Class of 2013: Freshman Blog

I thought about writing this entry a week ago.  However, I just didn’t know how to put what I was feeling into words.  A part of me was coming to the realization that home would never be home again after you’ve left it for a significant amount of time.  Home becomes some interim place between where you were and where you will go next.  It’s as if you try to relive all your old ways, memories, patterns like it’s a movie you’ve seen a million times.  But once you come back, it plays in black and white, and no matter how familiar all the lines are, something feels distant.  Last week, I couldn’t care less if I didn’t come back for years.

A lot changed from last summer to this.    This summer I said good-bye to a lot of friendships, many as old as elementary school.  To be honest, I couldn’t tell you what went wrong.  The thing is when move away, you hope it’s the memories of the times you spent together that will keep you close.  However, the experiences you have when you are apart inevitably cause you to change, and some friendships just can’t bare that weight.  A year ago, I thought those friendships would last forever, and, now, they have come to an end.

In the few days before I left, it finally hit me, I was home all along this summer.  Suddenly, I was met the same feelings I possessed before moving to Hopkins one year ago; a stomach full of fear, sadness, and anxiety.  Saying goodbyes are always hard.  Last year, I knew that I would be home in a matter of months, but this time that certainty isn’t present.  I bought a one-way, without the slightest notion of when I would come back.

Upon my arrival to the Chicago Midway airport, I discover that the seating at the gate for my flight to Baltimore was full, so I wandered to find a gate with some open seats.  I found an open chair, and thinking nothing of it sat down and relieved my back of the excruciating pain my carry-ons were producing.  Then I glanced up, and the sign above the gate read Minneapolis, Departs 11:50 AM.  Then I thought if I had a blank ticket to go anywhere in the world, where would I go?  There I was in the Midway airport, almost exactly mid-way between Minneapolis and Baltimore.  Would I turn back and return to a place where the faces, places, and feelings are familiar?  Or would I carry on to a place that I love, but at the same times elicits all these feelings of fear, giddiness, and anxiety?

But then I thought, I felt the exact same way last year.  There were moments in the early part of my freshmen year that I would have given anything to go home.  Of course there are moments of apprehension, and loneliness, anxiety, and nausea.  Things always get better.  So I finished my lunch at the Minneapolis gate, then wandered back to the gate to Baltimore, knowing that I couldn’t give up Hopkins, no matter how much I would miss Minnesota.

After to returning to Hopkins, I was filled with excitement, butterflies, and an unexpected and unwarranted surge of energy.  It felt good to be back.  But after my first night in my room, I woke up startled early in the morning.  Something was missing.  I glanced to the foot of my bed, to realize that my twenty-pound, oaf, and blob of cat, Pantaloons, was missing.  There are always things and people you have to leave behind, and that’s the hardest part.  But you have to learn to find the things that make this new place home.

I promised myself I would start this entry before the first of August.  Sadly, it’s 2:30 am on the first of August.  Oh well, my intentions were honest.  Why awake at 2:30 am?  Well, my lovely job in retail has these exciting events called floorsets.  It’s one of those retail jargons that you don’t really understand until you work it.  Basically, all of the stuff in the store gets moved around, and new stuff gets put out, etc, etc.  Really it just means a lot of folding for me.  They usually occur after the store closes, which usually means from 9pm to some odd hour in the morning.  The last floorset ran until 6 am for two consecutive nights, which was followed by an Organic Chemistry exam the next morning at 8 am.  You can’t really say you’ve pulled a double all-nighter until you’ve spent it sweating in a non-air-conditioned clothing store doing heavy lifting and running around for nine hours.  Studying did not really happen.  Oh well.

Speaking of chemistry, my final is this Thursday morning.  A part of me really doesn’t want to study.  I have an A in the class, and since I am transferring the credit the grade actually doesn’t follow.  So, in reality, I could pretty much fail or not even take the final, still pass and get the credit.  It is as if nature has offered me a test to decided if I really am a self-slaughtering masochist.  I feel like I would be more upset if I kept my A, and it didn’t follow versus if I got a B or C and it didn’t follow.  However, I am also really considering taking Organic 2 at Hopkins second semester, even though I am not premed, and it is not required by my major.  I am really enjoying the class, and I think I am actually pretty good at it.  It’s so crazy how nature made all of these god-awful crazy rules for how things are going to work.  So much to remember!  But it is completely and utterly ingenious, and more importantly kind of beautiful.  I guess I am lucky to have a pretty good memory, sometimes I wonder if it is semi-photographic.  Is there a test I can take for this?  Either way, I am not going to give my memory all the credit because I did read that textbook, all 600 pages of it.  Other than that, I haven’t put tons of effort into it.  It’s summer after all!  In fact, I haven’t cracked my book open since the last exam!!!  I am dreading it so much, since it seems I have wasted so much sleep to wake up every morning for class.  As much as I enjoy it, I will be happy when it is over.

Organic has really has me considering if I have chosen the right major.  I do love ChemBE.  The faculty is great, and there is a lot of opportunity within the department.  However, ChemBE seems less about chemistry and more about applications and production of different chemicals.  When I compare a class like Process Analysis to Organic, Organic takes the cake hands down.  Currently, we are learning about NMR, IR, and Mass Spectroscopy (which I don’t believe is covered in Hopkins’ Organic), and I love it.  I know there even exists a whole course is Spectroscopy, and I really want to take it. It’s subjects like Quantum Chemistry and Organic Lab have me really considering changing my major to Chemistry.  I think coming into Hopkins I thought ChemBE would be more chemistry based than it actually is.  The only pure chemistry courses that are required are general chemistry, O-Chem 1, Physical Chemistry (the one semester version taught in the engineering department), and a chemistry elective.  It just goes to show sometimes you know what you want when you step foot on campus, but so much can change in only a semester.

In the end, I think the engineering degree may open more doors and lead to more job opportunities.  I hate saying that because I hate students who choose engineering for the money or the prospects of a shoe-in job.  I also must admit that I don’t want people to think I dropped ChemBE because I couldn’t handle the heat.  I know I shouldn’t care what other people think, but I want people to know if it’s hot in the kitchen I’ll go as far as to put my hand on the stovetop.  I also know that my mom would prefer if I stayed an engineering major.  I’ve worked so hard within my major, from my involvement with the Chemical Engineering Car Team, to my involvement with the mentorship program and AICHE, where I was elected as sophomore representative.  In the end I have to stop thinking about what others think and want and really try to discover what I want.  I wish a magic genie could just appear and tell me what the right choice is, but I know that will never happen.

A funny thing happened a couple weeks ago.  I was browsing through my bookshelf looking for something interesting to read, when I ran across some old textbooks I brought home after my grandma died, which included a Schaum’s Outline of Differential Equations.  As I was browsing through the archaic study guide, a small folded piece of paper fell out.  On the back was some scratch work from a problem (most likely from the book.)  When I opened the paper, I ran across a page from a lab report titled Lindlar’s Catalyst, which included detailed instructions on how to synthesize this special catalyst that is used to hydrogenate alkynes to alkenes with cis-isomerism.  At the top of page was the date December 16, 1966.  The lavender-blue ink indicated that the page was printed from a mimeograph, a hand-cranked printer that dated before the late 1960’s.  It was like finding a hidden treasure, a piece of Watkins history.  The careful scripted math on the back was signature of my dad, and the date indicated that the page dated back to his time spent at Caltech.

My dad is a pure genius, and I am extremely critically of other’s intellect.  He is on my list of the most intelligent human beings I have ever met, which is very short.  As a high school student, he handcrafted a particle accelerator in the height of the atomic age including an ultra-high vacuum created from refrigerator heat pumps.  He even built a hovercraft.  In college he was first a chemistry major, then he switched to physics.  However, his senior year he dropped out to pursue an invention, which we now know as modern microwave popcorn, with his brother, under the brand name Act II.  Now he is a small business owner, who makes outdoor lighting fixtures.  It wasn’t until a phone conversation that occurred last semester that I learned that he might have truly regretted leaving the university scene.  As a gifted machinist and physicist, he said the times he spent in the physics labs where some of the best in his life.  Looking back now, he wishes that he had continued to study physics, even at the graduate level, and someday have his own lab.

He used to tell me I would never be as smart as him, which is probably true.  But it’s moments like after one of my organic midterms when I can show him a paper with a big red 95 on the front, that I can see him smile with a gap between his two front teeth large enough to drive a bus through.  These moments makes it all worth it, even if the grade doesn’t follow.  Maybe it’s true, and I will never be as smart as him, nor can I understand what kinds of crazy ideas pass through his mind when he stares into space with his gap-toothed smile.  Then again, maybe I am inching closer to something.  Maybe I was put here on this earth to finish something he never could.  It’s seems illogical and maybe a bit superstitious, but that paper may have fallen out for a reason.  Who knows why I felt such a sentimental connection to a piece of 44-year old paper, but all I do know is that my biggest fear is realize at 64-years old, that I have made a lifelong mistake.

So for now I am going to stay and engineer.  It’s so hard to make a decision after only two semesters; however, if I need to change it should be something I should anticipate sooner rather than later.

So it’s 11:30 pm on a Friday night.  What am I up to?  Whilst the rest of the adolescent population of Minneapolis maybe at concerts or parties, or other eventful festivities, I am at home, sitting at my kitchen table and reheating my mother’s most recent cooking concoction.  After the first couple bites, it seems to contain a good amount of olives and potentially capers.

So a lot has happened the last couple of weeks.  First was a four-day camping trip up north for the Fourth of July.  Up north is basically Canada, which is a country I have never actually visited but I have been very physically close to.  After a weekend of tent flooding, ten thousand mosquito bites, and not showering, I was very excited to return to the city.

A view from the balcony of the Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis. It overlooks St. Anthony Main, a historic milling district of North Minneapolis.

The following weekend a friend and I took a four-day weekend trip to Chicago, which was awesome.  She had some friends spending the summer in the City, so it was a great opportunity to spend time there.  Man oh man! Chicago puts Minneapolis to shame.

The weekend after that, I figured it was time to put the long road trips to a rest.  I don’t know how much more my circulatory system could take.  That weekend we spent in the city, where we celebrated the Aquatenniel festival and my birthday.  It was pretty low key, but, overall, enjoyable.

The past week was a bit rough.  It began with a mad dash to memorize as much organic chemistry and ended with a slightly painful exam.  The best way to describe summer organic chemistry is speed chemistry.  It’s like a giant race to see who can smash the most reaction mechanisms in their brain within a week.  The insanity ensues for two more weeks, but after that I am home free for the rest of summer.

Tomorrow nearly concludes weekends in July.  My dad and I are heading to St. Paul for the Red Bull Flutag.  Unsure of exactly what it is, but to my understanding, it’s where people make home-made flying machines and attempt to fly them off of cliff.  Sounds entertaining and ripe for some awesome people watching.  Since my dad is the president of his model airplane club and a seasoned hang-glider, I am sure he will enjoy it thoroughly.  I am hoping for some free Red Bull.  I am going to need it for this chemistry final.

12:21 AM now.  So the week has officially ended.  Although it was filled with a decent amount of pain and sweat, I am foreseeing the rest of this month ending well.  Tonight a friend and I watched Juno, which is an awesome movie and even takes place in Minnesota.  Yeah, for reals!  It even mentions Ridgedale Mall, which just happens to be the place of my employment!

Another view from the Guthrie. This one is a snip-it of the downtown skyline.

So I think I will retire to my bed soon.  But not without more food!  Now that my bowl of pasta concoction remains nearly empty (save some capers and red peppers), I think course two will consist of some nearly week-old birthday cake, even though my stomach is feeling a bit queasy from the Swedish Fish earlier.  Nothing quite heals an ailing soul like birthday cake.

Ever had a pot of boiling water spill all over your upper body.  I haven’t, but I bet it would feel similar to the excruciating pain my upper body is suffering from right now.  I’m talking about sunburn.  I really should accept my German, Swedish, and English heritage and understand that it comes with the warning label of SPF 75+ required.  Nonetheless, every summer there are a few weeks where I suffer from skin that feels like it’s on fire.

Other than that summer has been progressing swimmingly.  I took back my old job in the mall, even though I hate retail with a burning passion.  I have organic chemistry four days a week in the morning, which leaves me with a lot of free time, which is rarely spent studying.

It’s a little weird to think that I am back at the university where I spent three semesters prior to attending to Hopkins.  It’s a bit like that move Sliding Doors, with Gwyneth Paltrow.  In the movie Gwyenth’s character is in a subway and the movie’s plot focus around what would happen if she made it through the subway door at this certain moment in time.  The movie follows two paths in her life, the one where she made it through the door and the one where she didn’t.  Not a great movie, but an interesting story line.  Now that I am spending time back this university in Minnesota, the same one that my mom and dad and two sisters attended, it’s a bit funny to think that this would be my life if I chose not to apply to Hopkins.  Not many people get to live out the what-ifs in their lives.  While, I am enjoying my time at this university, I am also longing to head back east.  I miss everything about it.  I miss my friends, and the kitschy neighborhoods of Baltimore, and I even miss MSE.  Even the types of trees that grow in Maryland are different.  It’s so funny to think at moments you would give anything to go home, but then once you get there you realized what you just left was your home.

Moving 1,500 miles to Baltimore for the first time was terrifying.  Granted, I am not an international student or anything, but still the distance was great.  I left behind all of my friends and a life at another university.  There were moments right before moving to Hopkins where I was seriously reconsidering my choice.  After three semesters at a school in Minnesota, I would say that I was happy there.  I didn’t know if I would like Hopkins, after all I had never been there.  But in the end, I made the move, and at moments I would have given anything to go home, but I am happy I stayed.

Now that I am back at that same university in Minnesota, I can really reflect on what my life would have been if I stayed.  I can tell now that I have definitely made the right choice.  So if the door would have slid closed or open, I would have chose whichever one led me east.  So while I am enjoying my time, I am also eagerly awaiting my flight back to Baltimore.  I have even started packing.

I think I can officially say I’m not a freshman anymore. This week marked a big change in my summer schedule.  I switched my laying in the sun, sleeping in, relaxation for pouring rain, eight AM organic chemistry, and a job.

One of the best decisions I made this past year was to join the student group that runs Hopkins Interactive.  Although I am not often punctual and there are moments where I may miss punctuate, these blogs are one of the most fulfilling assignments I have completed in the past nine months.  They allow me reflect how I change on a week-to-week basis and help me remember the times, both good and bad.  But I also hope that they resonate with a prospective student somewhere across the world that shares my interests, or feelings, or love of learning.

So now’s the time where I look back on the blogs from my first two semesters.

Animals and Digging Up Worms

My very first entry!  I talk about my first semester courses, my hometown, and my early experiences in Baltimore.  As I struggle with the move from one city to another, I learn what it means to redefine home.

Hunting Squabbits

I discovered a natural wonder on the Hopkins campus, the squabbit!  If you didn’t know, squirrels and rabbits are two of my favorite animals.  I also enjoy pink flamingos and manatees.

Statistics, Statistics

It’s Halloween time!  I remember my past Halloweens, as well as the my college admissions process.  As I address the obsession with statistics, I ponder the experiences I had in high school and how they define me as a person and a student at Hopkins.

Beware the Fury of a Patient Man

As I drastically try to find new hobbies once my facebook account is frozen, I realize that I am really a talented doodle-er.  No worries, I got my account back… eventually.

Just You Wait, It’ll Be a Matter of Time and In the End You’ll Be Fine

I am anticipating my return to the Twin Cities for thanksgiving.  Inevitably, after three months I grew a little homesick, so I reminisced of my favorite places at home.

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

I’m back to Baltimore after thanksgiving.  There are super adorable pictures of my animals, and details about my super fun time at The Rocky Horror picture show!

Divergence Theorem

It’s finals times, and I am not studying.  I share all the details on the future semester, and also my first experiences at a social event with the faculty of my department.  Oh, and it’s filled with math puns!

Let Me Go Home

Here I talk about going home for winter break, and coping with all the changes that occur while you’re away.  Suddenly, home doesn’t feel like home anymore.  I head back to Baltimore to take two intersession courses and to escape the Minnesota winter.

The Triplet State- Feminine, Female, and an Engineer

Here I contemplate what it means to be a female engineer.  I reflect on experiences earlier in my life and in history in an attempt to pinpoint why I want to be an engineer and the significance of my choice.

What It’s Like to Be a ChemBE

It’s a blog all about the ChemBE program at Hopkins!

Smells like Halls Cough Drops

Getting sick is the worst!  Here’s 8 tips and tricks to feeling better when you’re sick at Hopkins.

Our Beclouded and Tempestuous Existence

A Joseph Conrad quote inspires me to ponder the costs and benefits of taking a heavy course load.  After nearly failing my first number theory exam, I debate whether I should take the class and come to the conclusion that it’s worth sticking out.  I grapple with the concept of GPA-safe courses vs. gambling it away on challenging courses.  Staying in that course ended up being one of the most academically and personally fulfilling decisions I have made yet at Hopkins.  And guess what?  More upper level math next semester!

Post- Spring Break and All About My Courses

I am back form Spring Break.  I reminisce about my time spent home, and I divulge my secret academic activity.  Yes, a break down of all my courses, including the good, bad, and ugly.

Cribs Building 402 A

Check out my pad in building A.  My cribs video showcases all the finest in 402, a triple, including a glow in the dark galaxy!

Fortunes for Finals

Finals round two!  The year is ending, and I am learning what it means to be a realistic Hopkins students and how expectations are often broken.

House Arrest

I am back in the MN for the summer.  I am learning what it feels like to have a normal sleep schedule and how much I hate unpacking.

Not As Simple As Tic-Tac-Toe

Here I try to answer the question “Is Hopkins grueling?”  As I compare Hopkins to my experiences at Hopkins High School (no joke), I realize that the answer isn’t so simple…

Well I guess that concludes my freshman year.  So long!

-Cate

Well by the time this post was completed, it was 2 am. That means time for chemistry!

BUT I always make time for my cat, Pants! Yay for photobooth!

It always seems like these types of blogs are the most difficult to write.  I first off want to say that college is a very personal experience, so they opinions I express here are not always universally shared among the Hopkins student body.  Nonetheless, this is my blog where I get to express my thoughts, and I hope that these will resonate with some of the people who will read this entry.

It always seems to come up in conversation, whether it’s with prospective, admitted, or fellow Hopkins students.  That one question always trips me up because there isn’t a single, easy, short answer.  The question being: Is Hopkins cutthroat?  Variations also include: Is Hopkins grueling?  Does Hopkins grade deflate?  The list goes on.

I guess I could bumble on about my personal experience with courses, exams, curves, and standard deviations.  But if you couldn’t tell from my earlier entries, I am not much of a statistics person.  However, I do posses an answer to previous stated question.

These are all images I took using light microscopes at a lab at JHU.

Looking back on my first year of Hopkins seems a bit surreal.  Only nine months ago I was an incoming freshmen, and two weeks ago I was kicked out my dorm and back into a world where Hopkins is a distant place 1,500 miles away.  In short, my first year wasn’t easy.  At moments it was extremely difficult, sometimes excruciating.  Would I ever call it grueling?  No.  Would I ever call it cutthroat?  No. Even though there were moments of exhaustion and feelings of hopelessness, it honestly was worth every moment of what some call “grueling” work.

In high school, things came pretty easy to me.  I never remember having to study for an exam, spend countless hours on problems sets, or even having to pay attention in class.  However, halfway through my junior year I became very frustrated with high school.  So frustrated in fact, I did everything possible to avoid going to classes.  High school was such a simple game.  If you knew the tricks you could win every time.  It’s like playing tic-tac-toe over an over, once you figure out the algorithm it gets extremely boring.  Eventually, you just stop caring about winning.

I was offered a really cool opportunity as a senior in high school.  I was able to attend my local state university for all my classes, while simultaneously earning college and high school credits.  While I really enjoyed my time at this university, I knew I didn’t want to continue my studies there the following year.  In many ways this school still felt like high school, where I felt lost among my classmates.    Many of my courses were not particularly edifying or challenging.

In the late summer before my senior year my sister gave me a book on America’s elite colleges.  After perusing through a number of the universities listed in the back, I ran across the pages dedicated to JHU.  The first line contained a warning: “A JHU education is not for the faint of heart.”  That is exactly what I wanted to hear.  There existed a place that would undoubtedly challenge me.  It’s a little funny to think that something that drew me to the school would also lead me to doubt my decision nearly a year later.

I was completely correct when I thought JHU would undoubtedly challenge me.  It just seems at moments I seem to forget that.   About halfway through my first semester, I began to wonder how my life would be different if I would have stayed at that large state university.  I think this a thought many Hopkins students share at moments in the careers.  The thing is, sure, it probably would be easier.  You’re GPA might be a couple decimals higher.  You might have more free time, or study less on weekends.

However, I didn’t come to Hopkins to find an easy out, and no one does.  In fact, I was drawn in by the reputation of academic rigor.  While, I found exactly what that book told me I would, I also found a lot more.

While I have moments where I feel I am completely out of control, sitting at the top of a rollercoaster about to drop, it sure beats knowing how to always win the game.  This past semester I have never felt so defeated by courses, which I at moments I grappled to understand (see my experience with number theory.)  I have never felt so unintelligent.  Well at least I thought I hadn’t, until I read back on one of my college essays, which reads:

“I know I am young, naïve and know practically nothing on the scale of what knowledge is possible. …All that I have learned these past years has filled me with curiosity and wonder, but more importantly an insatiable hunger to understand why. “

I also have never learned so much.  I have never had a more intellectually fulfilling experience.  At Hopkins you’ll learn what it means to work hard, and of course you’ll reap the benefits.  I think these concepts of “cutthroat” and “grueling” arise from students who struggle to grasp the meaning of a college experience.  Sometimes, the transcript isn’t a column of A’s, sometimes you feel less intelligent than before, sometimes you feel that the costs outweigh the benefits.  But if you can get past a damaged ego, you’ll realize what you’ve learned from your experience at Hopkins is more than just subjects you studies.  Hopkins is far from high school.  Success isn’t garnered through pattern recognition, and sometimes no matter how hard you work the outcomes are not always what you hoped.  In my year here, I have learned worlds more about myself.  Sometimes the most important lessons are not learned in a lecture hall, but rather through personal hardship.  It is for this reason I know I made the right decision when I decided to come to JHU.

I may never know how to win the game of Hopkins, and I am not sure anyone does, but at least I know it will never be boring.

Today marks the first cloudy stormy summer day in Minnesota.  It also marks my return from my cabin and back to the world of Internet and laptop computers.  The past couple of weeks have been a pleasant break from excessive youtube-ing, hulu-ing, and facebook-ing.  They also marked many blogs not written, so I am going to do my best to post two entries today.

The beginning of summer always feels like limbo.  I am busy trying to reconnect with different friends returning from schools around the country, working around various work schedules.  Yet, somehow I spend a lot of time doing nothing.  I went from a life in Baltimore where there wasn’t enough time to get everything done, to having 24 hours a day 7 days a week to do whatever I want.  It’s complete lifestyle whiplash.

Celibrating my sister's Graduation! From Left to Right. My sister Carolyn. My Aunt Bev. Myself.

It’s a bit surreal to think that my freshmen year is over.  Only three years left at Hopkins!  At the end of the summer both of the my sisters are moving out of the country, one to Ecuador and the other to Spain.  So I guess this really marks the last summer that all of us will be together in Minnesota.  Yet, I can feel this summer is going to different already.  I feel as if I’ve been cut and pasted back into a world that has continued on without me for the past 9 months.  The overall atmosphere of my family and friendships has changed, but so have I.  At the moment my life is still packed into stacked cardboard boxes in my room.  I guess it’s my job to unpack my life and make it work for the next few months until I return to Baltimore.

Now I am being put under house arrest until my room is clean and my boxes unpacked.  Good thing it’s raining.

It’s currently 12:30 am in the MSE library.  This is not to say that I am turning into a study-a-holic.  In fact it’s quite the opposite.

Today I watched the first three episodes of Mad Men, and I find it quite good.  I am still hoping that three hours of watching characters chain-smoke will positively reflect in my exam tomorrow.  We’re all allowed to hope, right? Oh, and by the way, I do not approve of chain-smoking if you somehow derived that I did from the previous sentences.

The semester is spiraling to an end!

It’s been awhile since I have felt the need to write introspective blog, not that the others are uninspired by any means.  It’s just that now I am feel less inspired to work on this proof of Euler Toitent functions, and more so to write some starting out with a line other than “Let n be an integer less than m such that phi(n)=2^{2^n}+1….” So I’ll let the illogical, poorly structured rhetoric commence!  I have been lacking on the interesting picture front, so this blog will showcase more of my sister’s amazing art!

So, there’s only one week of classes left!  That means 13 more lectures, and two more sections, and I am free!  Well, after finals that is.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot of how I have changed since last August.  In some respects it feels like I turned the corner off of W. University Ave onto the Hopkins campus for the first time nearly minutes ago, and in other respects I feel like I have spent an eternity here.

I have forgotten the feelings of October that were filled with missing home, and the sentiments of winter, which were filled with hatred for the snow.  Now, I am starting to forget the sentiments I had so many months before that.  The smell of my yard at home in the spring, the cherry pink blooms on my apple tree, and the memories from grade school, and middle school, and high school.

Yum... Coffee

There’s no doubt that you will change after a year at Hopkins, but that doesn’t mean in a bad way.  I think I came to Hopkins a starry-eyed, barely 18-year old.  In many ways, I was very naïve.  I think my ego super-seceded my credentials.  Some people have commented that I have “lower my standards” or given up hope.  That’s not it at all.  I am not a pessimist.

I am a realist, who doesn’t set unrealistic expectations.  I think that is the difference between the pre-Hopkins Cate, and Hopkins Cate.  I have learned to accept myself no matter what, and I am proud of everything I do, and I have stopped obsessing over perfection.  I have garnered enough faith in myself to take those crazy leaps, knowing that I am not afraid of the outcomes.

I know a lot of high school students are so focused on growing up.  It is as if life gets better or simpler when you’re in college.  Not that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, but we’re all stuck in the yard we’re given.  So for you high school seniors who are preparing for your first year of college next year, I know it’s exciting and you can’t wait, but you need to relish in the last remaining moments of your high school careers.  You only get to experience them once, so live them to their full potential.  Fall will arrive soon enough, believe me.

One of my sister's senior showcase pieces. Colleen- Sorry I couldn't be there for your graduation! Congratulations!

As for me, my end of the year is a bit bittersweet.  I am going to miss Hopkins.  If I could just stay in this limbo between midterms and finals forever, I would.  Sadly, I have yet to learn how to stop time.  So for now I have let these final weeks pass, and then go home for summer.  In many ways, I am ready to go home and spend some time with my family and my cats.  I miss them, especially my cats.  I will also be taking organic chemistry over the summer.  I guess if you want to find me I’ll be laying on the shore of one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes with an organic chemistry textbook.

Now for an amazing song.

I have a whole box of fortune cookies just for finals!

These past two weeks have been utterly insane.  The following pictures represent what happens when an over-stressed student moves out of her room and into the library.  I literally spent a total of about 12 hours in my room last week, including the time I spent asleep.  With so little time, I was capable of making a whole lot of messes.  I guess these cribs blogs are supposed to represent how clean we Hopkins-folk are.  Well I am living proof that not all Hopkins students are type A.  I consider myself less of a letter type, unless there was a 27^th letter after z.

It doesn't even have a place for my computer...

As I mentioned in my video, I live in an un-forced triple, meaning I chose to live with 2 other people.  I feel sorry for my roommates, since I am a complete slob, but I honestly do try to clean up a bit.  My desk looks much better now than when I took those photos… I guess it’s a learning experience for them.  I bring a bit of diversity into the room.

I am pretty excited to get out of Building A and move on up to Homewood next year.  Not that I don’t like my dorm, because it is quite sufficient.  Rather, Homewood has ovens.  Yes, an oven!!  The things that get to 500 degrees.  Do you know what that is good for?  Burning yourself.  Maybe I can get a matching burn scar on my right hand to match my left… Aspirations at their finest.  Seriously though, the mini-fridge, microwave combo is not very conducive to cooking.  Our microwave doesn’t even have enough power to pop microwaveable popcorn, which is complete sacrilege considering that is my family’s invention.  Now I am digressing…

Overall, as advice to future freshmen, if you are looking for more space, more quiet, and a bathroom you don’t need to share with tons of other people, Building A is probably a good choice for you.  I am quite happy with my stay here, mostly because my roommates don’t annoy me.  The annoying is my job.  Also, my window has a view of the walkway by the rec center, which is ideal for people watching.  I just stare and stare, and nobody ever looks back.

Also as a last side note to future freshmen, when you fill out the housing survey be sure to accurately estimate your bedtime.  Your roommates will be very upset if you want to keep the light on until 3 am every night, and you will be exiled to either the hallway or library.

Lastly, the glow in the dark galaxy will be moving to the new quad in Homewood.  Who can resist sleeping under the stars every night?

It’s been a week since Spring Break, and I have almost forgot how relaxing my week of doing nothing was.  For the most part, Spring Break was pretty average; I went home to Minnesota and stayed with my parents.  I lugged about 50 lbs worth of textbooks home, with intentions of studying over break.  They sat in my suitcase for 7-days untouched, but I am pretty proud of that, plus now I have huge biceps.  I even didn’t really use my laptop, which was another plus.  I was so busy for a week that I only had time for minimal facebook-ing, which is probably good because that website consumes way too much of my time.  Clearly I also lacked on the blogging also, sorry ‘bout that…

I was reunited with Pantaloons, and, boy, was he as odd as ever...

I made a bucket-list of all the things I wanted to do at home, and I think I succeeded in my endeavors of all the things to do in Minneapolis if I only had 7 days.  My favorite spring adventure was visiting the Minnesota Science Museum to see the exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls.  It was really miraculous to learn all about these amazing historical artifacts, and even though I am not a deeply religious individual I still really appreciated all the beauty within these ancient texts.    Definitely went down as a once in a lifetime opportunity to actually first hand view these texts, so I think that completely beats some Mexican spring break vacation.

The second of my favorite endeavors included visiting the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to view the Foot in The Door Exhibition.  This exhibition only happens once every 10 years, and includes 1,000’s of pieces of art that local artists submit in hopes of “getting a foot in the door” of the art community.  My extremely talented sister, who is a senior in college, had a featured piece (shown below.)  She is an amazing artists, who is incredibly talented and equally as intelligent (she is a triple major in art, art history, and Spanish, as well as graduating summa cum laude!)

It's so much more amazing in person, and under a square foot!!

My last favorite voyage included a trek into the deep heart of South Minneapolis to The Holy Land restaurant, which exhibits middle-eastern food at it’s finest.  Num, num, num.

It feels good to be back at Hopkins.  Even though this week and next mark the time for midterms round two, I am feeling better about things this time.  Spring break was a much-needed break.  I have never really mentioned exactly what courses I am taking this semester, so I think it might be about time to divulge my secret academic activity.  It’s not a very typical freshmen course-load, nor is it typical engineering.  For about the first month of this semester I shopped around about 23 credits, including attending class for all of them (which was completely scheduling insanity!)  After much debate, I settled on these 19 credits , and I am very happy with my decision.

Chemistry 2-

This course is pretty straightforward.  At the moment we are learning about introductory quantum mechanics, a subject I personally find quite interesting.  However, out of all my courses, this is the one I am mostly likely to skip.  It meets at 9 am MWF, which at times my altered early morning-mental state convinces me is just not worth attending.  I wish I were more of a morning person.

Chemistry 2 Lab-

A lot of people at Hopkins is going to tell you that intro chem. lab is a terrible course.  Personally, it goes down as my second favorite course this semester.  I really enjoy working in the lab, and I think I am pretty good at it (probably better at it than the classroom material.)  The course is a good amount of work considering it is only worth one credit, but if you work hard a good grade is definitely attainable.  This class is a great opportunity to learn a lot!  I think I will venture into more lab courses outside of my major after taking this course.

Animal Behavior-

If you are looking for a fun elective, I would definitely recommend Animal Behavior.  It’s like story time in kindergarten except you can bring coffee to class.  My only beef with the class is that it is 75 minutes long, and my attention span is about 15 minutes.  In short, I have a difficult time paying attention.  The course doesn’t seem terribly difficult, but textbook and supplemental readings are assigned.  We have an exam coming up in a week, so I guess I’ll see how that goes.  I must admit I am a bit worried since my attention span has been particularly short-lived the past couple of weeks.

Chemical and Biological Process Analysis-

I’ll be straight up and say this is my least favorite class.  My only reason is that the material is just not very interesting, but I am fully aware it is like the essential tool kit of knowledge and skills for a chemical engineer.  The course covers topics like mass and energy balances of chemical processes and phases in processes.  My attention span is also very short in this class.  I would much rather spend 5 hours in a laboratory than 50 minutes in a classroom.  I guess not everything involves flames, pretty colors, and possible danger(bummer.)

Linear Algebra-

I am a bit on the fence for this class.  Currently, I am about a chapter behind in the textbook (which I am actually reading!)  I have never read a math textbook, so this is a new experience for me.  The textbook material seems straightforward, the professor’s lectures are straightforward, but then when I go to do the homework and it results in complete mental blockage and confusion between the lectures and textbook.  My only issue with the course is that the professor doesn’t do enough concrete examples, and she doesn’t assign enough homework (yes, I actually just said that…) Unlike my previous math courses (single and multivariable calculus), this one is really abstract and definitely requires a deeper sense of mathematical maturity.  Topics include row operations, linear transformations, subspaces, linear spaces, and later in the course we learn about Eigen values and differential equations.  This is definitely a class I need to put more time into, but I feel like I am learning a lot, and, dare I say out of fear of failing the next midterm, I enjoy it.

Elementary Number Theory-

There is nothing elementary or theoretical about this class.  It isn’t philosophizing about where numbers come from, if that is what you’re thinking.  Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics dealing with properties of integers, and more specially prime numbers.  I know you’re probably thinking, “What is so special about prime number?”  Well, they are pretty darn special.  I mean incredibly awe-inspiringly special.  This subject is actually very eloquent and beautiful. The course also surveys a lot of open questions in mathematics, so even though some of the topics, like the Chinese Remainder Theorem, have existed for 2,000 years there is still so much that is unknown.  Even though it is by far the most challenging of my courses, it is also my favorite.  The course is a 300-level meaning that is a upper-level.  In fact, I am one of two freshmen in course, while the other students are mostly seniors with the occasional junior.  Even though the course has no prerequisites, I would highly recommend taking a course like discrete mathematics beforehand, since being well read in how to prove something is really helpful.  Sometimes I finish a homework problem, and I’ll look a page long proof, and say to myself, “Wow… I would have not been able to do that two months ago.”  I think that is a pretty good sign that you are learning a lot.  This class is also very small, only about 25 students in total, which is a huge plus.  The course meets twice a week for 75 minutes, and shockingly my attention span can span the whole period.

A Homework Problem

After a good two-hour conversation with my dad, I have been convinced to slow down.  So the mid-semester resolution is to relax and have fun.  I have always taken pride in my ability to be academically driven and crazy fun loving, and school can’t make me forget that.  So the past couple of weeks I have made more time for me and less time for academics.  People have told me if I don’t want to work “that hard” I shouldn’t have come to Hopkins, but what do they know?  I work very hard, even when I am not working “that hard.”  What did I really come to Hopkins for?  I certainly didn’t come to lock myself up in the basement of MSE.  We’ve all got to live a little, and these next three years are no exception.  So on that note I’ve abandoned C-level for the day, and I am sitting in my bed eating a banana (my latest obsession, ask anyone that knows me) and listening to some good music and watching the daffodils sprout from my window.

A Very Pretty View from Krieger