French Fries and a Whole Lot of Fight

It’s amazing how little it takes to make us happy when we’re young children. A new toy, a game of peek-a-boo or a kiss from Mom - it didn’t take much.

For Rebecca Youssef, now a sophomore at Lehigh University, all it took was Barney and Burger King french fries.

Her love for the fries went so deep that she cherished not only the taste, but also the smell. So much so, that when she was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare form of leukemia in children, at the age of 3, her grandfather would bring her them every day, even though she was too sick to eat them. She would sit in her hospital crib with the warm, salty, golden fries in her hands, so close to her face, and just smell them for hours...and that made her happy.

Even though now, 16 years later, Rebecca enjoys actually eating the fries, that memory remains. Having cancer is something she has obviously never forgotten. She isn’t frequently reminded of that time in her life, only when she absolutely can’t avoid it. Only when things like the smell of Burger King french fries are present.

One of those moments occurred when she was accepted into Lehigh University. You would think that the two have nothing in common, no relating factor. But the reminder came randomly, when filling out rooming information, and the questionnaire asked if she had any special needs or handicaps.

Even though cancer was never something Rebecca allowed to hold her back, it left her with an ailment she must address from time to time. Rebecca is 50 percent deaf in one ear and 60 percent deaf in the other, and therefore needed strobe lights in her room. “I can’t hear high pitched sounds,” she said. “In high school during fire drills I couldn’t initially hear the fire alarms when the doors were shut, I just got up because everyone else was.”

Another reason that college and her experience with cancer are so interrelated is because she went in wanting to be an oncologist, the kinds of people that she dealt with during her nine months in the hospital.

During those nine months, Rebecca was put on an aggressive form of chemotherapy, which caused her to lose her hair and half her body weight. “I think being sick actually made her a stronger person, even though she may not remember all of the things she went through,” said Julia Youssef, Rebecca’s mother.

Julia sat by Rebecca’s side for the entire time she was sick, and watched her daughter fight tooth and nail every time she had to take medicine, watched the doctors hold her down as they forced vile tasting medicine down her throat and watched her refuse to eat anything for nine weeks in protest of what was happening to her.

“The doctor always used to say that as difficult as it was [to give her her medicine], she was glad because it meant that she was a fighter,” she said. “It was her way of fighting.”

Julia recalled perfectly the first time Rebecca ate again after those long grueling nine weeks. “Finally one day around 3 a.m. she said to me that she wanted chicken,” she said. So despite the fact that the hospital Rebecca was at was in a bad and dangerous area and that all the nurses advised her against it, Julia ventured out into a strange town in search of chicken for her daughter.

She found an open diner where the man would only sell her half of an entire chicken, but she didn’t care. She bought the chicken without a second thought and brought it back to Rebecca. “She ate a little bite and that was it,” she said. “That was the first thing she ate in nine weeks.”

This unconditional love that caused Rebecca’s mother to go out in search of chicken in the middle of the night, and her grandfather to bring her Burger King fries every day, is something that Rebecca remembers vividly and credits for her health today.

[Rebecca & her mother, Julia]

“My mom was so positive and everyone was always around me, and they made the room bright,” Rebecca said. “No one ever, at least not in my presense, acknowledged the fact that I was sick to bring me down. It was a good atmosphere. I think that’s half the battle.”

At the time, Rebecca didn’t know the seriousness of the situation and the important role that her family held. The oncologist dealing with Rebecca’s case told her mother that she only had a 15 percent chance of living. But Julia never gave up hope; she never stopped believing that her daughter would be in that 15 percent. “I told my family that if they were going to cry or be all mopey [when they saw Rebecca] that they shouldn’t come at all,” said Julia.

Even Rebecca’s older sister Katrina, who was 7 at the time, did her part in providing Rebecca with a positive atmosphere. Rebecca’s parents put Katrina in a summer camp while they cared for Rebecca, but all Katrina wanted to do was be with her sister.

[Rebecca & Katrina doing the survivor's lap at Relay for Life 2009]

“She would come home crying and asking, ‘Is it true my sister’s going to die,” said Julia. “She didn’t want to go to camp, she just wanted to be in the hospital with me and Rebecca.”

But the only way they would allow Katrina to see Rebecca was if she came to the hospital every day and had no contact with other children all summer long in order to prevent the spreading of germs to Rebecca. Katrina chose to go to the hospital every day.

“Every day she would come and she would bring her toys and Barbie’s, and would spend basically all day there…and Katrina was happy,” said Julia.

After nine months of being in the hospital, surrounded by her family, Rebecca went into remission for the rest of her life, contrary to what doctors expected. Her life from then was normal, with random moments along the way that connected her back to cancer.

In fact, nobody even knew that Rebecca was deaf until she was in first grade, even though medicine from the chemo she had when she was 3 had caused the damage. Teachers just thought she was slow, and placed her in basic skills class and speech therapy. She had speaking problems, messing up words like breakfast and bathing suit, in which she would say “becfast” and “baby suit.” But once she scored an almost perfect score on a state test, it was realized that she was deaf.

She wasn’t known as the deaf girl or the girl with cancer. In fact most of her classmates didn’t even know until her senior year of high school, when she made a speech at a Relay for Life assembly telling her story.

Some always knew, though, mostly those who knew Rebecca from a young age and went to elementary school with her. During that time in her life she wore hearing aids, which she always hated. In fact she would pull them out of her ears every day in order to get out of class.

“I didn’t like them,” she said. “It was like artificial hearing. It was like hearing things through a microphone all of the time…it drove me insane.”

Rebecca went the rest of her school career without hearing aids, relying on reading lips. Julia recalled the incident she believed made Rebecca ultimately give up on the hearing aids. Someone in school asked her if they were radios, and she went home saying she would never wear them again.

The hearing aids only gave way to the fact that she couldn’t hear and that she had had cancer, and that’s not what Rebecca wanted. In middle school, Rebecca’s science teacher informed her mother that she was failing his class. Julia was confused as to why this was happening because she constantly helped Rebecca study, and she always knew her material. Finally, she was informed that the tests were orally given. “When he told me they were oral I was like ‘no wonder!’ She couldn’t hear, and she probably didn’t want to ask him to repeat the question…she’d rather die than tell someone that she can’t hear,” Julia said.

When Rebecca was allowed to retake the tests she did much better. 

“I don't think anyone really treated Becca differently with hearing aids, if anything they were just curious about what they were because it was something other people didn’t have,” said Jocelyn Nelson, a classmate of Rebecca’s from elementary school. “I don't really even remember her having them except for when she lost them on the blacktop and one of the aides asked us all to help find them.”

“I loved Rebecca,” said Will Lovejoy, another childhood classmate. “I always thought she was so funny, and I don’t think anybody thought she was different because that’s just how she was, you know? We all loved her.”

In fact, both Nelson and Lovejoy did have specific memories about Rebecca, none of which had anything to do with her hearing aids.

Nelson reflected back on the first time she saw Rebecca, which was in elementary school after Rebecca had broken her leg from jumping down all the stairs in her house. “I just remember her being amazingly good at sports, and the boys always wanted her on their team for gym,” she said. “She was always really funny and wore monkey shirts all the time.”

Lovejoy shared an anecdote of an encounter with Rebecca when he accidentally kicked her brand new soccer ball onto the roof of a nearby building. “She didn’t even say a word, she just ran over and started kicking me,” he said. “Like she kicked me 12 times, and then I bought her a soccer ball for her birthday party.”

“You would feel like people would be more questioning in elementary school because that’s not common, but I honestly don’t remember anyone making it obvious that I was different,” Rebecca said.

     
In her high school yearbook, Rebecca was chosen as one of 320 students to be written about on the front page of the “student portraits section.” But the write-up wasn’t about her hearing or cancer…it was about her procrastination. The blurb read: “Or Rebecca Youssef’s procrastination. It earned her many sleepless nights, but the rest of us felt at ease knowing that we would always finish the assignment before her.”

It was during this time in high school that Rebecca decided she wanted to be a doctor. “I remember growing up being like, ‘I never want to be a doctor, that’s the worst, most depressing career,” Rebecca said. But once she got to high school and she learned more about the people who helped her all those years ago, her opinion changed. She realized that she would truly enjoy helping people. So that was her dream for all of high school, to be a pediatric oncologist.

But sometimes as we all know, things don’t go as planned. The dream didn’t work out, and Rebecca has since changed her dream to a business major.  “I guess I didn’t realize how much of a commitment it was, and how difficult it would be to just go to med school,” she said. “ I think coming into college I wasn’t mentally, emotionally or physically prepared to put this much work into it. I didn’t like anything I was learning, and I realized that I didn’t want to put myself through that.”

Rebecca struggled in her science classes necessary for a premed route. Her struggles have resulted in bad grades and therefore a falling behind in GPA and credits.

Rebecca doesn’t feel she’s failing some sort of obligation to be a doctor because she had cancer, it’s more that she feels as if she didn’t try her best, and now her struggles have held her back. “It has created a problem for me in a lot of areas in my life because I didn’t do well,” she said. “I don’t like the idea of not having the option of doing what I want, of exploring things.”

It was in these moments that Rebecca’s days of having cancer rose back in her life, experiences and memories linked to her plan to be a doctor. The smell of the Burger King fries was ever present during this time in her life.

“I always said that I wanted to help people,” she said. “But now I’m realizing that there are other ways to help people, and maybe I’m not best suited to be a doctor.”

[Rebecca & Laura present day]

-Laura Casale '15

Who Takes Care of Me?

I was walking with my boyfriend yesterday when he commented on, “the cute folds around my eye.”

“Yeah, those are premature crows feet,” I explained, “I’m getting wrinkly and old.” Then I proceeded to make crow noises on the front lawn for thirty seconds.

In some ways, I feel like I’m becoming a wrinkly old grown-up. I take vitamins every morning, (occasionally) read the newspaper, and can say things like, “The markets closed on a real high today,” and marginally understand what I’m talking about. In other ways, I feel just as young and clueless as the girl who came on campus three years ago—who wore her Hawk’s Nest shirt to the first football game with no understanding of Moco attire.

There are some lessons endemic to Lehigh culture: don’t change seats in class after the first week of the semester, you can’t take phone calls in the library, or you can always pretend someone doesn’t exist if you look down at your phone as they walk by. Then there are lessons beyond the realm of South Bethlehem: filing a W-4 tax form, remembering your social security number, or separating your darks and lights. One of the biggest lessons I learned right off the bat at Lehigh was; who takes care of me?

Freshman year, I could hear the coughing through the wall. It was winter, and the peak of flu season. Not a day went by where you didn’t hear the echoing of a puffy faced freshman in the bathroom blowing the shit out of their nose. We were getting hit left and right with disease, and none of us knew what to do. I’d see crusty-eyed first years stumble into Lower, and think to myself Why aren’t these people in the health center? Or quarantine? We were like the island of misfit toys, waiting for someone to swoop in and take care of us.

I overheard a girl whining to her roommate in the common room—“My fever is up around 100, and I literally can’t get a decent night’s sleep. My throat is so swollen I look like a frog.” Her roommate flashed a look of sympathy across her face, and went back to browsing the CollegeACB page, largely ignoring the plight of her (not-so) beloved roommate.

At the time, I thought to myself, what an epic bitch! of the girl. Now, not so much. That’s one of the first things you learn at college, who takes care of me? Being sick is one of those terrible experiences in college when you finally realize you really are on your own. No one is getting you soup, and no one is telling you not to go to school that day. You are your own gatekeeper, and I admit, that’s pretty scary. The same girl with the fever stood in the hallway the next morning, reasoning with whoever walked by on why she wasn’t going to class. I get it. You feel like someone else has to approve, but no one really cares if you are going to class or not—they’re more worried about an upcoming 4 o’clock or trying to remember what they did last night. It’s bizarre when you finally realize it’s all up to you, and that no one else cares when you skip your 8:10 Statistics class. In college, your health is very much up to you.

Full Disclosure: I’m a pretty serious asthmatic, and a habitually sick person. I’m like one of those ladies in a Victorian novel that spends about an hour in the rain, and then dies of pneumonia the very next day. I have pretty much been sick my entire duration at Lehigh, but I’ll never forget the first time I realized I actually have to take care of myself. The spring of freshman year I was in rough shape. I joined a sorority, which was awesome, but my self-imposed social schedule was leaving no time for health. I was young, with a youthful liver. I was on top of the world (or at least on top of a table stomping in a frat house), until my health took a turn for the worse.

I went home spring break with an inability to breathe properly. A quick visit to my doctor revealed my lung capacity was at around 50%, as if I had lost a lung somewhere in a pile of frackets. It took a bad case of pneumonia compounded with my asthma, and I seriously lost my breath. I took all the antibiotics my doctor asked me, and then promptly stopped when I was back and Lehigh and around the gin bucket.

Surprise, I got sick again. But this time, my mom wasn’t there to take me to the doctor. I bemoaned and sat in my bed, willing people to come take care of me. I needed tea, soup, and more importantly, someone to tell me that I needed to see a doctor. I honestly don’t understand how my roommate slept through the nights, when my coughing was reminiscent of a foghorn. When I couldn’t make my daily pilgrimage from UC to M&M, I realized I had a problem. I hauled ass to the Health Center, where my condition was so poor, the nurse practitioner looked at me like I was nuts for letting it go this far. “What were you thinking?” she asked with concern. I mumbled something about being really busy, but in reality I understood it was entirely my fault I was in such poor shape.

But, just as the girl who lived down the hall from me, I was paralyzed when it came to illness. All I had to do before college was cough a few times and my mom pulled out the thermometer and told me to take it easy. When I hacked up a lung during class discussion, no one was asking me if I wanted a cough drop. When I limped my way up from lunch to pass out in my bed, no one was there to coddle me.

Who takes care of me? (Hint: Look in the mirror).

I became very acquainted with antibiotics, and surprise, felt well. It sounds like an easy lesson after you learn it, but at the time I was truly at a loss. It’s startling when you finally realize that there is no one in your approximate vicinity that wants to wipe your nose or dote on you. Getting sick in college is like a gateway drug for independence.

Since taking myself to the doctor for the first time, I’ve made many other firsts. I booked an airline ticket, and figured out a bus schedule. I wrote my first check, and hid my first speeding ticket from my parents. I came home, and for the first time felt isolated by the salmon pink bedroom walls I had chosen in 8th grade. While the moments of independence define us, they also separate us from what we once were and bring us one step closer to who we will become.

I was on the phone with my mom last week when I suppressed a whopper of a cough. “That sounds bad,” she said, “have you gone to the health center?”

Instead of validation, I felt annoyance. “I can take care of it myself.”

I take care of me.

-Emma Diehl '13

Check out her blog HERE

Life's a Circus

[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

“Whenever I play that game two truths and one lie, I always say I grew up in a circus, and everybody says that’s the lie,” said Batjargal “Bachka” Batmunkh ’13, smiling, “but it’s not.” 

Bachka actually did spend most of his childhood—from age four to 12 on-stage with Cirque du Soleil’s “Algeria,” touring around the world and going almost everywhere—with the exception, he said, of any African countries. His favorites include New Zealand and Singapore.

[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

He speaks French, Mongolian, and English, and he even understands a little bit of Russian.

Since the age of three, Bachka had been traveling with his mother, who was a coach for acts in the show, and he spent much of his time backstage watching the acrobats perform. One day, he started imitating some of the actions of stage (no acrobatics yet though!), and the creators of the show decided to put him in. When they asked him if he’d like to have a part, “it was the easiest yes ever,” he said.

“The first thing I did was do a quick move and then go off stage,” he said, “I definitely made the crowd go ‘awe’.

There isn’t much you can do that is more fun then being a kid in the midst of an artistic circus act. “Before they opened the house, I would have my costume on and they would give me a big bag of popcorn,” said Bachka.

In his younger years, Bachka’s father stayed home in Mongolia, but eventually joined the Cirque crew as a coach for acrobats and house troupes.

Though Bachka was the only kid in the show, he made friends with the children of coaches and technicians. “Most of the time I was fooling around backstage,” said Bachka, “my best friends and I would always hang out.”

“I also had a super Nintendo and some of the younger cast members would get in trouble for playing with it, but I was allowed because I was a kid,” he said.

He got into a fair share of trouble as well, growing up backstage. Once him and a friend threw into their air a whole container of confetti that was supposed to be used at ‘snow’ during the show; however the audience soon found out that there was no ‘snow’ left to be used, and the two boys were scolded when they had been discovered.

 [Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

He has also met several celebrities though his stage career, but he only remembers them due to the collection of photos his parents keep—Janet Jackson, Harrison Ford, Whoopi Goldberg. Once he even high fived President Bill Clinton; Bachka only found out the man’s identity after the show from the adults. “I was pen pals with that boy from Spy Kids for a little bit,” he said. 

“One of the most beautiful theaters to perform in,” said Bachka, “was the Royal Albert Hall in London with its old design and terraces for the audience.”

The one this that he missed out on, he said, were the parties. “I wished I was old enough to enjoy them, but I was 10.”

Another thing that wasn’t as great for Bachka during those years was his academic career. In the US, he said, they have a law that if you’re a minor that works, you can only go to school for a certain amount of time and are not allowed to be assigned homework. To supplement this, his parents assigned him their own homework, and his mother continuously taught him reading and writing in Mongolian, since he spent so much time abroad.

“The hardest thing to learn was actually putting on the makeup,” Bachka said, “it took me a really long time to do.”

[Photo courtesy of Batjargal Batmunkh]

By the time Bachka was 10, he began to work on acrobatics. “I was not a natural for it,” he said with a laugh.

The first trick he did was to hold on to the back of a man who was performing a back flip. “At first it was pretty scary, but then it got fun,” he said. The tricks did get harder, and he watched talented cast members perform amazing tricks everyday.

“I thought the coolest act were the aerial high bars with a net below; it always blew my mind,” he said.

The hardest trick he had to work on was a double back flip pike. In fact, in one show, he over rotated and landed on his head and passed out.

“My parents told me that the crowd was scared because I was obviously the only kid in the show and I wasn’t moving,” said Bachka seriously, “and it must have scared my parents because I stopped doing Cirque about a year later. “

After Cirque, Bachka went back to Mongolia in 7^th grade and attended an international school that continued his exposures to a variety of cultures.  Because he was athletic from his involvement in acrobatics, he continued to get involved with sports in high school.

“I also learned to play drums from the show’s drummer. I sat next to him during sound checks, and he taught me for three years,” said Bachka. He was in a band in high school called “Mohanik” and January of his senior year, they were signed and recorded an album together. He left the band to attend Lehigh, and the band has since recorded more albums, played numerous shows in Mongolia and recorded songs for movie soundtracks.

Bachka’s mother now works as a trainer for young aspiring contortionists, and is able to send them on to large shows. If you wanted to make it as a contortionist in Mongolia, you would have to go to her.

Bachka intends to stay in education, and hopefully work internationally. “I wouldn’t mind being a principal for an international school, travel, and work with kids.”  Ideally, he hopes to makes changes for the youth in Mongolia because the government and education, since the change from communism in 1991, has become corrupted. 

Viral videos of the week

A few videos went viral over this week. Here is a recap of the of my top 5 videos for the week. 

5. Our first video is cheerleader half-court trick shot...UNREAL! This features the impressive ability of Ashlee Arnau, a cheerleader at William Carey University. She was the star of the night with her almost unrepeatable half court shot. 

4. Coming in at number 4 we have Fragile Italian Glass Snowboard by Network. In this video a group of snowboard enthusiast (aka Signal Snowboards) travel to Italy and visit the beautiful mountains of Tuscany. The purpose of this trip was to create and test the world's first glass snowboard. They chose to do this in Italy because of the history of the Glass blowing there. There they meet up with Signal Snowboards Italy team rider Giorgio "Iannino" Morell who travels with them to the different factories where they construct the board. 

3. At Number three we have “How it feels [through glass] by Google.” In this video Google shows off its newest product: the Google glass. This is a pair of glasses that contains an android computer that functions very similarly to your run of the mill smart phone. The video shows a collection of people experiencing life in a first person perspective. The video shows many of the interesting things that you can do with Google's glasses. The glasses are expected to hit shelves some time later this year, but if you want to see all of the interesting things that the glasses watch the video. 

2. The second place video is Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble Goat Edition by Christopher DrifterSX. This short clip shows part of Taylor Swifts “I Knew You Were Trouble” replacing her yell with goats from the other viral video “Goats Yelling Like Humans.” Many people found this joke very entertaining. If you want to see the hysterical rendition of Taylor Swift’s song you can catch it here:

1. The number one video of the week was “Kittens on the Beat” by Corridor Digital. This video shows the epic struggle between kittens and what can only be surmised to be sock gnomes. With tunes by Savant blasting in the background the battle for the socks is portrayed in epic grandeur. If you like kittens and Freedom then this is the video for you. To see the majesty that is “Kittens on the Beat” click below.

-Chris Buglione '15

How Cool is Your Roommate?

Roommates: a prominent part of college life. It’s what we anticipate, what we fear. As a sophomore I didn’t have to worry about the whole “random choice, what if my roommate doesn’t have a Facebook” type thing, because I got to pick someone whom I had been friends with for a year. Yet, even when you do pick your roommate there are some universal issues you will probably run into.

Some are little things like: they like different colors than you do, making your room a mismatched space. Or maybe they never make their bed, causing throw pillows and stuffed animals to encroach on your side.

Some are a little more important. They go to bed later than you do, testing how light of a sleeper you really are. (Bet you never thought the sound of typing could keep you up). You have that never ending worry that they may just walk in when you’re on the phone, or when you’re sleeping, or when you’re embarrassingly trying to do an exercise video.

Basically they’re just always there. Which tests your love for even your very best friend.

However, I had a little difference experience than the “norm” this year. For the month of January and most of February my roommate was gone. No, we weren’t in a fight, and no she wasn’t contained in FML freaking out about her super hard classes, or shacking up with her boyfriend. Instead my roommate was off trying to stop domestic violence, and being the symbol for women’s rights on Lehigh’s campus.

Dana Gallant '15 [Photo by Laura Casale '15]

Perhaps I’m a little biased with that title…but if you knew what I knew and saw what I saw, just by living in my 16x11 room, maybe you’d agree. My roommate was gone most of the time, always at a meeting, or running to grab food before rehearsal. She was sending emails daily, asking me to go with her to local businesses to set up fundraisers. There were piles of T-shirts in our room, completely merging our sides of the room. I saw her upset when she failed a test that she couldn’t study for because she was too busy, and I saw her worrying about if she was really cut out for this job

And by “this job” I mean the co producer of Lehigh’s annual V-Day. My roommate, Dana Gallant ’15, took on the daunting task of producing this year’s “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer.” Whether you saw it or not, there’s no arguing that the cause behind this production is something that seems bigger than just a sophomore 5 foot girl at Lehigh. Gallant recognized that, and allowed the cause of ending domestic violence to consume her, and take over her life…because to her it was that important.

Gallant joined The Vagina Monologues freshmen year after seeing a post about it in the daily announcements. “I joined because I wanted to meet people,” said Gallant. “But then it was really a good experience, and such a good cause, that I became all for it.”

She joined as one of the many cast members and performed one of the monologues with other members. She had thought about possibly being a co-producer when she was a senior- older, and more established in the organization. However, when the production was in need of someone to produce it this year, they asked Gallant.

[Design by Rose Tatarsky '16]

“I was really nervous and didn’t think I’d be able to do it because I’m only a sophomore,” said Gallant. “I thought I’d be older. But it just shows that anyone can do something to help, no matter their age.”

As a co-producer, Gallant was in charge of all major aspects of the production. She had to, first and foremost, organize the cast and facilitate rehearsals. I reaped the benefits of this, when she decided to bake them cookies and I got the leftovers.

Gallant also had to difficult task of applying for grants, reaching out to other organizations and planning fundraisers. I also reaped the benefits of this when I was taken out to a roommate dinner conveniently on both days of the Starters Dine to Donate, where all proceeds went to V-Day.

So when I asked Gallant if this job kept her busy, I was answered with a resounding “yes.”

“There’d be points where there were a lot of stuff to do, then it would dip a little bit,” said Gallant. “By the time we got back [from winter break] in February, I’d say I was doing 20 hours a week for V-day.”

Those 20 hours a week really took a toll on Gallant, as they would for any Lehigh student who is taking difficult classes and involved in many things. When asked about that one test that did not go so well, Gallant only chuckled and shrugged.

“[V-Day] was really important to me, so one bad grade is not everything,” she said. “It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Despite the fact that Gallant had a faculty adviser whom she met with weekly, she was responsible for carrying out all the work for the production. However, getting people to cooperate proved to initially be a challenge.

“It was my first leadership position ever,” said Gallant. “So I started out being really nervous and questioning will people listen to me because I’m on the smaller size and people tend to disregard what I’m saying.”

Yet, by the end Gallant gained confidence and learned to trust her instincts and her own authority. She could tell people what to do without questioning herself, and learned how to say no to people….which can sometimes be the hardest thing.

“I felt really accomplished by the end,” said Gallant. “It was great.”

When asked what she plans on doing in the future, Gallant just laughed before slowly saying that she wants to produce it again. She is also a part of Break the Silence and has accepted the opportunity to plan Take Back the Night next semester.

After living with Dana this past year, and seeing the stress she went through, I along with many others wonder why on earth she would go through it all again. The answer is that she has the passion for the cause.

“I don’t think anyone could really do this unless they were really passionate about the cause because it’s so much work,” she said. “You need to know why you’re doing it and why it makes a difference.”

And to Gallant, she was doing it simply to help people, and stop something that she believes is wrong.

“There are people out there that are suffering, and it is such an important issue,” she said. “The production itself opens people’s eyes to things going on in the world that people don’t talk about, or aren’t’ really aware of, or don’t think are as big of a deal as they are.”

So, basically my roommate is extremely cool.

-Laura Casale '15