As September wraps up, its time to take a look back and reflect on what has happened so far this month. I volunteered with habitat for humanity at one of the restore locations. Began studying for the MCAT with fellow classmates, got involved in intramural basketball, survived another exam, ate at some new restaurants and witnessed one of the biggest upsets in my undergrad college's franchise.

When I agreed to volunteer with habitat for humanity initially I thought we would be building a house, but after I got to the location I could not have been more wrong. I had no idea the difference between a restore/build, nor did I even know that their was a difference initially. I'd like to take this space to reflect on this experience in an honest manner. During our 8.5 hours of volunteering at the restore it seemed like we were basically free store clerks in charge of moving merchandise around, and helping customers. Now if you would have asked me if I thought doing this was useful right after I had finished, I would have said no. It really took me time to absorb and reflect this experience in order to think of what we were actually doing at the restore that is imperative for New Orleans. Habitat for humanity is an incredible organization with a beautiful mission. Everything that gets sold in the store goes into supplies for building houses for those in need. So after I thought about it for awhile we had about 10 volunteers that day. We worked around 8.5 hours which if habitat had to hire people, assuming they were only paid minimum wage that translates to around 616$ which would be taking away from building supplies for the main goal of the organization... to build homes for those in need. So what I did during this day may have not felt entirely useful, but after analyzing it turned out to be extremely helpful and satisfying knowing that our group, and I are making a difference trying to better this wonderful city.

I will end this post with some sports as my alma mater is having a breakout season (Go Cougs). Being from the west coast most college football games end by 10:30 pm. Now that I am 2 hours ahead of my west coast time zone watching late night sports causes me to stay up way past my bedtime these days, but the WSU vs USC game last night was worth every second of it. I didn't miss a game in my 4 years of undergrad so cheering these guys on 2700 miles away is not ideal for me. They are an incredible underdog story this year, and are worth taking the time to watch, even if its just for the mike leach interviews. On another sports note we had our first intramural basketball game where we are currently sitting at 1-0.

See you next month!
Sincerely,
Pierce Spencer

Hours this month: 8.5
Cumulative Hours: 8.5