June 16, 2022 - Aya Holcomb - Former Rotary Exchange Student

Posted by Editor: FDBobko
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The FOGHORN 
ROTARY CLUB OF HALF MOON BAY
June 16, 2022 
          
 
Speaker - Aya Holcomb
Former Rotary Youth Exchange Student
 
Article by Stacy Trevenon      
 
The meeting got underway with the introduction of speaker Aya Holcomb. She began with speaking of her own current academic career. She is a student at Binghamton University in New York State, majoring in biology and environmental policy. Her introduction to Rotary came when she spent a year in Santiago, Chile, from 2019-2020 as a Rotary youth exchange student; there, she said, she attended local Rotary meetings. She also spoke of being in Santiago in the month of October 2019, when there were political porotarsts happening, but on a lighter note, she visited Patagonia, and the Atacama Desert. She also spoke of visiting major cities, seeing huge glaciers, hiking in the area of the glaciers, and travels with her host family there.
 
As a freshman, she had been part of a research immersion program through the college, in which students were able to design and conduct their own research projects. She did hers from 2020-2021, through her freshman and half her sophomore year and beyond, studying the effects of two chemotherapy drugs on oxidative stress in a lung carcinoma cell line. She had served as a research peer mentor for the program, and hopes to eventually publish the results of her research, ideally in an undergraduate research journal.
 
But not all of her university undertakings were so daunting: while at university, she had also been part of a club that taught science lessons to elementary school students. Her particular students were  kindergartners, to whom she taught about recycling, and about natural habitats.
 
Her future plans include applying to study in Paris, France, a goal about which she said she is very excited. She had gained fluency in Spanish, as a result of her year in Chile, but she acknowledged that this goal, requiring fluency in French, would be different. Asked about her career goals, she said she is not sure yet, but is considering pharmaceutical, or biomedical research.
 
Mention of the exchange students and of Chile sparked some thoughts for the Rotarians. John Evans recalled previous exchange students who had spent time in Half Moon Bay, specifically the girls from France and Brazil respectively, and wondered what it would be like to go, say, from Chile back home. Aya recounted her own juggling flight schedules, and recalled the “very stressful” situations that resulted from living life in a world stricken with Covid: the long layovers on her travels, life under strict lockdowns, and adjusting to how the pandemic took over social life issues.
John Evans mentioned how we tend to grumble over political issues, especially with elections upcoming, and Aya said that back home for her, there were similar and sometimes extreme differences between right and left politically, and just like here, there were some topics that one just didn’t bring up.
 
Steve mentioned Chile as an example of how ongoing social upheaval often resulted in bloodshed involving indigenous peoples. Aya responded that yes, that was a bit issue in general in the uprising, that there was a strong feeling there against the president. She herself lived not for from a military school where the thinking tended to be conservative. Steve asked about differences in classes in Chile from here; she said that where she was, was like any city; she thought the culture there was stable but there was  lot of talk about it.
 
She was asked if she would speak Franch when she went to study in France? She said that she had chosen to major in English, but that some of her classes would be in French, which she said she had taken some in college. She said she had watched some French television shows and noted the similarities between French and Spanish.
 
John Evans remembered our exchange student Rafa, and mentioned high schools here. Aya said she hopes to get into grad school, and wants to see many places. John gave her one of our Half Moon Bay club 50th anniversary pins.
 
 
Club Meeting - June 16, 2022
  
Pledge of Allegiance - The Rotary Club of Half Moon Bay meeting of June 16, 2022 began with Ed Daniels leading the Pledge of Allegiance.
 
Inspirational Thought - Asked to give an inspirational thought for the meeting, new member Barb Nielsen read the 1885 Robert Louis Stevenson poem “My Shadow,” to this appreciative applause:
“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest things about him is the way he likes to grow-
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.”
To introduce the poem, Barb told a little bit about Stevenson: how he had been very ill as a boy, and how he saw his own shadow as his companion and playmate. Stevenson went on to have respiratory issues throughout his life, which foreshadowed his battle with tuberculosis, but of course did not deter him from producing the literary works that are part of our culture today. Barb became acquainted with this poem when it was read to her by a second-grade teacher, she said – an incident that sparked her own interest in poetry.
Guests - Larkin  Evans
 
Announcements
Pres. Elect Krystlyn raised the issue of President Joe’s debunking, and said there were a few possible dates and times: June 30 and June 29, at different times were among them, and finally 5:30 p.m. Wednesday June 29 at the San Benito House emerged as a favorite.
 
There followed a discussion of online surveys as to committees to be formed in Krystlyn’s year, including signups of who would be interested in leading a committee or being a member of a committee. Other points of conversations touched on service projects and speakers. 
 
Aug. 25 will be our District Governor’s visit, preceded by a board meeting, and we will be deciding what to do for that occasion.
 
Liz asked the club is we want to walk in the Half Moon Bay Fourth of July parade, and added that usually that is followed by a fun get-together. That of course led to a discussion of Pumpkin Festival, it will definitely happen this year, and touched on Pumpkin Festival planning.
 
There was also mention of the annual new teachers’ meeting, usually around early or mid-August. And mention was made of the next luminaria event and auction, for which $3,000 has already been raised; a “good start,” the speaker said.
 
It was pointed out that there was a “Letter to the Editor” in the June 8 issue of the Review, written by our own Rosi Fontana (though they called her Rose) commending the Review for its coverage of the area and its happenings.
Happy/Crappy News yescrying - Soapbox
 
When the Personal Soapbox was called, Kevin stepped up and said that his grandson and granddaughter were now graduates.
 
Pres. Joe's Weekly 'States of the Union Quiz - ​​​​​​​ALASKA
The personal visit site was Alaska, which Joe called twice as large as Texas; Joe described his own “delightful” week in Glacier Bay where he had an opportunity to lead a sea kayaking trip.
 
Marble Game -  coolsadwink The game this week was a unique one as the speaker picked her own ticket.
                                   
Next week we will meet at the HMB Airport.
 
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