{"id":1956,"date":"2011-11-29T15:13:31","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T20:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/?p=1956"},"modified":"2011-11-29T15:29:11","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T20:29:11","slug":"good-vibes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/2011\/11\/29\/good-vibes\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Vibes"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite songs of all time is Good Vibrations<\/a> by the Beach Boys, and it\u2019s been stuck in my head for the past couple of days \u2013 probably because Thanksgiving break was crammed with good vibes.\u00a0 I took the Greyhound bus all the way from Boston to Virginia to visit some family friends, and life was awesome all weekend. The sun was shining, and I didn\u2019t set my alarm clock once. I felt like a love-sponge, just soaking up affection and good food. \u00a0Our Thanksgiving feast included all the components of a typical American meal: turkey, cranberries, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, and two kinds of pies.\u00a0 And at night, we had traditional Dutch treats called\u00a0Oliebollen<\/a>!\u00a0 Oliebollen are little round donuts, filled with raisins and spices.\u00a0 I almost died of happiness and good vibrations while I ate them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I helped create this poignant Thanksgiving artwork.<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the bus ride back to school almost took away all my good vibrations.\u00a0 We stopped in New York in the middle of the night to switch buses \u2013 but Greyhound, Inc was temporarily out of bus drivers.\u00a0 So we waited on the floor in sleepy, grouchy suspense until some more bus drivers showed up at dawn, and I made it back to campus just in time for my morning classes.<\/p>\n

Speaking of good vibrations, a few weeks ago the Harvard Global Health & AIDS Coalition<\/a> staged a \u2018Pool Party Demonstration\u2019 outside of Merck Pharmaceuticals, near the Harvard Medical School\u00a0 \u2013 an effective and creative way to protest.\u00a0 While Merck has been instrumental in developing ARVs and other HIV-related drugs, they\u2019ve refused to join the Medicine Patent Pool so far.\u00a0 The Patent Pool tries to ensure availability of HIV drugs to low- and middle-income families across the globe, and Merck\u2019s cooperation would be invaluable toward that end (you can read more about the issue here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pool party with a purpose.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Listening to speeches! \u00a0I’m wearing the hawt green shades.<\/em><\/p>\n

We showed up with beach balls, sunglasses, and multicolored towels, and set up our waterless pool party in the grass below Merck Labs.\u00a0 I was impressed with how congenial and relaxed everyone was, while still being insistent about their goals.\u00a0 We chanted and talked and wrote letters to Merck management, and some Harvard med students gave speeches from inside the blow-up pool (everyone told them to \u201cGet in the pool!\u201d). \u00a0The demonstrators showed that it\u2019s possible to be passionate without being violent, and to make your voice heard without being antagonizing.\u00a0 Of course, some policemen showed up pretty quickly and watched the proceedings with folded arms, but they didn\u2019t seem too concerned. \u00a0The demonstration actually got a lot of local publicity, and a \u00a0follow-up\u00a0event<\/a>\u00a0is scheduled for\u00a0World AIDS Day<\/a>\u00a0this coming Thursday, December 1st.\u00a0 If you live in the Boston area, feel free to join in \u2013 and no matter where you live, there are so many ways you can show your love & support for those living with HIV this Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite songs of all time is Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, and it\u2019s been stuck in my head for the past couple of days \u2013 probably because Thanksgiving break was crammed with good vibes.\u00a0 I took the Greyhound bus all the way from Boston to Virginia to visit some family friends, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4468,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,203,3467,29821,146,55759],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-food","tag-health","tag-party","tag-thanksgiving","tag-travel","tag-world-aids-day"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2008,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}