Name: John Weeks (AKA Juan Esteban Semanas)
Major: Naturally this needs to be plaural- Neuroscience and Hispanic Studies
Hometown: Leesburg, Virginia
Service Involvement(s): Major: THE Student Organization for Medical Outreach and Sustainability. CPK, others I'm forgetting
Favorite Book: The King Arthur Flour Baker's companion? May not be the intellectually stimulating masterpieces of Paul Farmer, but it's much tastier.
A rambling statement about any or all of the following: your concept of service. What is it? What is it now? Why do it? Is there too much? Not enough? What is citizenship?

---WARNING--- This is 100% ramble. If you're looking for sense, grammar, correct spelling, or even logical flow of thoughts, stop here. So works my mind----

In my (often not so) humble opinion, "service" per se, is a tricky concept. In any sort of definitoin you have to really measure your words, be sure you're expressing what you want to. It's easy to get so excited about the concept of "helping somebody" that you forget that "somebody" is a somebody as well, and might not really dig the way you're talking about them. With that in mind, I'll go ahead and hypocrite all over myself trying to define service. So what is service? I would go as far as to say it has to include a level of interest in the welfare of other people that goes beyond intellectual curiosity, but at the same time reflects their human values and qualities. It must be a concious effort to assist someone else in thier walk through life. There are many different reasons to do service, and everyone who actively engages, contributes, or thinks about engaging in service has their own unique reasons for doing service. All I know is, ever time I've ever had an opportunity to do some sort of "service" I've benefited far more from the experience than those I was trying to "serve". As for the level of service, Who's to say if there's too much, too little, or just the right amount. Service should be a work of pasison, and I think that as long as those doing the serving are passionate about their cause, then who's to stop them? One thing that might improve the current state is greater collaboratoin in the service done: imagine instead of "turf wars" over "who can serve an area", "name recognition" and such garbage, if people just worked together what a difference could be made. So, en fin, for me service is where passion and energy connect with a cause in an attempt to make a difference in the world.