This week was absolutely crazy. I was stressed about my research paper, I had to create my audition video, I had two dance finals, and to top it all off, my dorm room was messier than messy. Part of our class syllabus is that we go and volunteer at the Hser Ner Moo refugee center in Salt lake City. I had not done so, and everyone in my class had already been earlier in the semester. Ms. D told me that I needed to go this week and so I had to make time for this. At first I did not have a great attitude about going and volunteering because I was so stressedwith everything that was going on, but the minute that I arrived at the Hser Ner Moo center, my attitude was changed.
I made my way up the stairs to a room with 8 or 9 kids who were all trying to do their homework. While it had been quite a few years since I'd found the vertex of the parabola or discussed the life cycle of a cell, my job was to help these kids with their homework. In Utah, we have 45,000 refugees and the Hser Ner Moo is there to help these refugees succeed in a brand new society. The kids that I was helping were kids of refugees from various countries. Some of them could hardly speak English and were so lost. This experience made me so grateful for an education. I'm so grateful that I have had the opportunity to go to school since I was in kindergarten, and that I have lived in a stable household where my parents are well-off enough to send me to college. Sometimes you never know how lucky you are until you see people that are not as fortunate as you. What an awakening it was to have this experience. I would encourage all of you to go and make time to volunteer here at the Hser Ner Moo or any other refugee center. What a great way to get in to the holiday spirit.
