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Omega Nu organized its first annual Summer Fit Fest that was open to the public. This was a family friendly event to promote and gain knowledge on healthy living. Participants learned how to sustain and maintain healthy and active lives. MDC@NU interviewed Karrie Yi, one of the club officials that doubles up as an official for MDC@NU. Read on...
1. Please tell us about yourself
I am a mother of twin boys, veteran, and a spouse of an Active Duty Member of the Navy. My current major is Early Childhood Education. The degree pursuit started when I knew I needed to support my family social-emotionally and academically while my husband was on his deployment schedule. I knew very little about the different types of pedagogy, types of childcare centers, programs, and assistive resources. Also, I needed to know more about the basic developmental processes my twins were going through during their ages and stages. In being the primary caregiver while my husband was deployed, I knew I had to educate myself for my boys’ well-being and that of my family. Through the journey of my education, I had the realization of how the community affects the family unit and how the family unit directly has an impact for the rest of a child’s life. Consequently, this attained knowledge lead to a passion to help individual families to get the necessary support for today’s high work demands.
2. As a NU Scholar, how do you create time for other activities and studies?
I wake up early every morning at 4:30 AM, to help my husband get ready for his work day. After he is sent off to start his day, I am able to have my cup of coffee in the morning. It is then that I start to visualize what my daily tasks are going to be and if they are realistic enough to be accomplished on the same day. I play around with my schedule about two or three times a day, depending on the feedback or responses from emails or the needs of my family for that day. Even though I strive to be consistent and productive in the best possible way, I do understand not everything is controllable and I do allow myself some reprieve if a particular task does not get done. However, I do give myself a new timeline for any tasks that could not be done at least a twenty-four-hour window depending on the demand of it. Once again, consistency and self-awareness in capabilities helps me stay on track without much delay.
3. You have a very important role in the Omega Nu club. Tell us about it and more about the club
I am the Omega NU Vice President. This started out with my good colleague, Jia Arnell, and her visionary conception on bringing a positive, productive, and beneficiary student organization that not only enhances the students’ academic enrichment but continuously reaches out to the community to help provide support to individuals, families, and students at National University by utilizing the individual members capabilities within their abilities in their various academic fields.
4. Please tell us about the most recent Omega Nu Summer Fit-Fest event
Omega Nu Summer Fit Fest was to promote healthily lifestyle through movement and healthy fun, snacks, safety fundamentals in CPR, and mental wellbeing for the families through creative art, furthermore provide accessible resources that the City of San Diego has to offer. We strive to create a moment for families to focus on wellbeing as a unit or individually. When we have healthy families, both the physical and mental wellbeing of the community increases.
5. Which activity did you facilitate at the event, and how important is it in the community?
I facilitated the Art segment of the event. I have to quote an article called Art Enhances Brain Function and Well-Being by Renee Phillips as they quoted Eric Jensen, “As Eric Jensen, one of the leading translators in the world of neuroscience into education, states in his book Arts with the Brain in Mind, “The systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional, and motor capacities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all other learning” (Phillips, 2015).
It also promotes healing from physical and mental trauma, which allows oneself to process the trauma and self-regulate when dealing with the traumatic memory. Art helps regulate crucial hormones that allows us to have prolonged long term and short-term memories as we age much like chess and other memory games due to the critical thinking requirements that art often draws upon us while we create something new into the physical world. As you can see, I am very passionate on the creative process. Everyone has their own unique view point, capabilities and open-end art is leveled median of human communication and development.
6. How do you successfully communicate with your audience while facilitating an activity?
Since my audience was at different ages and stages, I stepped back to observe how to engage or assist if needed. I wanted to keep the activities as open-ended as possible so that every attendee had the comfort, development, and meaning of ownership and community in participating in the mural canvases. Moreover, I reassured everyone that there was no such thing as mistakes in the open-ended activities and this was a chance to come and relax their mind in a quieter environment.
As the group moved on from making their own small canvases, I invited everyone to participate in the Jackson Pollock inspired mural. Every age from 2years old to 30+yrs old participated in the mural and they got to see what their role was in creating the mural in real time. Art truly has no boundaries when you are creating with the community. I would definitely like to create another opportunity like that again.
7. What helped you succeed in planning this event?
Communication! I cannot stress enough about communication, and everyone being on the same page. Having our Zoom meetings and being able to see each other helped a lot in reducing any confusion. Social media helped in promoting the event and the fact that Jia has the opportunity to make an event with her individual support system along with National University members is amazing. It was a great and helpful collaboration between the City of San Diego and National University.
8. What strategies do you use for dealing with event planning stress?
Going to the gym or at least a home workout. I like to think of myself as an active person and I do need to move around to get rid of pent-up energy when it comes to the “crunch” time because I do go on work mode and forget my time and calendar for a while as I do final preparations.
9. Tell us about your collaboration with other NU Scholars and your contribution to the MDC@NU events
I am the Secretary of the MDC@NU. We are currently developing a wonderful event in the form of a camping trip to Kumeyaay Campgrounds on Friday, August 16 - Saturday, August 17, 2019.
10. Which new educational activities would you like to see covered at future Omega Nu club events?
I would love to see us do multicultural events by incorporating our internal student population and provide information of local conferences for our individual members majors. Then all of us go to it and learn a little bit more about each other’s fields and how we can support each other more and help promote community inclusion.
Reference
Phillips, R. (2015). Art Enhances Brain Function and Well-Being. Retrieved from The Healing Power of ART and Artists: https://www.healing-power-of-art.org/art-and-the-brain/
