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Penultimatum

Posted by Dominique D. | Posted on December 20, 2011

I can’t believe I’m blogging about my final winter break at JHU. Seriously! Wow. Wow. Wow. Before you know it I’ll be taking senior pics and ordering my cap and gown. It’s still not really hitting me yet that I only have a limited time left here–but in any case, I’m doing my best to enjoy what’s left!

So, I’m sitting here working on a take-home final for my grad school class at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (public health majors have to take them as seniors), and jealous of all my friends who are completely finished with everything. I LOVEEEEE taking classes at Bloomberg, but it was kinda sucky that we had classes there straight through reading period and finals–but the classes are good so it’s cool. Anyways, what have I been up to since my last blog?

-Cool end of semester party at my professor’s house. Now, you know Hopkins has some cool profs if they invite students to their homes. My professor for Power and Racism, Dr. Hayes, had a shindig type thing and while it was weird (as I’ve never been to a professor’s house before) it was awesome. The pic below shows a portion of his “library”–he’s amassed quite a collection of books in his years. Seeing all of these books really made me think about what it means to be an academic, and also about how different our generations are. For someone born in the 30s, I feel like schooling was a lot more based on books, good reading, and good writing. We live in such a fast, technological world these days and quite honestly, I don’t know anyone my age who is reading like this. In any case, it has inspired me to read more–although I am working on a take home final now, I picked up Malcolm X: A life of Reinvention today while I was at the library and I’ve just started it–hopefully I learn some new things!

Pic is bluury sorry! I am telling you, this is only like 1/6 of all the books he had in his basement.

-RA Banquet. Every year, the office of Residential Life has a banquet for the RAs, White Elephant gift exchange style (if you don’t know what that is, look it up! So fun). I ended up with a Barnes and Noble gift card, and my gift was a very girly scarf–of course a guy picked it. Funny thing is, I offered to trade but he wanted to keep it! It was a thank you to us for all of our hard work. This is by far THE most difficult job I’ve ever had (and I’ve had many, many jobs) in more way than I could even explain. It’s rewarding, though!

The AMR staff!

-Hopkins Christian Fellowship Christmas Partyyyy. I rave about these guys in my blogs all the time so I won’t go into that haha. But we have a white elephant party each year for HCF and it’s always funny because we don’t go out and buy fancy presents–we take (useable) junk from our rooms and wrap them. To give you an idea of the hilarity, these were some of the gifts exchanged: reindeer antlers, bedroom slippers, post it notes, nail polish, an iron, and tampons (guess which gift a guy opened up–yep–the tampons…)

Our white elephant circle

So let me tell you how cool HCF is. Our staff leaders–Natalie and Justin–are engaged. My group raised money for them, completely in secret, to have a nice honeymoon because they realllly deserve it. This pic shows the awesomeness:

That's a big fake check :) Like the ones you get when you will the lotto

And of course, finals. I was most definitely not anticipating my next to last semester being the one with the worst final exam schedule. Instead of the usual 2 or 3, even 4 papers/finals students (both engineers and arts and sciences) tend to have to do, I was lucky enough to have 6. That elicited much pity and sympathy from everyone I informed. Let’s just say this is not happening next semester. It was really hard to balance all of them and quite honestly, finals and papers take a lot of energy. Once I finished one, I needed like a few days to recuperate before starting the next. To many Hopkids this is crazy–but I’ve simply lost the capacity to be on my finals grind like I was freshman and sophomore years. Guess I really am getting old! Hence the reason I’m still here working on this take home final.  During it all, my friends have been good to me, letting me sleep over their apartments when the dorms were too loud, too much, and too distracting for me.

My lovely friend Leah made me a chicken panini sammich YUM

-Oh yea, can’t forget Friday Night Lights. So, I started watching this show at 1am last Friday after I turned in another paper. I have not been able to stop watching it. I am almost through with Season 2 now and can’t wait to watch Season 3. I’m not a T.V. buff by any stretch of the imagination and I don’t really watch T.V. except for Grey’s (don’t judge me, I stopped for a while but somehow I am back :/  ), Glee (again, I want to stop but since I started from the beginning I can’t!) and Pretty Little Liars (it’s a really well written show). So yea I am obsessed with FNL now.  At least I started now instead of during the school year…i.e. last year I did the same thing with LOST except I watched that–ALL of the episodes–when school was in session. Bad news bears but somehow I got my work done, hehe. :)

Anywho, I am definitely looking forward to:

-Being away from the dorms and with my family instead

-A (brief) break from paper writing

-the NBA season!

-Trying to get into the holiday spirit–I won’t be able to Christmas shop till Thursday so we’ll see how that works out…

Cheers to the holidays! And oh yea, congrats to the ED class of 2016! DANG I really am old!! :)

Later Days!

-Dominique

reindeer ears and christmas tree!

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What’s there to do?

Posted by Dominique D. | Posted on September 27, 2011

Lots of people always ask “what is there to do for fun at Hopkins?” Because they (you? ;)  ) have been told that Hopkins is a place where fun comes to die, yada yada yada. I think you know by now that those allegations are farcical, and that there is plenty to do here, for everyone. And you don’t always have to leave campus to find stuff to do…which leads me to Fall Fest!

What is Fall Fest? It’s a Hopkins tradition that happens each year from the Office of Student Life, and it provides students and faculty with a ton of events in which they can participate throughout the weekend. I should mention that this weekend was Young Alumni Weekend–yea, you guessed it–all of the young JHU alumni come back for some fun at their alma mater. Fun, on campus things to enjoy. Some may say they’re cheesy, but hey cheese can do a body real good! :) Here are some of these events:

List of all the events

Welcome to Our City Fair. I actually helped plan this with a few of my fellow Baltimore Scholars. The purpose of the fair was to show off what Baltimore has to offer in terms of nightlife, food, etc. We invited vendors from local restaurants (CAN YOU SAY COUPONS???), entertainment venues, and volunteer organizations. I left with a coupon for frozen yogurt from Freshii, a 10 dollar coupon voucher from Cafe Hon, and a 25% off coupon from Pete’s Grille. Yeaaaaaaaa!

Totally using this (where Michael Phelps likes to wat breakfast yumyum)

Far East Movement and Super Smash Bros Concert. Each year, the HOP (Hopkins Organization for Programming) invites a musical artist to campus, and this year it was Far East Movement. I didn’t go ( I was on RA duty yay) but I heard it was cool, and we got a tweet from them saying that “Johns Hopkins hyped.” Tehee.

Fun-damentals of Weaving. I was unfortunately napping when this happened, but the Homewood Museum sponsored a weaving class with free materials. I can’t say that weaving is my passion but it was cool to have the opportunity to learn how to do it, and for free!

Hairspray! I loveeeeee this movie (the new one, sorry die-hard John Waters fans), and they showed it. Score!

Friday Night in Fed Hill: This was more for the young alumni, held at Mother’s Bar and Grille in Federal Hill. Fed Hill is one of those nearby communities that every Hopkins student should visit at least once during their time here. Tons of Baltimore history, culture, and food to discover!

Levering Live! Ok, maybe this one is kind of cheesy but like I said, I love cheese. I made lip balm and a bumper sticker (don’t laugh at what it says), and there were people making caricatures. Unfortunately, I got to that line too late, but it was cool that we had that opportunity.

Grape flavorrr

President’s Day of Service: This started 2 years ago. Students register with student groups and those groups are assigned to a place to do service in Baltimore. I didn’t make it this year but my friends were doing things at women’s centers and harvesting almost 8,000 pounds of potatoes. It’s really a wonderful opportunity to get out there and serve Baltimore.

Haunted House: Yea. I got to be a scarer this year instead of just walking through it. Let’s just say that my throat is hurting and I may have no voice this week. When I walked through it last year, I was laughing the whole time while my friend was screaming her head off (ear-splitting screams too). But this year I got to be on the other side…some people laughed at me and some people screamed. I think this is the only time in my life where I say I was happy when people screamed in terror because of me, hehe. 2 hours in a creepy black robe and a sweaty mask=awesomeness. Even if I don’t have any  voice left. I really wanted to scare people I knew but I couldn’t see anything through my stupid wolf mask!

Midnight Breakfast: Um, free food?? Yea. So good. Bacon, pancakes, donuts, and more…yum yum yum!

2.5 K Presidential Fun Run: Another thing that started when President Daniels arrived. I am sorry to day that my lazy butt has never done this, but people who have done it enjoyed it a lot, and come on WHO wouldn’t want to run with Prez Daniels?!?

SLOW DOWN.

And I didn’t even list everything that went on for Fall Fest. That shows you how cool it is. I am sad that this is my last year to enjoy it as a student, but I did and perhaps I’ll be back next year for Young Alumni Weekend and I’ll sneak my way back into these things. :)

Until next time,

Dominique

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