Class of 2013: Freshman Blog

The summer after freshman year. It’s a transition period. It’s a chance to have a fun summer job or a chance to try and prove ourselves in the adult world. It’s a chance to reconnect with old friends after a year filled with changes. It’s a summer of memories and fun. The past fourteen weeks (and two days -- totally one hundred days!) have been a wonderful experience for me…here are the highlights, in no particular order.

1. Mudfight/mudsliding – Many of you have probably read in novels or seen in movies about people having mudfights but never thought they actually happen. That was pretty much my thought at the beginning of the summer. Whatever appeal they may have had as a four year old mud pie connosieur was certainly practically all lost by the time I was eighteen – I liked to think of myself as having slightly more refined taste. It wasn’t really supposed to become a mudfight either. What began as two friends playing in the sprinklers and trying to persuade JHU_Keith that we could slide down the beach on cardboard boxes turned into a full-on mudfight complete with over half the RAs and about fifty residents on the freshman quad, complete with rain and sprinklers. At some point, it turned into sliding down the minor incline on the quad, and it ended up with us covered in mud and grass running around the beach and on top of the Hopkins sign. It was amazing -- I’d have never expected myself to do that, or to have fifty others convinced it was fun, either, but it was one of my best experiences at Hopkins!

2. Exploring Baltimore more – Before I came to Hopkins, I’d heard a lot about what Baltimore had to offer, and I was excited to take advantage of that. I don’t think I did very well with that during the school year. I did get out and explore some, but I found that I was often just doing things on campus. This summer, I really explored Baltimore more, thanks in part to the Inner Harbor and Beyond Scavenger Hunt with PreCollege, as well as just exploring with friends and by myself. Baltimore’s got some great neighborhoods, and I’m eager to explore more during the year.

3. Polo games/Connecticut Mondays – For one of our programs with Pre-College, we went to a polo game in Monkton, Maryland. We dressed to impress, learned all about polo, and had a blast. We decided we couldn’t go every weekend, but we wanted to keep that same enthusiasm alive, and so for part of Spirit Week we started Country Club/Connecticut Mondays. Here’s a picture from one of the first Mondays!

Some of us dressed to impress...

4. Music video – What can I say? I don’t think most people had a summer job quite this awesome. As the JHU homepage put it, we turned Homewood “Upside Down!”

5. New York adventure – Something I love about the east coast is how easy it is to travel between places. In June, I had a weekend-and-then-some adventure to the New York area, staying with friends in the city, Long Island, and Connecticut. It was my first time being in Connecticut when I wasn’t on a Bolt Bus, and my first real chance to explore the City and Long Island. It was great to see friends I hadn’t seen since school ended, as well as go to the beach, see the sights in New York, and learn what a forest really was!

6. Summer jobs – I had two jobs this summer. I was working in the Admissions Office as a tour guide and a general student worker (with JHU_Brian and JHU_Mandy!), and as an RA for the JHU Pre-College program. Both were good learning experiences, and I’ve gained quite a few skills, from all the interesting facts about this school to creative impromptu programming to walking backwards to keeping track of forty kids at an Orioles game!

7. Summer class – As one of my earlier posts this summer detailed, I had an absolutely fabulous summer class (Applied Forensic Psychology). It was the sort of class I imagined when first thinking of college – subject matter that really interested me, reading in an amount that covered the topic but wasn’t overwhelming, classmates who cared about the topic, lots of classroom discussion, and an engaging professor. Sounds cliché, but it was what I dreamed of, and this class fit all of that.

8. Appreciating California – As my parents (and most people who’ve spent any amount of time with me) can attest to, I love living on the east coast, and often speak pretty negatively of Los Angeles as a result. Still, on my last two visits to LA I’ve been trying to look at the place much more positively (not just because I don’t have to live in it anymore – which would be my normal cynical attitude – but because I’ve been finding much more about it to appreciate this year. Here’s a snapshot of why California should be appreciated.

Beautiful California...

9. All the meals in the FFC  - This post isn’t a shout-out to the food in the FFC. It’s a shout-out to all the hours I spent there this summer (usually somewhere between 3-5 hours a day). I’m not sure how we managed to spend so long there, or how we avoided the Summer 15, but every meal seemed to turn into one big conversation, and we knew that there were always other RAs in the FFC to go eat with!

10. All the new friends – At the beginning of the summer, I could probably count on both hands the number of people I knew who were in Baltimore for this summer. I made an amazing group of friends this summer – people who I’ll be friends with for a long, long time even though I only met them weeks ago. It’s true during the normal school year as well as the summer, but college brings people together. And that’s why I love it so much!

Summer nights in Fell's Point

So I’m fortunate enough to be able to intern this summer in DC. It has been a nice break from the Jersey Shore, where my “celebrity sightings” were pretty much limited to “Snookie” look alikes and Regis Philbin. But let me tell you, the fangirl in me still comes out just fine when I see Sen Lieberman or Rep Weiner roaming the hot, hot DC streets. Anywho, I’m working at a political action committee for the next few months and there are some kind of  rules where I’m not allowed to blog about my job (it sounds more hardcore than it really is). What I can tell you: I promise I’m not interning at the CIA. The major tenets of my organization are: we work to elect Democratic, pro-choice women and when I’m at work they use a lot of acronyms that I don’t understand.

I love the whole “intern” culture and plan to elaborate further on political activism at Hopkins. But for now, I am dutifully inspired by my internship’s mission to elect more women to serve as our representatives. Back at Homewood, there are definitely some very impressive female faculty and administrators (past and present). I just wanted to take this opportunity to highlight these lovely ladies and show my gratitude for the strong example they set for female undergraduates.

1. First up is the new dean of the Kreiger School of Arts & Sciences. Katherine S. Newman. She’s hardly impressive or anything, with her career spanning from Harvard to Princeton to Columbia. Yeah, nbd. Dean Newman will be making her first appearance on campus this fall all the while writing a book.

“Newman, who has written or co-authored nine books and has two more in progress, has focused much of her scholarly work on the lives of the working poor and mobility up and down the economic ladder. She also has investigated the impact of tax policy on the poor, the history of public opinion’s impact on poverty policy, school violence, and the impact of globalization on young people in Italy, Spain, Japan and South Africa, among other issues.”

I am like super psyched to meet this rad lady. President Daniels is getting some real competition as the object of my obsession.

2. Blast from the past! Rachel Carson. She’s just like the face of the modern environmental movement. All of her accomplishments= impressive. Everything she did while considering when she did them = AMAHUZIN!

“In September 1962, a book was published that would have a profound impact on conservation policy and the public’s attitude toward the environment. The book was Silent Spring and its author was Rachel Carson…Carson earned a master’s degree in marine biology from Hopkins in 1932, under R.P. Cowles. Prevented from pursuing her doctorate because of financial difficulties, she paired her interest in marine biology with her writing talent to get a job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, producing brochures and pamphlets, and also pursued an independent writing career.”

Thank goodness financial aid has gotten its act together!

3. Paula Burger. Unfortunately, this big deal is retiring. But this is someone I actually met! Dean Burger kept Hopkins together last year when there was controversy about the campus having Tucker Twat (yeah, I went there)  as a speaker; Burger hosted a pretty classy High Table dinner a la Cambridge for freshman in the FFC; and I even remember the first time I heard her speak during orientation. All I could think was, “Dang! That woman can rock a pant suit!”

“Dean Burger’s contributions to the student experience at Johns Hopkins are all around us, every day. She was the primary force behind the creation of Charles Commons as more than just another residence hall. She was intimately involved in the programming and design of Mason Hall. She and her staff have engineered important improvements in academic, pre-professional and career advising; athletic, recreational and artistic opportunities for students; campus dining, multicultural student support, and a broad range of academic and student services. Paula has supported — and in many cases, conceived — programs and events that have better connected our students with the university, the community and each other.”

Fierce, Paula, fierce!

4.Gwen Boyd. First of all, she has connections to Obama, so right off the bat I like her. She works at Hopkins’s Applied Physics Lab (what they do there, I don’t really know) and she also heads the Johns Hopkins Institutions’ Diversity Leadership Council.

“A prominent advocate for women’s equality and for the recruitment of African-Americans into science and engineering, she has received the 1996 Black Engineer of the Year Public Service Award, congressional citations and recognition by U.S. Black Engineer magazine as one of the nation’s ‘Most Distinguished Black College and University Graduates.’”

And.. Barack Obama chose Gwen to be on the prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship, “established in 1986 to honor the former U.S. senator and 1964 presidential candidate, awards scholarships to high-achieving college students seeking careers in science, engineering and mathematics.”

5. You. I hate to be all bootleg and steal Time magazine’s cover from a few years ago. But if I’ve learned anything this summer, is that there is so much more ground for females to cover. Only 18% of legislators worldwide are women! And the U.S. is a lot further down on that list than you would like to believe. The aforementioned women have made it better, but it is still not good enough. Work it girls, work it!

I hope this post was informative and makes you appreciate the powerful women we see everyday just a  little bit more. And don’t worry, next post will be all about my intern gaffes and the embarrassing things I have been doing in DC. LOLZ

Hamming it up!

So this past weekend was Homecoming. Because of lacrosse, Hopkins plans their year a little wonky and holds Homecoming in the spring. But hey! Who doesn’t like the spring? Everyone’s pasty winter legs start getting sunlight; spring romances pop up; flowers bloom. I know, I know.  You’re all thinking, ” Simmer down Snow White!”

Okay. So the real reason I am so chipper and talking about why I love spring so much starts with an “A” and ends with an “I.” And I’m not talking about no Artificial Intelligence. I am talking about ALUMNI! Oh, how I love them!

Alumni rock my socks off.  This just in: Michael Bloomberg Deified on JHU CAMPUS! Hopkins relies heavily on alumni for all kinds of support (monetary, jobs for current students, etc.).  So during events like Homecoming, the Hop puts out all the stops to get alumni to reminisce about the fun they had while on the Homewood campus.  Know what that equation means? A fabulous time for all.

Seeking: Alumni, No age Limit

The alums started arriving on Thursday. And I’m about to be honest.  I had a whole bunch of ideas about how these handsome, recently graduated alumns would whisk me away from cafeteria food and adorn me with gifts (preferably NOT from the campus bookstore, the only place I’ve been shopping lately).  I apologize MOM and Gloria Steinem for these un-feminist ideas- blame the spring air!

Well, let’s just say I was surprised when I saw the alumni on campus.  While I’m sure they were mighty good looking in their day (who isn’t on the Johns Hopkins campus?), many were a little out of my age range.  Yes, I have been told I am mature for my years.  But I don’t think I could pull off a forty year age difference.

So after pouting for a little over a veggie burger at the Alumni BBQ, I decided to plop myself down in the stands at the Lacrosse game and partake in my favorite sport: people watching.

I watched battles to be the loudest cheerers, President Daniels get manhandled by a group of seemingly innocent sorority sisters, Kevin Kilner (Hopkins alumni) from the critically acclaimed Disney Channel original movie “Smart House,” walk by my seat, and a little lacrosse.  All in all, very exciting and the lacrosse team was MAHVELOUS.

The Hopkins alumni is the dad… yeah you know it!

So the alumni, while not fulfilling my romantic love interests, ended up being a pretty fun time.  As current students, we owe so much to their generosity.  It is really bizarre to think that in a few short years, I am going to be one of them (just don’t expect any big check JHU, I require very extensive beauty treatments….).

Hope everyone else’s spring is going along swimmingly! Here are some more HOMECOMING pics!

Hey, everyone!

So sorry for being a bit late on this post.  It’s been a hectic few days for me, but I’m back for the attack!  Wherever you choose to attend college/university, midterms will be stressful, and Hopkins is absolutely no exception in this case (though I will make a shameless plug and say that our history program is exceptional *cough cough).

Little Rock's 'River Market' sign -- visit and you'll see it

Apparently at Hopkins Interactive, there comes a time when I’m supposed to show off my awesome room and stuff.  And I’m told that time is now (we’re never told to write on a particular topic save this one, by the way), so here goes nothing:

I live in Wolman 2 East.  What’s that mean?  Well, it means I live on the second floor of the East wing of Wolman Hall.  Why do you care?  Because it’s awesome, or at least I think so.  As the only blogger who lives in this building, I’d better make this post count, eh?

Earnie Biggs piano bar, where my friend, David, plays. Note my car (silver limo) in front...

WHY I LOVE WOLMAN AND WOULD NOT WANT TO LIVE ANYWHERE ELSE THIS YEAR:

I wasn’t kidding when I said Wolman is the South Kensington or the Beverley Hills of Hopkins Freshman housing.  I love living there, and here are a few reasons why:

1) ELEVATORS!!!!!!!! Though I live on the second floor, I do really, really like that I have elevators in my building, since laundry facilities are in the basement.  For some reason, Wolman and McCoy are the only freshman housing options that have this feature (if you live in the AMRs or in Buildings A/B, you’re going to get some lower body strength, or so I’m told).  We have two elevators per wing of the building, which is conjoined on the first and basement floors.  Other than that, to get from one hall to another, you’ve got to cross through the second floor (when, say, for example, you’re going from 2 East to 6 West).

Wolman Elevators: Among the best aspects of living here

2) SUITE STYLE LIVING!!!!!!! I’m totally not making this list in order, I’ve decided, since my favorite feature of Wolman housing is that it’s a suite-style arrangement.  This is the same as Buildings A/B and McCoy (which, I’ll admit, is Wolman v.2.0, but you should bring that up with Joe; he lives there).  Every suite is home to four students.  Most suites have two doubles, though some do have two singles and a double.  I’m in the majority, having two doubles.  My roomie, Akif, is from Dubai, and my suitemates are from Maryland and New York.

3) SEMI-PRIVATE BATHROOMS!!!!!!! For the four of us, there is one shared bathroom, which is a pretty good deal, I think.  You won’t get that in the AMRs, but you’ll find it in Buildings A/B and in McCoy.  It’s nice because this arrangement affords greater privacy and potentially a smaller chance of having to wait to shower (yes, however, my suitemates/roomie have taken showers at REALLY inconvenient times…like when I’m trying to race to get ready for class).  Next year, it gets better, with one bathroom being shared by two people.  The bathroom, as you can see, is pretty typical: sink, toilet, shower, and some storage underneath the sink.  Really, there’s nothing exciting to report here, so I’ll move on.

4) KITCHEN!!!!!!! Let’s not be coy about this: I am a broke college student.  You will be, too, I’m sorry to share.  It’s not that my parents don’t love me and won’t send me money, and it’s not that my boss in Admissions doesn’t pay me.  It’s just that I spend money where I probably shouldn’t (hey, who wants to go to a concert in DC…now?).  Also, I live for coffee talks, so I’m giving most of my money to Carma’s or to Starbucks or to Café Q.  Anyway, I can’t always afford the convenience of going to Subway or Chipolte when I’m hungry at odd times.  Luckily, we have kitchenettes in Wolman, so residents can cook meals when needed.  For example, last Thursday night, it was a little after 12, and I had an inexplicable desire for breakfast.  Since you can’t find breakfast at midnight around here, I was able to make bacon, eggs, and toast in my kitchen – WIN.  Our kitchenettes have a stove and sink, and I bought a toaster oven for the other stuff.  It works out.  ONE COMPLAINT:  The smoke alarms in Wolman are a little crazy.  Without burning anything, I managed to set a smoke alarm off twice, winning the favor of my neighbors and suitemates.  But I still got my breakfast.

With that, I’m going to let my video speak for myself.  On Spring Break, I was in Little Rock, visiting my family.  Since it’s highly likely you’ve never seen Little Rock save a news piece on either Bill Clinton or Mike Huckabee, I thought I’d throw in a few pictures to share, so enjoy!  Oh, and I threw in two pics of my cats, Stanley and Oliver…

My adorably obese cat, Stanley

Another of my pets, Oliver -- often mistaken for dust bunny

________________________________________

AND FINALLY, a video of MY CRIB:

Until next time,

Daniel

It’s that time of year when the EDers get their JHU emails and start to think about the housing process.  When I was first introduced to the housing process, I had every intention of choosing Wolman as my first choice for the nice suite-style living, the kitchenette, the common lounges, and the workout room inside the building.  However, after looking deeper into the housing options, I ended up choosing the AMRs, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision!

McCoy Hall

In case you’re not aware of the housing options here at Hopkins, freshmen can choose to live in the AMRs (Alumni Memorial Residences), Buildings A & B, Wolman Hall, or McCoy Hall.  This year, since the freshman class is so big, there are also about sixty students living in the Hopkins Inn, which the university has leased for the year and transformed into campus housing.  When incoming freshmen decide to matriculate at Hopkins, they are given a short questionnaire to fill out in order to match them with a roommate that shares their sleep, study, and noise preferences, and they are asked to prioritize their top choices for housing.

Wolman Hall

Each of the dorms can be categorized into two types of living: suite style and traditional dorm style.  Wolman, Buildings A & B, and McCoy are all suite style, which is two double rooms or two singles and a double sharing a bathroom and a kitchenette.  In the AMRs, all the rooms open up to the hallway, which is co-ed, and there is a guys and girls bathroom on each hall.  In hearing these options, I immediately though suite style was for me.  The kitchenette is a definite plus, and who would want to share a bathroom with like ten girls when you can have a more private bathroom in your suite?  I had my mind all made up to list the newly renovated Wolman Hall as my top choice, until my mom decided to mettle in the housing selection process.

AMR 1

The first thing she told me was to consider was where each one was located.  Buildings A & B and the AMRs are all right on the Freshman Quad.  Not only do the kids there get the perk of being closest to classes, but they’re also right next to the Fresh Food Café and a three minute walk from the Rec Center (perhaps to counteract being so close to the FFC).  If you’re like me and are extremely lazy, living in one of these buildings is a great opportunity to minimize your daily walking time, which you’ll really appreciate when it snows and rains.  The other major factor that I took into consideration was the upperclassman housing.   The sophomore dorms are all located on North Charles or St. Paul Streets instead of on the quad, so freshman year is really the only opportunity to live right on the quad.  Also as a sophomore, there are no traditional dorm style housing options, so freshman year is also your only chance to have the traditional dorm style experience.

socializing in the hall

After much deliberation, I decided to live in the AMRs, mainly because of their proximity to campus and to get the experience of living on a coed hall of a traditional dorm instead of in a suite with four people.  I remember when I took a tour as a prospective student, my tour guide raved about the AMRs saying that they were the most social of the freshman dorms, and I would definitely say that the AMRs have been extremely social and I have met a ton of people by living here that I would not have met otherwise.  My hall is made up of an incredibly diverse group of students with totally different interests and personalities.  They are all very diverse in their majors as well as their campus involvements.  There are a bunch of athletes that wrestle, play soccer, swim, and do taekwondo; there are students involved in greek life, including multicultural sororities and service fraternities; and there are also students from all different areas like Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Minnesota, Los Angelos, Chicago, and Tampa.

Although I think I would have been perfectly happy in a suite and I probably would have been good friends with my suitemates, I think the AMRs have really allowed me to branch out and meet a big variety of people.  Our “house,” which is made up of my hall and the two halls above mine, has become an extremely close group and some of my best friends.  Next year, I’m planning to live with three other girls from Wilson House, and even though I’m really happy that I might get to live in a suite with them (fingers crossed that housing selection goes well!), there’s no doubt that I’ll miss the antics of the boys across the hall and mooching off my food.  It’s hard to believe there are only seven more weeks left of life in AMR 1!

If you’re checking the weather in Baltimore today, you’ll probably see that we’re having beautiful weather. If you visit campus, you’ll see that students are out on the beach, enjoying the weather. With all of the blue skies and flip flops, it’s hard to believe that just a month ago, we had one of the biggest blizzards in Baltimore’s recorded history, and that Johns Hopkins, infamous for always trying to keep things open, actually closed the University for a week. As in, we had a Snow Week.

I’d never had a snow day before, let alone a snow week, so having all this time off from school because of the weather was pretty amazing! The snow started falling on a Friday afternoon, and continued falling until Saturday afternoon. My friends I wandered around campus Friday afternoon – here’s a picture of us in front of Admissions.

Jumping in the snow outside Admissions

Friday Night Films (a program run through The HOP – they show a movie every Friday night) was showing Precious, and when we went outside, there was already about 8 inches of snow for us to start playing in. When I woke up on Saturday morning, this was what I saw:

The view from my window - Snowmageddon Saturday

The view from my window - September

With all of this snow, much of Baltimore (and Hopkins) had shut down, but luckily the FFC remained open, albeit with slightly reduced food options and shortened hours. Hopkins actually paid for hotels near campus for the people who work at the FFC and various maintenance staff in order to help life at snow covered Hopkins remain as normal as possible.

We went out to explore the campus without staying on the paths…

Me in over 2.5 feet of snow!

We avoided the icicles – these ones were only about a foot or two feet, but we actually saw one that was over five feet long on the way to The Book Thing!

Icicles on Remsen

The snow makes everything look beautiful and magical – even normal things like lampposts.

(lamppost picture)

Hopkins = Narnia?!

We were also snowed out of the library! Some days, the library was closed, but they still had some online services like “Ask a Libarian.”

(library closed picture)

The library closed?!?!

Here’s the engineering quad:

The engineering quad before the snow

The engineering quad after the snow

We also went to the President’s house and the garden in front of it. During nicer weather, this area is one of my favorite places to study. Although beautiful, it’s not exactly an ideal study spot right now!

The President's House and Garden

Here’s my dorm with paths carved out to get to the doors – only one person can be in the path at once, so it’s like having one way streets everywhere! Some doors were also blocked off because of the icicles above.

The walkway up to Sylvester House

However, it’s not like the only fun thigns to do were outside! We took advantage of the snow to make soft pretzels and take advantage of our common kitchen.

(pretzels) (us in the kitchen)

Pretzels!

Part of the pretzel making party!

At the end of the week, it was Valentine’s Day weekend. My friends and I ended up having a busy weekend involving seeing Valentine’s Day the movie, exploring Little Italy, eating dinner out, making cookie, eating Sterling Brunch at the FFC, going to The Book Thing, and making cake and icing!

Making icing!

Our three cakes!

Over winter break, my friends and I were comparing spring breaks. Most of us had the standard week in March. One of my friends, however, got two weeks of break, one in February and one in April. We were all jealous of her, and never thought we’d end up in the same situation. Yet, here we are, starting our second break of the semester (and it’s not even spring yet)!

Disclaimer about the weather – I wrote this last Friday. For those of you who were in the Northeast this weekend, you’ll have known that there were huge storms and power outages, and the site was down. The weather isn’t so wonderful today, but the site’s back up!

Hey everyone!  Spring break is almost here, which means that we’re almost three quarters of the way through our freshman year – so crazy!  I’ve gotten to know some new places on campus as well as in the surrounding area a lot more during this second semester, so I’ve made a list of a few of my favorite, frequently visited places:

The Pura Vida Cafe

On-Campus Place to Eat:  I’m a huge fan of the Pura Vida Café in Levering Hall, which has Fair Trade coffee for an extra caffeine boost between classes, and it also has sushi, sandwiches, salad, yogurt, and soups around lunchtime.  There are also some really good baked goods at Pura Vida, my favorite being the crumb cake.  As a freshman, I also have to give a shout out to the Fresh Food Café (FFC), which the dining hall on the Freshman Quad and is pretty much a staple of most freshmen’s lives here at Hopkins.

Off Campus Place to Eat:  Just recently I discovered Chocolate Tea, which is a café behind the Collonade Hotel only about a block or two from campus.  They have a huge

Carma's Cafe

menu with a bunch of Tea options, so it makes me feel pretty healthy going there because I drink coffee all the time.  As far as restaurants go, Tapas Teatro has great Spanish food, it’s right next to the Charles Theater, and it’s only about a five-dollar cab ride from campus.  However, one of the most popular off-campus food places is Carma’s café.  I just ate there for the first time the other day and had a Chocolate Panini (basically a sandwich filled with melted chocolate)!

Place to spend a weekend off campus:  Definitely Towson!  The CollegeTown shuttle to Towson is free, and in town there’s a mall, several good restaurants (the Cheesecake Factory is a popular destination), and a few grocery stores in case you need to stock up on groceries or in my case, freeze pops and gum.

AMR 1

Study Spot:  I like M-Level of the library because it’s a very social atmosphere and there are comfy chairs, but recently I’ve been getting a lot of work done in the AMR lounge.  I think every freshman dorm has some sort of a community study room so that everyone has a quiet place to go without having to walk to the library.

Scenic Part of Campus:  Decker Garden is a really nice, quiet place to study outside

Gilman Clock Tower

that’s a little quieter than the beach.  The most picturesque building is definitely Gilman, and I’m so excited for that to be opening up next fall when it’s newly renovated.

Phi Mu 2010 Pledge Class

Student Activity:  I absolutely love being in Phi Mu – it has definitely been a great social experience and I’ve met a ton of new freshmen during pledge period.   Other than that, I’m training to be a tour guide this semester, and so far it’s been fun shadowing tours and answering some of the prospective students’ questions about Hopkins.

Campus Event:  There were a ton of fun events during Orientation like Playfair and Dorm Wars.  Events that involve food are always good like the Sterling Brunches at the FFC or the Free Pancake Breakfast sponsored the Hopkins Organization for Programming.   I also liked going to watch the women’s soccer team play in the NCAA Division 3 quarterfinals, and I’m planning on going to my first Hopkins lax game on Tuesday!

I could probably go on forever with this list because there’s really no way to sum up all the cool things to do and places to go around Hopkins, but everything on this list has really shaped my freshman year so far.

Since the beginning of the new semester I’ve spent my time working on several things. The thing that ate up most of my time was my project to transfer all of our blogs from Typepad to this new system. The second is a project that is still being worked on, but is coming into its final month, it’s going to be released with the Regular Decision notifications. There’s always homework for my Physics E+M class, as well as studying for exams. I had my first exam today and I have 3 more coming up next week, so after I finish writing this post all my extracurricular activities are put on the backburner and I start studying nonstop. The other thing that’s been eating up my time is my training to become a tour guide. That’s going to be the subject of this post as well as a bunch of random facts about Hopkins that I learned during my training as a tour guide.

Gauss's Law - this basically summarizes what my life has been focused on for the past month in Physics

I’m not going to go to much into what the Blue Key Society is (if you want to know more you can read Josh’s post about it) but its enough to say that the Blue Key Society is the name of the club that all of the tour guides are in. There are 4 Executive Board Members who are in charge of either training the new recruits, or dealing with comments/feedback from people who have already taken tours. The Blue Key Society (like many of the other admissions groups) has a selection process, and this year about 40 new members were accepted out of an application pool of around 150. Once you’re accepted you get invite to a meeting with new members where you all introduce yourselves and just hang out. After that comes the serious stuff. To complete your training and become a fully certified tour guide you’re required to attend 2 training sessions, shadow 2 tours, tag-team 2 tours, and complete and pass an evaluation tour.

Mason Hall - Home of all the admissions activities and the admissions office. This is definitely one of my favorite buildings on campus, and this is definitely my favorite picture of it!

The training sessions weren’t bad at all. You basically sit in a room with the two training chairs and they explain to you what you’re supposed to do on a tour, things that you absolutely need to know, what to do when things go wrong or if you don’t know an answer, etc. The second training session was basically them drilling us with questions and giving us candy when we got something right. The thing that I love about admissions clubs is that at almost every meeting there’s some sort of free food. This time it wasn’t only candy, but they had pizza before the meeting started as well.

Now that I’ve completed that portion of my training which required me to read the new tour guide manual (which is about 25 pages long and you basically need to memorize all of it), I have a bit of a break before I actually have to start giving tours. So far I’ve shadowed one tour and it happened to be lead by the recruitment chair who was really nice and explained what he did differently after the tour ended. I’m going to shadow another tour when I have time this week, probably on Friday. Shadowing tours is really simple because you basically take the tour as if you’re a prospective student, so you’re not required to do anything really except go on the tour. Next week starts the “hard” part: I have to tag-team two tours and then complete my evaluation. Tag-teaming a tour is fairly simple, you show up at the time of any of the normal tours (11AM and 2PM daily) and ask the regular tour guides if they’d mind tag-teaming with you. Then you split up the tour, you give one half, and the regular tour guide gives the other. This is especially great because if you forget to say something, or the regular tour guide normally says something that’s different from the procedure we learned, they can fill in right away.

Homewood campus, I'm going to have to start my tours at Mason Hall (far left), go to the athletic center, back towards the beach, down Charles St., and back to Mason Hall

I’m a little nervous about giving a tour for the first time, not necessarily the tag-team tours but the evaluation and subsequently my weekly tours. I rarely have a problem memorizing and recalling information on-the-spot, but then again I’ve never had to memorize this much information before. The closest thing I’ve done to a tour was the presentation on Technology and Engineering at the information sessions for my high school. My friend Tim and I made an entire PowerPoint on the entire thing at the request of the advisor that asked us to present and during each presentation we never looked at it. We would always improvise what we did and we had all of the information memorized in case people had specific questions. Being able to teach people about my school and enlighten them on all the opportunities I had because of my education was drove me to participate in almost all the admissions events here on campus.

But back to me completing my training. Hopefully next week I’ll be either completely done or just about to complete my evaluation so I don’t have to worry about becoming fully certified. I think once I overcome the inherent stress of me being evaluated everything will be much easier for me. I have this weird state of mind where I always freak out when I’m about to do something, even if I’ve done it countless times before. For example Tim and I did 10 presentations at each information session and we did 12 information sessions. Even as we did our final presentations I would STILL get nervous before each one. But once we started our speaking I would get right into it and all my stress would disappear. So to end the post I’m going to list as many of the random facts about Hopkins that I can think of from the top of my head, most of which are going to be statistics since statistics/raw numbers are the hardest thing for me to memorize.

• Johns Hopkins (the man) dedicated $7 million to build a university, hospital, and orphanage in 1867, he died in 1873, and the university was finally founded in 1876 with Daniel Coit Gilman as the first President
• Johns Hopkins left the money to do all this because he had no heirs since he was madly in love with his cousin Elizabeth and due to his family’s strong Quaker beliefs he could never marry her (this is actually true!)
• 60% of Undergraduates choose to Double Major or hold a Minor
• There are about 4,900 undergraduate students and 1,600 full-time graduate students
• The student to teacher ratio is 12:1
• There are 32 Nobel Laureates among the current university professors
• 52% of students are males, 48% are females
• 30% of students major in natural sciences, 30% in engineering, 30% in social/behavioral sciences, and 10% in humanities
• 65% of classes have 20 students in them or less, 5% have 100+ students
• 96% of classes are taught by professors, the other 4 are Dean’s Teaching Fellowships (where graduate students present their theses to students who enroll in the class), or labs which are overseen by TAs
• The defibrillator was created in the basement of Shaffer Hall
• 70% of undergraduates are involved in some sort of research before they graduate
• JHU has 24 NCAA sports teams, 2 are Division I (M+W Lacrosse!) and the rest are Division III
• Men’s lacrosse at Hopkins has 2 Olympic gold medals and 9 division I championship titles, more than any other school!
• JHU has over 320 clubs!
• Our head of campus security is the former personal body guard of George Bush Sr., and Bill Clinton’s running partner!
• Our campus is 140 acres in size
• 56% of undergraduates live on campus
• Mattin Center, which is our center for the arts, is 53,000 sq. ft. in size
• F. Scott and Ella Fitzgerald lived in Wolman Hall when it was an apartment complex
• Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, is an alum of Hopkins. His major? Electrical Engineering! He’s proof that you can do almost anything with a Hopkins Engineering Degree

That ended up being more facts than I thought! That’s all for this week, check back in two weeks for another post!

Ok, I know I haven’t blogged for a long time, but I promise I have a good reason for it.  Well, kind of…

I thought I was basically on the home stretch of the semester once we got back from Thanksgiving break.  As it turned out, I could not have been more wrong.  The work PILED up on us poor unsuspecting freshman.  For Spanish, we had multiple days of in class finals to study for.  For Calculus, we had a midterm and a final within one week of each other. For physics, well, for physics I was behind in the first place, so I had to play a lot of catch-up.

Probably the worst part of the workload was the paper for Expository Writing.    For our final, we had to tell a joke to a bunch of different people and write a paper on a theory of humor that we develop based on their reactions.  I thought it would be funny to write about people’s reactions to a blonde telling dumb blonde jokes, so for about a week, I went around asking like five billion people, “What did the blonde say when she opened the box of Cheerios?” (Answer:  Oh look, doughnut seeds!) and only like four of them actually thought it was funny.  So since no one found it funny, my biggest challenge for last week was figuring out how in the world to write seven or eight pages on a joke that no one found funny.  Developing a theory of humor when no one thinks your joke is humorous is next to impossible.

Then, last Monday, three days before the paper was due, I started to get sick.  I definitely thought it was just a cold, but still, getting sick right before finals was horrible timing.  After two days of an achy throat and ear, I woke up on Thursday morning feeling absolutely horrible and walked over to the Student Health and Wellness Center.  I got an appointment within like ten minutes, and after the strep throat test came back negative, I was referred to an ear nose and throat doctor over at Union Memorial Hospital.  As it turns out, I have tonsillitis, which stinks, but at least now I’m on medication and getting better just in time for my physics final on Tuesday. Yay.

This is the second time this semester that the Student Health and Wellness Center has really come through for me.Both times that I’ve been in there (the first time being the swine flu experience), I’ve gotten an appointment within like ten minutes of walking in, the staff has always been incredibly nice, and they’ve given me bunch of free cough drops and tea and other stuff that they give sick people.I basically owe them an enormous thank you because I would probably still have been suffering through an incredibly painful throat ache had they not referred me to the doctor at Union.Speaking of Union, I didn’t realize that there was a hospital like two blocks away from here!And apparently it’s the official hospital of the Baltimore Ravens, which is kind of cool.Anyway, even though it stinks to be sick when you’re at school, I would definitely say that there could be much worse places to get sick than Hopkins.

By the way, it snowed last week in Baltimore!

and this is the big crab outside CharMar

So one of the questions that we get asked a lot in the forums involves transportation on and around the campus. It make sense because parents want to know how their children can get home on the weekends or holidays and the students want to know exactly how they’re going to be able to get around the city and maybe sometimes to other states if they want to visit their friends. In this post I’ll talk about transportation on the campus such as the JHMI Shuttle as well as transportation that is near the campus available for students to use to travel to other states.

Transportation on campus is an amazing thing. There are several primary ways you can get around the Hopkins campuses one of which is completely free for students. The Johns Hopkins Medical Institution (or JHMI) shuttle is a shuttle which runs between the Hopkins Homewood campus, Penn Station (Northbound and Southbound) as well as the Medical Campus. This is really great because as long as you ensure that you get to Penn Station with enough time before your train (or bus) leaves you’ll be able to get there for free! The shuttle posts its schedules online via the parking and transportation website which allows the students to plan how they’re going to organize their transportation accordingly. It’s also very useful because if you get involved with research on the medical campus you can get there without having to know where you’re going (like you would in a taxi) and you also don’t have to pay.

Another awesome way that you can get around areas in Baltimore or near Baltimore is through the CollegeTown bus network. The CollegeTown bus is also completely free for students and just as with the JHMI Shuttle you swipe your card once you get on the bus and then you can go to any one of the numerous stops the bus travels to. Some of the popular places include Inner Harbor to the South and Towson to the North. This bus also posts its schedule online so the students can determine how they’re going to get to Towson or Inner Harbor on the weekends. For more information about the CollegeTown Shuttle including where it goes and when it leaves the Homewood campus, visit their website. I personally love the CollegeTown shuttle because there are so many places around Baltimore that you can go and not paying for it makes it even better. The CollegeTown Shuttle isn’t just available to Hopkins students; students from other colleges in Baltimore have the ability to utilize these transportation systems as well. This helps because I have some friends that go to University of Maryland, College Park and if we wanted to meet up they’d be able to get to my campus or Towson or Inner Harbor for free and not have to worry about where they’re going. Also if you’re planning on going somewhere within 1 mile of the Homewood Campus late at night and you’re worried about the area you have the ability to call the Security Van which will drive you from campus to a location of your choice or from a location of your choice back to campus. This is also great because you can go somewhere with all of your friends and since it’s a huge van you can all travel back to campus together. Some students actually use the shuttle if they want to get somewhere that’s relatively close to campus when it’s raining. I’m not saying I do this, but it’s something that’s available.

Signs like these tell students where the CollegeTown Shuttles will pick them up/drop them off. It also helps people in the area to find key tourist points in Baltimore.

Aside from the private transportation available to Hopkins students there are also several different ways you can use the public transportation available to Hopkins students throughout the city of Baltimore. There are of course Taxi Cabs all throughout the city that you can use to get from campus to Inner Harbor. Taxis often stop outside or go near the Homewood campus so it’s not hard to get from campus to wherever you’re going. Using a Taxi to get to Baltimore Washington/Thurgood Marshall Airport can get a bit pricy but there are alternatives offered during the holidays for students. Similar to the Security Van service available to students during the holidays one of the offices on campus (I’m pretty sure its Student/Residential Life) offers a van service which will get you to the airport, and all you have to do is go to the Residential Life office in AMR II and buy a ticket for 15$. I’ve never been to the airport so I don’t know much about where it is but I can tell you it’s definitely much more than 15$. From BWI you can fly out to any airport in the country and you can book your tickets online as soon as you know when you’re planning on leaving/returning. Most students figure out when they’re going to leave and return after they find out their midterm/final dates for the holidays. Personally I was unable to leave until Tuesday morning (the dorms close at 6PM on Tuesday night, by the way) because I had a midterm on Monday and another one on Tuesday. I know that most of my friends (actually most of the student body) were gone before Monday and most professors know that stuff like this happens so they don’t do much in class on these days. The registrar’s office posts the exam schedule for finals early in the year so it’s easy to get tickets for Winter Break. The whole process repeats itself for the spring semester where students choose when to leave for spring break based upon their exam schedules and the final schedule will be posted by the registrar’s office towards the middle of the spring semester.

Here’s a picture of a Bolt Bus (see below) right where it picks up its riders in New York City @ 33rd and 7th Aves.

The final method of transportation I would like to discuss is my personal favorite: Bolt Bus. Bolt Bus is a transportation service that is fairly new and consists of busses that travel between major cities on the east coast. There are busses that will take you to Boston, New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The busses leave from train stations so it’s not that hard to find out where they are. The bus that leaves from Penn Station in Baltimore only goes to NYC but I’m sure there are other ways of getting to Philadelphia and Boston. Not only are the busses extremely comfortable and the rides don’t take that long, but the busses have power outlets and free wireles
s which not only makes the ride go much quicker, but it allows you to get work done on the way there. If you book your tickets far enough in advance you can get prices as low as 2$ for a one way ticket. Up to a week before the tickets hit their max price at about 20$ for a one way ride. This is still a really amazing price. Two weekends ago I went to visit some of my friends from high school and I met them in NYC. The transportation for the whole trip cost 40$ total! Once I met my friend Tim in NYC we went back to Hoboken where he goes to school (at Stevens Institute of Technology for Electrical Engineering) and in case you’ve never been to Hoboken or don’t know where it is, it’s right across the Hudson from NYC so you have the most amazing view (especially at night!). Below is a picture I took on my BlackBerry when we were heading back to the city when I was leaving.

I’m sure you can imagine how amazing this view is late at night.

Lastly I would just like to say that even though I’ve had more fun than ever in my first 3 months at college, it feels so good to be home. You may think that once you go to college you forget how to live your life at home and how to drive, etc. but you actually don’t. When I got home it was like I picked up right where my home life left off. It was also awesome to hang out with all my high school friends again because no matter where I go I’ll never find people who are as unique as them. Even though this break only lasts for about 5 days it’s great to see everyone again. Yesterday I visited my old high school and I got to see all my friends in the grades below me as well as all of my teachers and there really is no better feeling than seeing old friends again. So to conclude there are many ways to get around on campus or to places that are near the campus or even to major cities that are relatively close to Baltimore. I’m actually sure there are many more than I’m unaware of at the moment. So my first video is another funny video about pets and involves a dog that pretty much can’t rollover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxdPYCc_1mU . My second video (explicit language warning) is about some of the people that come to the Jersey Shore in the summer. This video was filmed at the beach in Seaside Park (which is about 30 minutes from me) and wasn’t staged at all, some guys just got a video camera and started recording. This is one of the funniest videos I’ve found in a while and I can’t believe it’s real: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5weU2olAl-E . Enjoy and I’ll see you all in two weeks!