up at his house because even though I was his best friend he wouldn’t even answer the phone for me. This just ggot worse and worse until it was impossible to even be around him because he became so socially inept. I truly believe that the only reason he ended up like that and I did not is the fact that I shared my secret with therapists, and eventually, my close friends. Other than that in the past couple weeks I have just been keeping on the schoolwork. This weekend though I got off campus for a bit which was a nice break and went home to Mandeville. I don’t like living there much, but it’s a nice place to take a break from the bustle of school for a while.

Bi-weekly 1

I think the thing that I like the most about the Cardoner program is that we lived together and had the class freshman year. This gave me a group of close friends that I knew well immediately after school started. Fraternities and sororities give that also, but this program is without most of the pressures that those come with. Surrounding myself with responsible and motivated students provided me with a healthy environment to start my college career. Most of my friends back home don’t seeing to be going anywhere school and career wise. I have always been excited for college (I have been homeschooled since the second grade) but so many people around me were uninterested and unmotivated to do anything bigger that work in sushi bars and cut hair. It was so refreshing to get here and have a support group that all have the same interests and values as I do. These fellow Cardoners are still my best friends on campus, and almost all of the other people I know well are in some way related to others that lived on the tenth floor with me. My roommate and one of my suite mates this year are Cardoners and I still keep in close contact with most of the others. I like that we go to events as a group, but one of the drawbacks is that sometimes it seems like we are being used for numbers. I feel like there are other things we could be doing as a group that would follow the ideals of the Cardoner Fellowship more so than some of the lectures we are required to attend, not to say that none of them are helpful or interesting. I am also a little confused about the whole family group thing? I feel like one day of community service that was agreed upon by everyone (or a majority with options to make it up if someone couldn’t attend because of classes or other obligations) would be much more organized and would promote socialization across classes than little groups independently trying to find work to do around the city on a given week. But since I haven’t been getting mass emails from the Cardoner email list I’m not sure I really understand the ideal dynamics of the system to give criticism. Either way, the community service is something I find essential to the program. Especially with the seminar class we all took on rebuilding New Orleans I feel like doing our part as leaders definitely involves making the city we have the fortune to live in a better place. On that same note, I thing it would be a good idea to have other days of community service hosted by the Cardoners, but that also include other people. Advertising on campus and just telling friends about a service opportunity would do much good. Most people see the Cardonres as a “cult” and I can understand why. People tend to be intimidated by the tight knit community style friendship that arises from living together and I thing hosting a service day as opposed to just doing one ourselves would give other students a chance to see that we aren’t as scary as some might think.