It’s been a little over a month since I left Hopkins and came home for the summer and I have exactly two more months of break to go before I’m back in Homewood for my sophomore year. Summer is going by way too fast. But I feel I have spent it wisely so far, making some memories that I will take with me for a long time!
I’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble. The other day I played a game with my family who are all Scrabble wizards. My little sister, who is 5 years younger than me, will always manage to beat out the whole family by at least 100 points. And then there’s me and my disastrous playing ability. For several rounds, my family would let me get away with playing words like “Ba” after I would spend several minutes convincing them that it is a word, for it is the sound a sheep makes. For years I would play small made-up words like that and be satisfied with the 4 points I would get each round. However, the other day when I played with my family, something amazing happened! After intently starting at my set of letters, I played a word that was not two, not three, but SIX letters long! The word was “Zealot” with a double letter score on the “z” and a triple word score for a total of 75 points for that one turn, which for me was the most ingenious play on the face of the planet. It was hands-down my greatest Scrabble moment ever and I will forever remember it even when I’m old.
Basically how I normally play... :P
I also played paintball for the first time. I know. I’m insanely crazy. I have no idea what propelled me to try it, but I did and I’ll be completely honest; It was a great experience and I’m glad I tried it, but I’m definitely not brave enough to do it again! For someone who can barely play laser tag, paintball is some scary stuff! I went with my friends who are incredible paintball enthusiasts, so naturally they were far more into it than I was, stealthily maneuvering their way through the course and aiming at the other team with complete accuracy. I, on the other hand, had a more fitting strategy. My plan was to hide behind a tree until it was safe to come out. Unfortunately, the other team seemed to spot me anyway and sent nearly 50 paintballs in my direction, each at about 200 mph. And those paintballs HURT! This continued for many rounds and the general trend was that I would always be one of the first ones out. But in my defense, I would get shot out having tried my absolute best! I even *almost* shot a player on the opposing team! Even though the experience was physically painful (leaving me with about six welts and bruises by the end of the day), it felt very fulfilling to have tried something so completely new and far off from what I would normally do. I have to thank my insane but amazing friends for that!
My friend (left) and I (right) with our paintball guns! We speak Latin.
A more recent obsession of mine that took place a few weeks ago is the BBC show Downton Abbey. I watched the ENTIRE series in a week. It is just too good to take a break from watching! As a Beatles fan, I naturally gravitate towards all things British such as Jane Austin novels, Cadbury’s chocolates, and of course BBC shows. To take my obsession to the next level, I’ve even started to learn how to play the Downton Abbey theme song on the piano. Don’t judge. Watch the video below! It’s the promo from when the first season came out and hopefully it entices you to start watching if you already haven’t:)
Lastly, I’m spending a majority of my summer taking a Differential Equations class at Rutgers University. Contrary to how I thought it would be, Diff Eq is turning out to be one of my favorite classes! The course material is incredibly interesting and seems to apply directly to everyday life, especially the modeling unit, which is one of the first units in the course. In modeling, we learn to write equations that represent certain situations, including population growth and decay, changes in solution concentration over time, and compound interest. From then on, we learn how to solve more complex differential equations. As tedious as they can be at times to compute, I feel a great appreciation for the material since I’ve realized its usefulness from the modeling unit!
That’s my summer so far! I have two more months to go and I can’t wait to see what else happens! So until then, feel free to ask me any questions about student life or Hopkins in general and I will answer them right away!