Inspiration: Squelching a Fire With Lemonade
Last week, the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society was hit with tragedy. A fire burned through part of the shelter, with smoke inhalation claiming the lives of 15 cats. The 14 dogs and cats that survived are recovering in foster homes until they’re healthy enough to be adopted.
The community is coming together to help care for the animals and rebuild the destroyed shelter. People of all ages have been dropping off donations, including two local kids, Billie and Sofia, who left a letter accompanying their $10 donation. It read:
“Dear East Bay Humane Society,
Me and my friend raised $10.00 by selling cupcakes and lemonade. We hope that this $10.00 will somehow make a difference. We are very sad about the fire in the shelter and hope you can make it through the sadness.
From, Billie and Sofia”
It’s great to see philanthropy starting young. The letter that Billie and Sofia wrote made the donation that much more meaningful, showing that they truly cared about what happened. Every little bit counts.
Just Fellow Bears, But With Athletic Talent
I’ve always been a huge sports fan. Growing up, I cheered on my favorite teams from my living room and from the stands, and idolized my favorite players. Of course, I was always rooting for athletes that were older than me.
But as a student at Cal, the school’s athletes are my peers. Whenever I walk around on campus or on nearby streets, I often see many student-athletes that I root for at games. Here are a few memorable moments in which I actually got the chance to play sports with some of them.
Nathan Adrian is in the back center (Photo by Bob Bukaty)
1. My freshman year, I played basketball with a bunch of tall guys who were on Cal’s nationally ranked swim team. One of those guys was Nathan Adrian. All of the swimmers were really tall, and Nathan was probably around 6’6”. Their height kind of gave them an advantage over me and my friends, but they were all awesome guys and it was fun playing a few games with them.
It hadn’t happened yet at the time, but Nathan ended up winning a gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, swimming on a Michael Phelps-led 4x100m freestyle relay team. He swam in the preliminary rounds and was the last man cut from the final relay team. That US team went on to swim in one of the most memorable races at those Games, the one that used a miraculous final leg by Jason Lezak to overtake the French team at the wall for gold. Another note, Nathan was recently featured on the TV show Mythbusters to test a “swimming in molasses” theory.
2. Last year, I participated in a Camp Kesem dodgeball tournament, and in one game, was on the opposing team of a group that included defensive end Cameron Jordan. I’ll admit now, I was definitely a little scared when he launched heat-seeking dodgeballs at my body. It felt a little weird to go from cheering him on at Cal football games all season to throwing dodgeballs at him.
7'3'' Max Zhang (Photo by Ben Margot)
3. This past semester, I took a couple Haas business classes with linebacker Mike Mohammed, who is a hero among many Cal fans for what he did at this past season’s Big Game against rival Stanford. He caused me and my friends to go absolutely crazy in the stands when we witnessed his game-saving interception to clinch a Cal win.
4. Many times, I’ve walked by star running backs Jahvid Best and Shane Vereen, basketball players Jerome Randle and Patrick Christopher, and numerous other athletes. I’ve also walked by the 7’3” center Max Zhang a few times, and let me tell you, he is really tall when you stand right up beside him and look up.
5. Just a few days ago, I played pick-up basketball against defensive backs Sean Cattouse and Josh Hill. I was excited and a little intimidated when I got matched up with Josh Hill, but reasoned that he’s a football player, and we were on a basketball court. The highlight of my day was when I drove toward the hoop and made a running floater/hook shot over the attempted block of Josh Hill. On the next trip down the court, I made another shot. The shots got Josh to mutter, “Dude’s got game.”
Later on in the game, Josh made a couple of shots over me as well. But I’ll take 2-to-2 versus a Pac-10 caliber starting cornerback. Not bad :)
At the end of the day, it’s nice to be able to interact with these star athletes and find out that they are people, just like you and I. It feels a little strange to commonly be among such amazing athletes, but in the end, I realize that they are all just fellow bears, except with athletic talent.
Go Bears!
I don’t know about you, but sometimes, I just like being alone.
It’s nice to have a little bit of me time every once in a while, away from other commitments, work, and people.
I know that I like to keep busy and often find myself involved with lots of things at any particular time, but all of that becomes pretty tiring when it continues day after day. That’s why I really cherish and value all the small tads of alone time that I find.
There’s nothing quite like being able to sleep in for a morning (or afternoon), munching on some comfort food, and catching up on TV shows. Those moments provide nice breaks from the demanding schedule of daily life. You can just stop and take a breather.
I wouldn’t call myself a superstitious person, but I do follow some routines. I listen to the same music playlist before every test. I don’t step on seals on the Berkeley campus. My reasoning is that maybe I’ll get some kind of good luck from doing these things.
If you look into sports, you’ll discover so many superstitions. In baseball, pitchers don’t step on the first or third base line when they jog off the field after finishing an inning. In hockey, players often grow playoff beards and keep them going until the season ends. In pretty much any sport, athletes will meticulously follow a specific pregame routine over and over again.
Superstitions are not based on reason, knowledge, or experience. It’s likely that they have no rational backing at all.
But they seem to make us feel better, and that’s got to count for something, right?
Photo by Steve McConnell
Josh Biddle is this year’s University Medal winner at the University of California, Berkeley. He won it for academic achievement, distinction in public service and other qualities of judgment, ingenuity and initiative. Josh made history, being the first community college transfer student to win the medal in its 139-year history.
At 28 years old, Josh has taken an unlikely path to where he is now, graduating with a bachelors in integrative biology.
He started out at San Rafael High School, where he constantly fought with personal problems. Then Josh went to the University of Wisconsin thinking he could run away from his confusion, only to soon drop out after just one semester. When he came back home, he enrolled at the College of Marin, but found his past problems waiting for him.
Josh ultimately made the tough choice to enroll in a therapeutic boarding program at the AIM House in Boulder, Colorado. He turned his life around there, with the help of counselor Bill Sell.
After leaving AIM, he stayed in Colorado to help his now 100-year-old great aunt Velma Biddle work the family farmland. With “wide open days and wide open skies,” Josh started to get perspective and thought about where he’d been and what he wanted to do next.
Josh eventually found his way back to education at City College of San Francisco, where he excelled in the sciences. Before he was finally admitted to Berkeley in 2008, he was rejected twice.
While a UC Berkeley student, Josh has volunteered at San Quentin State Prison, the health clinic at Glide Memorial Church, and San Francisco General Hospital. In addition, he has also worked at Berkeley and UCSF conducting research on cancer and genetics.
Josh will use the $2,500 scholarship that comes with the award to help pay his way to Kenya, where he will do clinical outreach on behalf of the Ray of Hope Foundation. After the summer, he plans to continue his studies in medical school at UC San Francisco.
Josh has learned a lot in his life thus far. “I still struggle, but I feel so much better as a person than I did ten years ago,” he said. “Graduating from UC Berkeley and getting into medical school is the first definitive goal that I projected into the future and then accomplished. And it feels good.”
I was there for his powerful speech at UC Berkeley’s general commencement last Sunday. He told the tale of his life and focused on the idea of finding oneself. Josh urged students to “speak out,” and stop being an observer and start being a participant. At the end, he recited a poem about all the reasons we should speak out.
“Speak out for any of those reasons
But really
Speak out for me
Because I’m selfish
And I just want to hear what you have to say.”– Josh Biddle