MLK Day: A Call to Have Impact

"Everybody can be great because everybody can serve."

                                                                              ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let’s be honest –it is sometimes easy to feel like we don’t have a voice or we can’t impact or help fix the woes of the world.  I’m a realist.  I know that I am not going to single-handedly end world hunger tomorrow (even though that would be incredibly cool), but I do know that I can help hungry families in my community.  Perhaps I won’t wake up and end global warming, but I could work to raise awareness about the causes and consequences of global warming.  I could even contact a legislator and advocate for stronger environmental legislation or circulate a petition to support an environmental bill.  We all have the ability to impact other individuals, strengthen our communities, create solutions to social problems, and shed light on social injustices. I know this and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly knew this.

Monday, January 21, 2013, marks the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (MLK Day).  Dr. King spent his life serving others.  He fought for the rights and justices of all people, and he inspired hundreds of thousands of people to stand with him in the Civil Rights Movement.  In recognition of Dr. King’s legacy, Congress designated MLK Day as a day of service – a day for Americans to volunteer and come together to solve problems.  A day to make a difference.

Many of us aren’t able to volunteer on MLK Day – and that’s okay.  The spirit of MLK Day invites us to volunteer in our communities on any day.  If you are wondering how you can squeeze volunteering into your schedule or why you should squeeze volunteering into your schedule, you should not feel guilty.  It’s okay to ask, “What’s in it for me?” because the answer is – a lot is in it for you.

In addition to making a positive impact and helping others, volunteering brings personal, professional and social benefits.  According to the United Way, volunteering can help you:

• Make important networking contacts
• Learn or develop skills
• Teach your skills to others
• Enhance your resume
• Gain work experience
• Build self-esteem and self-confidence
• Improve your health
• Meet new people
• Feel needed and valued
• Communicate to others that you are ambitious, enthusiastic and care about the community
• Express gratitude for help you may have received in the past from an organization
• Make a difference in someone's life

To find volunteer opportunities that interest you or to learn more about the many benefits of volunteering, you can check out the following websites:

• MLK Day of Service
• idealist
• Do Something
• The Socially Conscious Blog

If you have gotten some service on, please share your experience with us.  Where'd you go?  What'd you do?  How did the experience impact you and others?

 

To Travel or Not to Travel

Thou frothy clapper-clawed fustilarian!  Not really – I just thought perhaps an insult Shakespeare-style might get your attention. Besides, a Shakespearian insult is fitting, because CCV’s spring 2013 study abroad course is taking students to England.

Students enrolled in HUM-2710 England through Words, Images, and Music will explore England’s long and rich history as revealed through the country’s literature, drama, comedy, and music. Students will develop an understanding of the English experience and culture as it has emerged from the days of Arthurian legends and medieval castles to the times of the Tudors and Shakespeare, to Britain’s contemporary role as a successful exporter of modern music, humor and pop culture.

•       Visit to the Tower of London will allow you to view Traitors’ Gate, the Bloody Tower, and the Block – where two of Henry VIII’s ill-fated wives lost their heads.

•       Tour the Globe Theatre for an inside look at Shakespeare’s “Great Wooden O”

•       Travel to Glastonbury, regarded as King Arthur’s mythical Isle of Avalon and the place where the Holy Grail was hidden.

•       Feel Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table come to life on a visit to the ruined castle of Tintagel, situated on spectacular cliffs.

•       Visit the Roman Baths, said to have been built on the orders of Emperor Claudius.

•       See Stonehenge, the colossal structure erected between 2,000 BC and 1,500 BC.

Class Meetings at CCV-Montpelier:

Saturday, January 26, 2013                   10 am – 2:30 pm

Saturday, March 16, 2013                     10 am -  2:30 pm

Saturday, April 13, 2013                         10 am -  2:30 pm

Saturday, May 4, 2013                            10 am -  2:30 pm

Saturday, May 25, 2013                         10 am – 2:30 pm

Travel dates in England are May 13-21, 2013.  The group will fly in and out of Boston, Massachusetts.

Course Fee:  The course fee is $2,998 and includes an 9-day study tour in England, including group flight to and from Boston, MA;  lodging; all breakfasts and three dinners;  in-country transportation and activity fees.  Financial aid and/or the payment plan can be applied to the fee. Course tuition is separate. 

To learn more, view the Study Abroad in England Slideshow.

Study Abroad Application

The Great Escape: a good book

Projects have been submitted, finals are finished and books from the fall semester are closed.  If you are like me, you are looking forward to a relaxing break before the spring semester begins.  For me, relaxation means escaping with a good book.  I love nothing more than losing myself in a good read – a book so compelling I lock myself in my room to steal a few quiet minutes to read, I stay up until the wee-hours of the morning because I can’t put my book down, and I pass on watching a movie because I simply have to find out what’s going to happen next in my novel.  Shantaram by  Gregory David Roberts is one of those rare stories that captures the reader from the very first page (at least I was captured!).  What is even more amazing about this novel is that the characters and the plot are loosely based on the author’s life.  

I revealed that the first page of Shantaram had me hooked:

© 2003, by Gregory David Robert

IT TOOK ME a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured. I realised, somehow, through the screaming in my mind, that even in that shackled, bloody helplessness, I was still free: free to hate the men who were torturing me, or to forgive them. It doesn't sound like much, I know. But in the flinch and bite of the chain, when it's all you've got, that freedom is a universe of possibility. And the choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.

In my case, it's a long story, and a crowded one. I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison. When I escaped from that prison, over the front wall, between two gun-towers, I became my country's most wanted man. Luck ran with me and flew with me across the world to India, where I joined the Bombay mafia. I worked as a gunrunner, a smuggler, and a counterfeiter. I was chained on three continents, beaten, stabbed, and starved. I went to war. I ran into the enemy guns. And I survived, while other men around me died. They were better men than I am, most of them: bitter men whose lives were crunched up in mistakes, and thrown away by the wrong second of someone else's hate, or love, or indifference. And I buried them, too many of those men, and grieved their stories and their lives into my own.

But my story doesn't begin with them, or with the mafia; it goes back to that first day in Bombay. Fate put me in the game there. Luck dealt the cards that led me to Karla Saaranen. And I started to play it out, that hand, from the first moment I looked into her green eyes. So it begins, this story, like everything else — with a woman, and a city, and a little bit of luck.

So - are you hooked? Happy reading and happy holidays!

Need a Ride?

A New Way to Go. Improved Ride-Matching Service In the first of many steps to improve Vermont's transportation resources, the Go! Vermont program has partnered with Zimride to deliver Vermont's new and amazing online ride-matching service. We love the new Zimride system! Zimride makes it easy to catch a lift to the Northeast Kingdom or fill the empty seats in your commute to Montpelier or school in Burlington. In seconds you can set up a profile, search for open seats, or post a ride of your own. It's a social network for ride sharing and will even connect with Facebook if you want it to. And since most folks want to pitch in for gas money, it's smart enough to suggest how much. So....what do I need to do? If you had previously used ride sharing, your old account is going away to make room for the new one. If you had an old account, you received an e-mail recently from Zimride with a link to set up the new account. If you did that already, you are all set! If not, go to www.zimride.com/GoVermont and sign up. You'll need to be in the new system to use the

Guaranteed Ride Home program. Thanks for contributing to cleaner air and less traffic by sharing the ride. If you have any questions just give us a call at 1-800-685-RIDE.

New Q&A Hotline: Ask Us Anything...

Q&A Hotline: 800-685-RIDE ...anything about your commute, that is!  In an effort to better serve you, Go! Vermont has teamed with Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC), current managers of the Efficiency Vermont program, to manage our helpline, 800-685-RIDE (7433).  This new partnership brings together the State's transportation information clearinghouse (Go! Vermont) and a professional call center (VEIC). They are ready to help you sift through your options and answer any question you might have, from bus schedules to car sharing and more. Looking to save money by making a change to your commute?  Give us a call and we'll help you find a way around that's just right for you.

'Tis the Season to BeAWARE!

 

Because November is Lung Cancer Awareness month and because November ushers in the holiday season, a season of parties and merriness, November is also the season to BeAWARE.  This week CCV hopes to raise awareness about tobacco addiction and alcohol and substance abuse.

According to the most recent VT CORE Drug and Alcohol survey results, CCV students drink alcohol less frequently than students at other Vermont colleges; however, CCV respondents reported regularly using tobacco more than the respondents from 4-year colleges in Vermont. 

Any Vermont college students considering quitting smoking should check out the Vermont Quit Network which  offers FREE quitting coaches in person, by phone or online.  Additionally, anyone who signs up for a quit coach in-person or by phone can receive free nicotine gum, patches or lozenges delivered right to their home.  

Some smokers wonder what the benefits of quitting smoking bring.  Well, the benefits are many – and some benefits are fairly immediate.  In just 20 minutes after a quitter’s last cigarette, blood pressure returns to normal, in 8 hours carbon monoxide levels in the blood stream drop my half and oxygen levels return to normal, in 72 hours risk of heart attack declines, and in 5 years the risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker.  In 10 to 15 years after quitting, the risk of lung cancer returns to that of a non-smoker.  

Smokers who quit or cut back on cigarettes also bring benefits to their wallets through serious savings.  Cigarettes are expensive.  Period.  If you’re curious about just how much giving up cigarettes can save, use the Money in Your Pocket cigarette calculator.  

Visit the BeAWARE bulletin board in your CCV center to read on about alcohol and drugs and smoking cessation or to pick up brochures about free smoking cessation resources available to Vermonters. And remember  -- ‘tis the season to be merry – and we hope you have much to merry about!