Where Did the Time go?

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Name: Brett Schwartz

Year: Class of 2012

Hometown: Langhorne, PA (suburbs of Philadelphia)

Major: Economics

Minor: Entrepreneurship and Management

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Now… where did the time go?  Three and a half years at Johns Hopkins University.  I can’t believe I’m about to graduate this spring.

My name is Brett Schwartz and I’m a senior from the suburbs of Philadelphia.  I am an economics major with a minor in Entrepreneurship and Management.  This past summer I interned with Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York City, and I will be working for PwC in management consulting full-time after graduation.

Looking back at my time in college, I can’t believe the amount of opportunities and experiences I have had at Johns Hopkins University.  As a member of the school’s varsity Cross Country and Track teams, I have spent most of my time… well.. running.  This year, we qualified for the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history.  I have really enjoyed spending time with teammates, and even got to race at Disney World last year (yes… I got a picture with Mickey and Minnie).  When I’m not practicing or racing, I’ve taken the time to experience almost everything else Hopkins offers as well.  I’ll recap my junior year, as I believe it sums up my experience at Hopkins.

I began the fall semester in late August, as our team comes back early for preseason.  After surviving the dog days of summer, school quickly began and it was nice to have everyone back on campus after working in Baltimore over the summer.  I worked two internships (both through the Center for Leadership Education, CLE) in Baltimore, and also worked as a tour guide and a lifeguard on campus for some spending money.  During the fall semester, I spent most of my time in the Center for Leadership Education.  Three out of my five courses for the semester were through the CLE program, and I really enjoy the hands-on learning the courses offer.  Hopkins gets a lot of flack for being too much of a pre-med school, but I have thoroughly enjoyed my classes through the program, and wish more people took advantage of what it has to offer.  During the fall semester, I was involved at CLE by TA’ing a class called Oral Presentations and also being on the board of a CLE-sponsored organization, The American Marketing Association.  I also am a member of the business fraternity on campus, Alpha Kappa Psi.

During my spring semester, I studied abroad in London.  I loved my four months there, as it was my first experience outside of North America.  I took full advantage of my time there, as I visited 23 cities in 14 countries in just under four months in Europe.  Two of my favorite cities were Dublin and Marrakech.  I was lucky enough to spend St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, which was a memorable time.  I also was able to travel to Morocco, where I even got to play with some snakes in the main square in Marrakech.  Oh, and I got some studying in as well, as I enjoyed experiencing a different type of education system, which was very different from the American education system as it was very hands-off since each class only met for two hours a week.  All in all, I could not believe the amount of places I was able to explore, and it was an opportunity I was happy to have as a student at Johns Hopkins.

The things I have really enjoyed about Hopkins is the opportunities this school provides you.  I was ecstatic to hear that I could go abroad for the spring semester, and be involved with all of my organizations, and still have plenty of credits to graduate in four years.  The opportunities for research and internships are invaluable to one’s education, and there are plenty to choose from at JHU.  I also really like the location of Hopkins as it is within the city limits of Baltimore, but has a separate, beautiful campus.  I also like how close it is to other major cities such as Washington, DC and Philadelphia (where I can take a quick train ride home to catch a Phillies game).  All in all, I think Hopkins offers everything one can ask for.

I have really enjoyed my time at Hopkins, and will treasure the experiences of the past 4 years!

 

 

All the Small Things – Confessions of a Soon-to-be-Adult

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Name: Saznin Mehta

Major: Public Health

Hometown: Alexandria, VA

Year: Class of 2012

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Now that it’s March of my senior year, I’m beginning to realize how dangerously close I am to becoming A Real Person. You know, someone with a job and an apartment and bills and, gasp, responsibilities. Even though I’ve lived off-campus for two years and have more or less gotten the hang of taking care of myself (laundry is still a struggle), I’m about as close to reaching real adult-status maturity as your average toddler. I knew coming into my second semester that I needed a smooth transition to post-grad life, something that would give me a taste of the real world without requiring me to abandon my comfortable college bubble. With that in mind, I began applying to internships in DC and finally landed one at the UN Foundation.

This, I thought, would be the perfect segue to impending adulthood. I would commute to DC two days a week, work remotely from Baltimore on those days when I had class, and gain valuable experience at an amazing organization. I’ve had my share of internships before, but never during the school year, so I braced myself for a heavier-than-usual workload, which at Hopkins is no small feat. I went to the mall and bought myself a few blazers and slacks and some sensible shoes so I’d look the part. Now was my chance to prove that I could act it, too.

Here’s the part where any other blog would launch into ‘A Profound List of Things I’ve Learned,’ but I’ve decided to go in another direction. Sure, I’ve had my fair share of challenging learning experiences – meeting deadlines, handling a million projects at once, learning programs and procedures very quickly, rectifying mistakes gracefully – but I’ve also run across some subtle yet equally important lessons that have proven vital to getting me through the day, such as…

• Don’t email people on Monday mornings before they’ve had their coffee. They’ll be in an exponentially better mood after 10 AM, and it’ll show in their responses.
• Never stand on the left side of Metro station escalators unless you want to incur the wrath of a million angry commuters.
• The best way to wake up at 5 AM and stay up: leave your alarm by the milk and cereal. Food always triumphs over sleep.
• Write stuff down. If I don’t make a note of a task right when I get it, it might as well not exist.
• Turn your phone off, not just during meetings, but also when you’re out with people. Little known fact: the world will not end if you don’t answer that text. And who wants to be friends with someone who’d rather hang out with their iPhone? That’s right: no one.
• Smile at strangers. Sounds cheesy, but getting a big grin in response is enough to turn even the most horrible day around.

… and many more. Profound revelations these are not, but they’ve taught me to be perceptive, proactive, and productive. And if the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that the smallest things can make the biggest difference. The best part of my day is not when I’ve finished answering emails or completed a big project or dazzled my boss with my efficiency; it’s when I give myself a chance to improve my day through the little things. When I’m content with the most mundane aspects of my life, the more important things seem like a piece of cake to handle. So will my ever-growing list of little things help me grow up? It remains to be seen, but then again, I’m sticking to yet another little nugget of wisdom: take it one day at a time.

 

Looking Back to the Start

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Name: Sara I. Abdel Rahim

Hometown: Alexandria, Egypt

Year: Class of 2012

Majors: International Studies & Anthropology

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I remember the first time I visited Hopkins, I was a senior in high school it was the first quarter of the year. My friend and I drove up from Northern Virginia in her moms car, armed with a GPS and enough gas and toll money to make it to Baltimore and back. We were set to find out more about this school that we were both anxious for the opportunity of attending together. It was a sunny day, the campus was beautiful with trees changing color, the buildings looked extra shiny with the sun-light hitting them, the grass freshly cut– it was all just so welcoming. I remember making it back home after a day full of exploration of the Homewood campus, and telling my parents about how much I enjoyed my visit and that now, Johns Hopkins was without a doubt, my first choice.

April 1^st 2008 was certainly a nerve-racking day. I remember sitting at my desk on my computer consistently refreshing my yahoo inbox waiting for an admissions decision letter and checking my junk-mail just incase it went there. My dad was sitting right behind me on my bed trying to distract me from the lack of an email in my inbox that was going to shape my future. It was getting closer and closer to 6PM and that’s when emails were being sent out, with a burst of energy I told my dad, “if I get in to Hopkins, I’ll run down our neighborhood street screaming in joy”. When I turned around to continue refreshing my inbox it was there, one email, form Johns Hopkins University. I clicked on it, and I don’t think I made it past the “Congratulations” and started crying with joy. I hugged my dad my tears still intact smiling. He smiled right back and said, “remember what you have to do now?”

That was almost four years ago. And as I sit writing this blog, the sun is shinning on our campus, the grass looks freshly cut, and the buildings look as shiny as they did the first time I visited Hopkins. I’m now a second semester senior double majoring in International Studies and Anthropology. As I look back over my time here at the Homewood campus as its all coming to an end this May with graduation, I’m nostalgic. My time at Hopkins has allowed my to make some great friends, enabled me

to take some really interesting classes that have shaped and focused my interests in a range of disciplines. Being at Hopkins has also given me the opportunity to become involved on campus as a leader, and a mentor. And most of all the drive to seek to continue exploring the world with a level of uncapped passion for discovery.

 

 

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

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Name: Jessie Koljonen

Year: 2013

Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona

Majors: Behavioral Biology and Spanish

After being abroad in Madrid for the past semester, it’s been kind of weird being back here at Hopkins and getting right back into the swing of things and my busy life here on campus. No more traveling to foreign countries every weekend, no more free afternoons exploring Retiro Park or Plaza del Sol, and no more speaking Spanish 24/7. One good thing is that I don’t have to commute to school anymore (here at Hopkins, my apartment is about a 2 minute walk from campus – nothing compared to my hour-long commute to school in Madrid). It’s nice being back and seeing everyone again, but it’s still taking some time to get used to everything and back into the Hopkins way of life.

This week is the first week of classes, and walking on campus the other day felt oddly strange – a combination of feeling like I should be here but also like I should be back in Madrid. As I was walking around campus, I noticed that in the time that I was gone, there are lots of new faces (hello freshmen class!), the Brody Learning Commons is almost done and not just a plot of dirt, and there’s construction going on behind Mudd Hall for a new research building. A lot has been happening! That being said, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed as well. Most of the buildings are still where I remember them, Char Mar still sells the candy that I love to snack on while I’m studying, and there’s still a shortcut through campus in the Gilman Tunnel that makes going to class a little easier.

The good thing about getting back into my normal routine here at Hopkins is that I’m keeping myself busy so I don’t have to worry about getting bored or too sad about not being in Madrid anymore. I’ve moved off campus into a cozy little apartment, and I’ve been busy setting it up, making it feel like home, and learning how to cook. All those trips to Ikea, Target, Home Depot, and Bed Bath and Beyond are fun but definitely time consuming. Sorority rush is coming up this weekend, and I’ve been busy with my sorority, Phi Mu, getting ready for going through rush and preparing to get our newest members. I’ve started back up working in the admissions office and working for Shannon, helping out with different projects and admissions relate d fun. I’ve even made my way down to the Hopkins Med Campus and re-started working in the neuroscience research lab I have been a part of since my sophomore year. Next week, I’ll be continuing my shadowing at the Hopkins Hospital, shadowing a neurosurgeon – definitely one of the coolest things I’ve been involved in here at Hopkins!

And of course, my classes are keeping me on my toes as well. Everything from my 8am Physics Section to having a quiz on the second day of class has been a small shock to my system compared to my not-so-intense 4 day school weeks back in Madrid (so convenient for 3 day weekends of traveling!). But being an upperclassman, I am now able to take more upper-level classes which focus more on my specific interests.

For example, I’m taking a class called “Cognitive Neuropsychology of Visual Perception: The Malfunctioning Visual Brain”, where we are going to learn about various functional specializations and disorders. Cool!

Overall, even though I had the time of my life in Madrid last semester, it’s good being back. One semester is just the right amount of time for me to be abroad, I don’t know if I could have spent the whole year abroad and away from my “normal” life. It was nice being able to relax at home in Arizona after getting back from Madrid, where I spent all of winter break and intersession sitting on my couch and catching up on Grey’s Anatomy with my mom. And now I’m looking forward to the Spring and enjoying my semester here back in Baltimore. From my classes to all the clubs and extracurriculars I’m involved in, plus the great events we have here in the Spring – Rush, Spring Fair, Homecoming– I’ve got lots to keep me busy!

Who Needs A Car Anyway?!?

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Name: Leah

Hometown: Bowie, Maryland

Class:  Class of 2012

Majors: Biology and History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

Hello everyone! My name is Leah and I am currently a senior in the class of 2012 at Hopkins and pre-med, double majoring in Biology and History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.

I grew up in the suburbs of Maryland and driving around with my friends was one of my favorite things to do in high school. So when I visited the campus and a Hopkins tour guide told me there wasn’t official student parking, a part of my soul literally died. I thought to myself, “What on earth could you do without a car?!.” (Now for those prospectives either chuckling at my pitiful story or reaching for a Kleenex because you know exactly what I mean, let me just stop you because there is a happy ending.)

What I learned is that I had been deceived by the campus—in a good way.  In other words, the beautiful campus with its federal-style architecture of red brick buildings, marble steps, and grand white columns made me believe that I was in the middle of no where. In fact, I had completely forgotten that this illustrious campus was in the bustling city of Baltimore and that I had ways to get off campus that didn’t make me wonder if my car’s side mirrors would be there in the morning!

By being in the city, we have access to taxis, city buses, and even water ferries. But as broke college students, these can add up and empty our wallets so let me reveal to you my list of “Top Five Cheap Ways to Get Off Campus”. This list has taken me 3 years of personal experience to compose but I think its time that I share my tricks with you. (Disclaimer: All the places that I mention below are in no way a complete comprehensive list of all the possible things to do in Baltimore. They merely scratch the surface so you’ll have a chance to be adventurous and discover new corners and coves to pass on to future “prospies”. )

Now, starting from the bottom and workup upwards, the Maryland Light Rail is a train that shuttles throughout Baltimore and its surrounding cities. For only $1.60 you can hop on the Light Rail and go to Camden Yards for an Oriole’s baseball game, BWI airport to catch a plane ride home for the holidays, or Hunt Valley Towne Center to see a movie and grab dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, Noodles and Company, Outback, and much more! This beats taking a cab to the Inner Harbor which can rack up to $14 one way or to the airport which can cost almost $50! As a hungry college student, I always think in terms Chipotle burritos so by saving you $50 that’s worth like six steak burritos with guacamole.

Moving on to the next option is Zip Car—a membership-based car sharing company providing automobile rental to its members. The best part is that you only need to be 18 years old and have a safe driving record to join. Zip Car has parked dozens of new Honda Civics, Toyota Priuses, Mazdas, and more throughout the city and around campus. Depending on the car, it can cost as low as $7.25 to rent the car for an hour, and it includes free gas! These are perfect for doing large grocery runs or maybe even a day trip to the beach with friends!

Third on my list is the Collegetown shuttle and one of many reasons is the “f word”. No not that word. I’m talking about the word “FREE”. The word “free” rings sweet bells in anyone’s ears college student or not. This shuttle takes students to any of the half dozen universities in the area while also taking them to Towson Mall for some shopping or the Inner Harbor for a nice dinner and movie.

Now, I must admit that the top two on my list—the JHMI shuttle and the Charm City Circulator—tie and I’ll explain why. First of all, they’re both free but they are each fantastic in their own way and I can’t actually place one above the other. (Can you tell how my list is getting cheaper and cheaper as we reach the top?)

The JHMI shuttle stands for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute Shuttle and it takes both students and faculty to the Hopkins School of Nursing, School of Public Health, Peabody School of Music, and the Pennsylvania train station. (In case you’re wondering, the train station is not located in Pennsylvania. It’s actually just a few blocks down the street.) Thanks to it being timely and free, the best word to describe the JHMI shuttle is “reliable” and it allows students to take classes at Peabody, conduct research at the Medical school, take classes at the Public Health school, and much more. By going to the train station with the JHMI, you can catch a $7 commuter train to visit Washington D.C. for the day or take the Bolt bus with your friends to check out New York City. To satisfy your fine arts palate, a short walk from the train station will take you to the Joseph Meyerhoff for a Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performance or the Lyric Opera House. If you’re not into classical performances, then don’t worry because the Meyerhoff also hosts events like “Shaolin Monk Showdown”, “tribute to John Williams”, “Drumline Live!”, and so much more. (Student rush tickets are only $5!)

Meanwhile, the Charm City Circulator (CCC) is a fleet of 21 free eco-friendly hybrid shuttles that travel three routes in Baltimore City, serving the city residents and tourists. With the circulator, students can explore the fun coves of Baltimore. The shuttle comes every 15 minutes to each stop and it can take you to Fell’s Point—a historic maritime district—for a great bite to eat and people watching, Federal Hill—a historic brick neighborhood—for a beautiful view of the city, and Harbor East for fine dining and a movie!

And there you have it—my thousand-word crash course on all the great, cheap, and easy ways to get off campus and explore the wonderful city of Baltimore! Now, get out there and try my list!

How to Fail a Freshman Room Inspection: how an only child learned to love a roommate.

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Name: Bridget Harkness

Year: Class of 2014

Hometown: Boise, ID

Majors: Writing Seminars and Public Health

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Jennings, Room 188 became The Lair. There was a green grape at the bottom of our refrigerator that we watched slowly become a raisin. There were round pillows, and patchwork blankets, and a warped ResLife measuring cup that someone once put in the oven, and I was too afraid to return. There was a temperamental printer that I named Oliver that printed everything slanted so it just became a jewelry holder. There was a small coffee maker that I rarely used because it was noisy and she slept late. There was a red lamp beside her bed because the overhead light was bright and I went to bed early. On my nightstand I had black eye masks and neon green earplugs. There was a Dali painting of elephants above my bed – that always made people go sort of quiet and say “That’s really cool”. There was a knitted turtleneck sweater with a dog head from her Aunt, and it wasn’t cool, but it made us laugh so I wore it anyway. There were HealWell antibiotics for my sinuses, sore from humidity and wind. There were herbal pills from her mother, skeptical of medicine or vaccines. We shared tissue boxes like sickness, commiserating. There were oversized suitcases. We traveled alone between the coasts by plane, coming together to lament the lack of Mexican food. There were Yiddish refrigerator magnets, ‘Oy Vey Bagel Shiksa’. That was me. There were Broadway tickets, and soundtracks, ‘Take Me or Leave Me’. That was her. There were glass dishes that sat dirty so long in my closet that one day I just threw them all to the bottom of a big recycling bin by the baseball field. I listened to the echoes of them breaking. There was a large cloth patterned like the Andean Flag pinned to the backboard of my desk. There was a painting of the dark mark hanging from her bed for use in the Quidditch music video. There were piles of work shopped poems, and stacks of college ruled Calculus problems. There were booby traps of books. There were labyrinths of computer cables. There were drawings and letters from a little girl she babysat in Tucson. There were pictures. My sweaty gym shorts, and worn out running shoes made my half of the room reek like rotting cornstarch. I made her go to spinning class and we bought air freshener that smelled like rain.  There were letters from my grandma and friends from High School tacked in circles. There was a candle we never lit. Our lights were always off – first because we were hot, then because we were lazy, eventually because we were used to it.

We had a saying, ”It has gone into the void,”

meaning you might not find it now

but it will show up eventually.

Still Living the Not-So-Real Life in Madrid

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Name: Jessie Koljonen

Year: Class of 2013

Hometown: Phoenix, AZ

Major: Behavioral Biology and Spanish

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With all my travels throughout Spain and around Europe, you’d think that I barely spend any time in Madrid! But don’t fret, even though I’ve been jet-setting all around, I have also been taking advantage of all that Madrid has to offer. My Spanish is infinitely better, I feel so much more comfortable navigating around the city, and the Spanish way of life is the norm for me now. (Eating dinner at 9:30pm? That’s early! They don’t refrigerate the milk? Doesn’t weird me out anymore! Navigating around the metro? Like second nature to me now!)

Sometimes, I walk around Madrid in the evening/night time to take part of the night life, explore new bars and tapas restaurants, and try cool new foods – some of which I’ve never even heard of before. The other night, I was with my friends and we had a nice tapas dinner of ox tail, snails, cheese, and olives. It was all delicious! My favorite was the cheese, I love cheese probably a little more than I should. Here in Spain, there is this great type of cheese called Manchego Cheese, which is to-die-for! So delicious, I could eat it all day. The bartender was so nice, and he recommended all the great tapas for us to try. Gracias, hombre! That same night, we went to another tapas bar and tried these awesome mushroom crepes, steak filet with brie cheese, and these delicious salmon rolls stuffed with cheese, apples, and onions. So great!

Another must-do Spanish experience is go to a bullfight. A few weeks ago, I went to an authentic Spanish bullfight. It was so cool! I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to, the whole thing was actually kind of beautiful and artsy. The way the matador interacted with the bull was almost like a dance, and the way he moved was so graceful. I expected to be horrified at the sight of the bullfight, but I really enjoyed it, and definitely felt so very Spanish. I also didn’t realize that bullfighting is such a team sport. There is the matador, who does most of the work and interacts the most with the bull, but he has at least 4 or 5 matador helpers who help him throughout the process, especially in the beginning. Then they sort of wander to the side while the matador gets ready to get down to business. There were 3 different matadors – 2 guys and one girl, who each took turns with different bulls. One of the guy matadors was even younger than me! Something really crazy happened when the woman matador made her debut, I think that she was the most famous and most experienced of the 3 matadors, because the crowd cheered more for her, so she tried doing a crazy little trick, but she ended up having a little incident with the bull. As they let the bull out of the pen, she kneeled on the ground, cape in hand, waiting for the bull to charge. As the bull charged, he came right to her, she didn’t have time to get up, and the bull basically ran her over – tumbled her around a few times, and then the bull came back and did it again. He literally trampled all over her, I thought for sure she was a goner. Luckily, she got back up but was too injured to continue with the bullfight. There definitely must have been some broken bones.  I learned later that she was in critical condition in the hospital. Eek! Wow! I could never do something like that.

 

 

 

One weekend, our Hopkins program also organized a tour of Madrid de las Austrias – which was basically the old part of the city of Madrid. For me, it was interesting to listen to and learn about the history of some of the places that I had already explored – like the Plaza Mayor and the Plaza de Oriente (where the Royal Palace of Madrid is). We started the tour in the Plaza de Oriente, where there is a collection of majestic sculptures and statues of different kings of Spain – almost 20 statues – all made from “piedra caliza” – a unique type of stone. After, we walked a little and explored the outside of the Royal Palace, which I had already explored with one of my friends a few weeks before. But I love the palace, so it was nice to be able to see it again and learn a little more about it. It’s huge, it is the biggest palace of Occidental Europe, with 3,419 rooms! Inside, there are many collections of paintings, armor, sculptures, and other beautiful royal things collected by the kings and queens of Spain throughout the years. I still haven’t taken a tour of the inside of the palace, but it is definitely on my list of things to do before I leave Madrid.

We also visited the Catedral de Santa Maria la Real de la Almundena, which is right next to the Royal Palace, which I had also visited a few weeks ago. It has a modern style inside, with lots of bright and fun colors. Even though I had already been there, the tour guide enlightened me about some of the history of the place. It is indeed relatively new, it was constructed in 1883 under the vision of the architect Marques de Cubas. But it was under rennovation in 1944 under different architects – Fernando Chueca Goitia and Carlos Sidro. Finally, it went through one more renovation to welcome and honor Pope John Paul II, who came to Madrid in 1993 to dedicate and christen the new cathedral. After our visit to the Catedral de Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena, we went to the Real Monasterio de la Encarnacion. Though we didn’t go in, we learned about how it was a convent for nuns funded by Queen Margarita de Austria, the wife of King Felipe III in the 17th century. There are also very important collections of art inside the monastery.

We continued our tour of Old Madrid with a visit to the Plaza de España, where there are statues of Don Quijote de la Mancha and his sidekick Sancho Panzo, on their horses. These statues are a dedication to Miguel de Cervantes, the author of the famous and classic Spanish book Don Quijote.

Other places we saw on our tour included the Casa de Cisneros, where Benito Jimenez de Cisneros lived, who was a famous nephew of Cardinal Cisneros, an important figure in the religious world. We stopped at Mercado de San Miguel, which I had also been to before, which is one of my favorite markets here in Madrid – lots of great food in tapas sized plates, great for snacking! We wandered through the Plaza Mayor and finally ended our tour in Plaza de Sol, a great central part of Madrid.

Another cool Madrid must-do thing that I’ve done lately was go to El Rastro. El Rastro is this giant outdoor flea market on Sundays. It’s packed with people, and they sell everything from clothes, shoes, and purses, to computer parts and random electronic supplies. It was kind of overwhelming for even me, the avid shopper, but I’m glad that I experienced the craziness that it was.

Another activity the Hopkins Program planned for us was a night at the theater. We saw the play “Veinticinco años menos un dia (The tea is ready!)”. It was a Spanish comedy, with parts of it in English, about the interactions between a husband and wife after he finds out she has a lover. It was interesting but probably not my most favorite play in the world. Overall, I loved going to see the play, I really enjoy getting dressed up and experiencing cultural events like the theater.

It was a Spanish national holiday about a week ago, a “Dia Festivo” – and it was Spain’s Day of the Armed Forces. In the morning, there was a huge military parade, and I woke up early to watch all the soldiers, dressed in uniform, and the tanks rolling down the road in celebration of this day. The king of Spain even made a appearance, it was a pretty cool parade.

Because it was a Spanish national holiday, all the museums were free to the public, so I went to the Naval Museum with some of my friends. It was cool to see all the old cannons, weapons, uniforms, and maps from Spain’s history.

 

 

In addition to going to the theater with the Hopkins Madrid program, I also went to another play, Las Meninas, with three of my friends. It was quite an interesting play, and it also tied into what I had been learning in my Arte class. The play was about the famous painting, “Las Meninas” by Diego Velazquez, and told the story of the characters and the events happening around the time of the painting in the royal court. It was cool to see this painting somewhat “come to life”, and I also really appreciated it more since we have been studying Velazquez in the Prado like nobody’s business in Arte. Que chachi!

Another cool thing I did here in Madrid a couple weekends ago was that I went to an Ice Bar! I had never been to one before, but I had seen them on TV shows like Sex and the City (my favorite show) and they seemed so cool, so when I found out that there was an Ice Bar in Madrid, there was no question – I was going. I rallied some of my friends and we bundled up and went to the Ice Bar one night. Now when they say that it is cold, it actually was really cold! The whole place is made of ice – ice chairs, ice couches, ice sculptures, ice walls – so much ice! They even gave us these huge super comfy parkas – kind of like giant parka snuggies to help keep us warm. Good thing I came prepared and brought gloves, because it was -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit!) It was a fun experience, we had a blast taking pictures the whole time enjoying some drinks. We were tough, but barely made it two hours, if not an hour and a half, before we had to leave because it was so cool. But such a fun experience, I definitely recommend it!

 

Being in Madrid and enjoying all the great food here, I have to keep up with exercising or else I’d gain 100 pounds by the time I come back home! I’ve always enjoyed running, but lately I’ve set my mind to run more, and I actually ran my very first 10K here in Madrid just a couple weeks ago! It was called “La Carrera de la Ciencia” (funny how even here in Madrid, away from Hopkins, I can’t get away from anything science related), and it was great! Two of my friends ran it with me, and it was run to be able to experience the whole thing with them! My goal was to finish the entire race without stopping or walking – just running the whole time. I finished with a smile, 6.2 miles later, with a time of one hour and four minutes. The race was actually really large – there were about 8000 people who ran it, and I felt just like a Spaniard running along all those seasoned running pros. It felt great, and I’m actually planning on running another 10K in less than a month, whooooo go me!

When I ran my first 5K, my dad took me to get pancakes after the race, and it has become a tradition for me to get pancakes after a big race. So of course, we scoured Madrid to find good old fashioned pancakes to celebrate our finishing the race. Luckily we found a great place called VIPS which is basically like a Spanish version of IHOP or Denny’s, and my pancake craving was satisfied. Yum!

I’m still loving my unreal life here in Spain and sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m really still doing all these cool things. I’m so glad I make the decision to study abroad. I feel like I’m so much more cultured, know so much more about Spain and the world, and have experienced new things and tried new food that I would never have thought that I would try. I’ve been on more fun trips – recently Barcelona last weekend, and I just got back from Paris last night! Stay tuned for more blog posts about those trips in the very near future!

xoxo,
Jess

Getting to know someone: The perspective of a Johns Hopkins Ismaili

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Hello all! My name is Khurram Ali and I am an International Studies major here at Hopkins. I am also on the pre-medicine track, so I have taken a broad range of courses at this school.

You are probably wondering “what is he going to do with IR and pre-med?” I want to practice medicine but I also want to do health development work. Part of my inspiration to improve the lives of others comes from my religious faith—the other part comes from my desire to seek knowledge. If you asked me these questions three years ago, I probably would not have been able to say much. But in my time here I have developed a better sense of not  only what I want to do—but whoI want to be.  And the latter is much more important.

I want to begin from a global context. Perhaps one of the most difficult challenges of our time is our conflict with those that seek to use violence as political posturing. In the post 9/11 world, the media is filled with images of terrorism and acts of aggression that have erupted outside of the United States in places unfamiliar to many of us. Reporters from all sides of the spectrum (from the Washington Post to the Economist to Al Jazeera) depict our fight against terrorism as a conflict between the East and West.

 

Wait, what? East vs West?

This makes me feel weird. Because. Well…really? East vs West?

For 17 years of my life I have lived in the West. Both my parents are from the East and I was born in Karachi. So where do I belong?

I am reminded of Samuel Huntington’s famous book “The Clash of Civilizations”.  Are we at war with the East? I mean West?

As a Shia Imami Ismaili Muslim, and as a western-educated American, I am prone to say that we are instead (as Edward Said and others have noted) in the midst of a “clash of ignorances.”

My religious community is led by the Aga Khan IV, the 49^th descendant of the Holy Prophet. The Aga Khan preaches a message of peace and unity. He cites the Qu’ran to explain that all members of our world come from a single source (in Islam, God) and that from that single source we have matured into different creatures with unique characteristics and abilities. He notes this to remind us that diversity is a strength—indeed, human beings are different so that we can learn from each other and find solidarity in what makes us unique. But he also notes this to point to our common humanity—despite being different, we all live together as one, with a responsibility to our planet and God’s creation.

Understanding this notion of pluralism has been central to my experience at Johns Hopkins. Indeed, the people that I have met here come from all walks of life—and getting to know them has been my greatest reward.

I wish I could tell you all about my friends and the cool things that they do—but then I would never be able to stop writing. I will say this: one thing that all my closest friends here have in common is a strong desire to learn from others. We enjoy getting to know people and we love making new and exciting friendships. Why does this matter?

It matters if we want to stop things like the conflict between “the East and the West.” Policy is important, but so is understanding that democracy relies on pluralism—alienation and exclusionism creates divisions in our society that are unacceptable in a truly democratic ethos. Learning to get to know others is a fundamental skill—we might have differences, but realizing that those differences should help us understand each other is so much better than letting differences preclude us from getting to know each other. I think this is true for college life as much as it is true for life in general.

My religious faith has helped me understand the value of pluralism—but my experiences here have helped me live by that principle.  Thinking of this really makes me hope that Huntington is wrong, because according to him “a clash of civilizations” is inevitable. But if we live in a clash of ignorances, we can hope to prevent conflict by actually learning from each other.

I wish you the best of luck on that uniquely enjoyable and enriching journey.

That

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Name: Greco Song

Year: Class of 2013

Hometown: Fullerton, CA

Major: Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

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Hi. My name is Greco and I’m a Hopkins junior studying Chemical and Molecular Engineering. I am part of the Student Admissions Advisory Board (SAAB), where I help prospective students with their college decisions (follow me on twitter! www.twitter.com/JHU_Greco) and also help admitted Hopkins pre-freshman with their transition to college life during the summer. I’m also currently the president of one of the a cappella groups on campus, the Vocal Chords.

Over the summer, I have been arranging an a cappella rendition of a song called “This” for the Vocal Chords. It’s a country song written and performed by Darius Rucker. I had never been a fan of country music (disliked it quite much, to be honest), but when the group decided to do this song for this year’s fall and spring concerts, I was almost forced to be the one arranging it.

Arranging a song is a pretty big task – you have to sit down, listen to the track about a gazillion times, and then try to remember and write down what notes were in the background. Sometimes, some parts in the background are simply not singable (especially country songs with crazy stringy sounds…) so I would have to find alternate ways to make it more feasible for us to sing. Country music is really really not my thing at all. But somehow, the song first got stuck in my head (which happens a lot when arranging songs), then it became a meaningful companion (which doesn’t usually happen..).

The song is about a guy getting dumped by his girlfriend and everything, but in the end he’s thankful that all these things lead him to “this” which basically is his happy life with his daughter and his family. The lyrics in this song is just so positive, but not too positive to make me throw up out of cheesiness. No, I haven’t really been in a serious relationship or anything, but I do understand the message and listening to the song literally thousand times really made me commit to it. Honestly though, I don’t know if it’s really because I sympathize with the singer or if it’s simply because I’m brainwashed with the song. When I sing it out loud, it comes out of my mouth through the muscle memory, and sometimes I don’t even have to think about what part of the song I’m singing at the moment. Maybe I’m just not in that stage right now where I think life is just full of wonderful things like unicorns? Maybe right now, Darius’s “this” is my “that.”

To be honest, Hopkins was not my first choice. When I was applying for colleges three years ago, I had some other school in mind. But that school rejected me and I was basically left with Hopkins. The Vocal Chords wasn’t my first choice a cappella group either. But I got rejected to the group I wanted to get in, and I had no choice but to join the Vocal Chords. I also have other plenty personal decisions that I had no choice but to make in the past, and sometimes I had to go to somewhere with no people and just cry my heart out. I just felt like I had no control over my own life. I think feeling of losing control is the worst thing a person can ever feel – if you don’t have a control over your OWN life, what else can you be in control of? I was tired of being an underdog, and many times I wanted to let myself fail (and a few times I did let myself fail).

In two months I turn 21. It’s a pretty big number. And I’m really proud of myself for physically and emotionally surviving this long. Yes, it sucks to be an underdog, but over time, I learned to fight. Over time, I learned how to appreciate hard work – even when I failed at something, I learned to be simply thankful of the every effort I’d put into it. That’s the art of being an underdog. I just simply don’t allow myself to quit and keep fighting even without having to see the end of the hardship because I learned to believe in myself. It really doesn’t matter if I believe in God or not – as long as I believe in myself, I can be in control.

I’ve met a ton of people here at Hopkins, but ended up sticking only with a few friends. But these friends are the ones I opened up to completely and I’m really thankful for them. I learned so many things from them including how to be a good friend, and I really cannot imagine my life without them.

It’s like learning how to ride a two-wheel bike. I think I had too much pride before I came to Hopkins, trying to learn it all by myself. I rode it for two seconds then I would fall to the ground. Again for another few seconds, and fall again. I didn’t allow anyone to hold my bike and help me, and I ended up with some scars here and there, and beat myself up for it. But I learned to let people come in and be part of my life and just observe – observe how they interact with others, how they keep their friendships, how they approach personal problems, and how they fight.

I still can’t ride a two-wheel bike. Right now I have my friends as my training wheels and I’m just pedaling my way through college life. I go up and down the hills and first try to explore what’s been around me – things that I could not before when I was only focusing on trying to ride that darn two-wheel bike. I’m slowly getting the beauty of life. I understand the dealio and am almost clearly seeing my own reason to live my life as best as I can. Part of it is the people I love – my family, friends, people I respect and look up to. The other part of it is myself – it’s really slow, but I know I’m starting to appreciate myself more and more – I’m learning “to accept the things I cannot change; 
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.” And I believe that when I finally explore my surrounding with my bike enough with the training wheels and finally understand the whole beauty of it all (no matter however long this may take), I’ll have just enough motivation to ride the bike without the training wheels. Maybe then I will be able to sing along to “This” and really feel like it’s coming out from my heart.

Growing Up, Looking Back

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Name: Erich Desider-Nanxing Reimer

Year: Class of 2013

Hometown: Albany, NY

Area of Study: Economics and International Studies (major), Entrepeneurship and Management (minor)

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Looking back over my time at Hopkins, I sometimes am amazed at how much I’ve grown in my time here and how much JHU has changed me as both a thinker and a person. Through a combination of classes, the organizations I’ve worked in and perhaps most of all the people I’ve had the great honor of knowing I’ve had my understanding of the world broadened to levels that I didn’t think were possible before.

First of all, what does it mean to be at Hopkins? At Hopkins, you are at one of the world’s most famous and prestigious centers of learning and action. At Hopkins you are surrounded by both the people who are currently changing the world in grand and vital ways and those who will be the movers and shakers of the future as well. You are surrounded by some of the most hard-working and brilliant young people from not only all across America but all across the face of this Earth. For someone like me who has grown up all my life in the same city, to suddenly be introduced to such a cosmopolitan and diverse environment helped me gain a much greater understanding of other ways of thinking, other cultures and so much more.

Academically of course Hopkins provides a truly unparralled experience. I immediately took advantage of the freedom to take basically whatever classes I wanted and found that this proved far more enriching to my intellectual development than say if I were at a school where all freshmen were in the same intro-level large lecture classes. I took “Freshman Seminars” (small classes with usually just over a dozen freshmen only), upper-level classes (my first semester here I took a course called “Leadership Theory”, of which I was one of only two freshmen in the class of 35 – and I can say that was easily my favorite class of all here), and course ranging everywhere from physics to business to political science to engineering. Don’t expect the coursework to be easy here however, as it is at places like Hopkins where knowledge and critical thinking skills ‘will’ be drilled into you. Expect to spend a lot of the time in the library (if you aren’t, either you’re Einstein or simply aren’t making the best of the opportunities you’re provided here) but also ensure to try to keep a healthy work-life balance as well, as difficult as it may sometimes seem. Take your classes seriously, and not only will life be a lot easier but you will be astounded in the end how much you have learned and grown. Hopkins has bred in me stronger study skills, better critical thinking and information synthesizing abilities and the ability to look upon intellectual achievement in a mature and realistic fashion.

One of the especially great things about Hopkins is the vast array of opportunities in student life – there is such an immensely diverse range of interests that allows us to grow in our interests and beliefs in ways that we may not even initially be able to recognize. In my opinion student life has provided me just as much of an education, if not more, than my experiences in the classroom. During my time so far at Hopkins, I’ve had contact with and dabbled, sometimes as just a volunteer and other times as a student leader, in a bunch of things, some more deeply than others – the student newspaper, campus programming, student advocacy/representation, cultural groups, religious groups, academic groups, student jobs, athletic groups, Greek organizations, politics, etc – and I can say well that my experiences and the people I’ve had the honor of working with and knowing have allowed me to learn more about both the world around me and my own personal interests.

Colleges nowadays each have their own personality and character, and so when choosing what college to go to be sure to take “fit” very well into mind. Hopkins isn’t for everyone, but if you are the kind of person who is ready to get to work hard and play hard then Hopkins can certainly be the right place for you. Being at Hopkins has opened my mind up to so many countless new ideas and beliefs that I never had contact with before, given me many experiences (some that I’ve learned much from, others that I can look back at for some good laughs, but certainly none that I regret) and developed me more as a person, in terms of both personality and character, than I could ever fully describe in a blog post like this.