DAILY LOBO new mexico
Investigating cereal fillers see Page 11
March 1, 2013
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
‘The story you’re telling is my story’ ‘To Write Love on Her Arms’ strives to prevent suicide by Ardee Napolitano and Jocelyn Moya news@dailylobo.com
UNM student Alicia Crespin said she had a friend who tried to kill herself once. She said her friend had troubles dealing with her personal problems but did not want to receive professional help. Crespin said she was clueless about how to deal with the situation. “She never sought help on her own,” she said. “She was unhappy. At the time I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was there and I listened to her, but I didn’t know what to tell her.” Crespin, who is now a volunteer for Agora Crisis Center, said students should be aware of the University’s suicide-prevention resources. But she said students struggling with suicide are often afraid to seek out help from others. Crespin sat alongside hundreds of students Thursday night to listen to a lecture by Jamie
Tworkowski, the founder of the suicide-prevention organization To Write Love on Her Arms. The event was organized by ASUNM’s Student Special Events. Tworkowski said he founded the organization after his friend Renee, who was suicidal and was addicted to drugs, sliced the words “Fuck up” on her arms one night. He said he and his friends then tried to sell shirts with the words “To Write Love on Her Arms” to people to be able to pay for Renee’s medical expenses and to help her get psychiatric help. But Tworkowski said Renee’s story needed to be heard by other people who might relate to it, so he wrote Renee’s story and posted it on a website he created in February 2006. The foundation was founded in Florida one month after the story was published. “I’ve heard people say, ‘The story you’re telling is my story,’” he said. “It was a great surprise and part of it was incredibly exciting. It wasn’t something that we have expected.” Tworkowski said that two out of three people who experience
friday
Mark Grace / Daily Lobo Jamie Tworkowski speaks to the crowd at “To Write Love on Her Arms,” an event held Thursday in the SUB. Tworkowski had a friend struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts, which served as his inspiration to found a campaign dedicated to suicide prevention and awareness. depression do not get help with their issues. He said depressed people are often scared to open up their emotions to others. “Pain became the way they deal with pain,” he said. “But as people, we need other people. A support system is something we all deserve and that we all need.”
Tworkowski said people who struggle with suicidal thoughts should never succumb to them. “This stuff is just part of the human experience,” he said. “In this life we will experience pain. We will lose people and we will lose experiences. It becomes more tempting to live in the past,
BIRTHDAY BASH
but it doesn’t have to be that way.” SSE Executive Director Jessica Duncan said the group initiated the lecture due to recent suicides on campus. In fall 2011, a female student
see Love PAGE 5
Students build satellite for NASA by Rosario MarroquinFlores news@dailylobo.com
William Aranda / Daily Lobo UNM student Jaime Miguel McCarthy, a member of Lobo Spirit, breaks open a piñata during Lobo Day celebrations in the SUB Thursday. Lobo Day is celebrated every year on the anniversary UNM’s founding; this year was UNM’s 124th birthday. Events during Lobo Day included a group photo session of UNM students and staff with cake and punch served afterward. The photo of the students and staff will be painted as a giant mural near the Chick-fil-A in the SUB.
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Daily Lobo volume 117
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Overdoing it
Finding their footing
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UNM’s first-ever satellite project is NASA-ready after four years in the making. In 2009, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department submitted a plan to build a nanosatellite to be launched into Earth’s orbit in response to a challenge issued by NASA’s Education Launch of Nano Satellites initiatives. Work on the satellite began in 2011 after UNM received NASA’s approval. The resulting nanosatellite, named Trailblazer, is scheduled to be launched from an Air Force base in Virginia this June. The two-pound, four-inch, cube-shaped nanosatellite will circle the Earth at approximately five miles per second and face extreme temperatures and vibrations, all in the name of testing new materials fabricated by 3-D printers and an Air Force communications network. 3-D printers fabricate a solid
see COSMIAC PAGE 5
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