She’s a volunteer firefighter, photographer, nutrition advocate, emergency medical technician, PennQuest leader and homebrewer. Basically, Sika Gasinu is our hero. Here she dishes about carrot cake, time traveling and, uh, poop. Street: Where does one get a brew kit? Sika Gasinu: There’s actually a lot of home–brew stores in Philly. I went to one called “Keystone Home Brew.” It’s this huge warehouse, and they have this stuff to make beer, wine, cheese… There’s an absinthe maker. Isn’t that insane?
Street: What’s your best PennQuest Story? SG: Most funny PennQuest stories deal with poop. I don’t know if you want to print this.
Street: Keep going. SG: During my freshman year, a couple of the kids in my group did a partner poop. Basically you hold hands with someone, lean backwards… Well, you can do back to back, or…
Street: Do you actually poop? SG: Yeah, this is for people actually pooping. PennQuest is an interesting thing. If you didn’t do it, it sounds really weird, but when you’re on the trip… I promise, we’re not crazy. Well, we are a little crazy.
Street: When you were on MERT, what was the most stupid call that you received? SG: I never had calls for stupid things. The only calls I ever had were related to people being really, really drunk. It’s pretty boring — just drunk Penn kids. Typical.
Street: You’re stuck on a deserted island. What inanimate object would you make your buddy? SG: Did you say dessert island?
Street: Deserted! Deserted island. SG: Well, if it was dessert island, I would absolutely bring carrot cake. I am obsessed with carrot cake.
Street: Is carrot cake actually nutritional? SG: No. I mean, there’s carrots, but you mix it with a lot of sugar. It’s not great for you, but I think it’s awesome.
Street: If you could take anyone from anytime on a quest, who would it be? SG: Okay, the funny thing is, when I first applied to be a PennQuest leader, this was my question, and I gave the worst answer in history. I finally decided I would go back in time and ask Victorian women how it felt to wear corsets. And everyone gave me that blank stare like the one you’re giving me now.
Street: But would you want to go on a quest with them? SG: It would be interesting to get Victorian women out of their comfort zones. That’s the whole point of PennQuest. Taking people out of their comfort zones to get to know them better.
Street: By comfort zones you mean discomfort zones? Considering they’re in corsets. SG: Exactly! Maybe hiking wouldn’t be so bad because they’re used to wearing corsets all the time. It shifts your bones and it’s weird. Weird stuff happens with corsets.
Check out our past egos here.
