Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

Don’t worry; this isn’t yet my “Farewell, Hopkins Interactive!” blog entry; rather, this blog entry is meant to re-cap the events preceding Commencement as well as Commencement itself. By the way, the 134th Commencement of the Johns Hopkins University (say that thrice fast–I refuse to say, “three times”) occurred on Thursday, May 27, so I’m writing this blog entry as an alumna. How do I feel about being a new college graduate? It probably wouldn’t surprise you for me to say that I have a mixture of feelings. Anyway, on to my recap.

Many student organizations have some kind of farewell event for their graduating seniors, and the JHU Classical Ballet Company, the Filipino Students Association, and the Hopkins Catholic Community were no exceptions. The day after classes ended, there was a Saturday morning brunch for members of the ballet company, at the end of which the underclassmen presented us graduating seniors with personalized, decorated pointe shoes (a.k.a. “toe shoes”) that had the signatures of most of the underclassmen in the ballet company. While I will still be in Baltimore next year to work, I won’t be able to participate in ballet company events very often (if at all), so I thought it was a nice gesture.

As for the Filipino Students Association, the annual senior farewell dinner was held during finals week. Because of the timing of the event, the affair was low-key and held at an off-campus apartment close to Hopkins; the underclassmen ordered dozens of steamed crabs seasoned with Old Bay (in the classic Maryland style) and threw us graduating seniors a crab feast. Meanwhile, the Hopkins Catholic Community held a baccalaureate Mass for graduates and their families on the evening before Commencement. However, several events happened in between FSA’s senior farewell dinner and the Hopkins Catholic Community’s baccalaureate Mass, and I’ll describe them now.

Finals for this semester ended on Sunday, May 16 (the late date is due to the snow week we had back in February), and so the following week was filled with Senior Week events. As the name aptly implies, Senior Week is a week of social events for the soon-to-graduate seniors. I attended all the Senior Week events, except for the three-day trip to Ocean City; I chose to work part-time at the medical school instead. Unfortunately, I have few photos of myself at the events, but I can give my take on them:

Club Night @ Mex (Monday, May 17): I have no idea how a club called “Mex” that is heavily decorated with Mexican-style fixtures can play almost no Latin music. Then again, I’m guessing the fact that I heard nothing Mexican or Latin coming from the speakers might have to do with the fact that the club night was a Hopkins-exclusive event–and I’m not complaining about that part! I thought it was quite fun to dance and flit around the club like a social butterfly and know that I’d only bump into other Hopkins students and not shady strangers. I also loved being able to see many seniors whom I hadn’t seen in a while–and even seniors whom I saw regularly. Unfortunately, I got tired fairly early (I had spent the day working part-time at the medical school), and I ended up splitting a cab with another female friend who also got tired early. (We didn’t want to wait for the provided busing, since that would mean at least one more hour of us waiting for the first bus’s departure from the club.)

Crab Feast @ Mattin Center Courtyard (Friday, May 21): The crabs were too encrusted with Old Bay seasoning in my opinion (as well as the opinions of my friends with whom I was eating) for me to eat many crabs–which was a bit of a disappointment, given the fact that the event was supposed to be centered around all-you-can-eat crabs. I ended up filling my stomach with a lukewarm burger, runny macaroni, and stale cookies. It’s safe to say that I wasn’t thrilled with the food. I did, however, like being able to joke around with my friends whom I saw there, so I still managed to enjoy my meal somewhat–just not because of the food, though.

Barbecue @ “The Beach” (Saturday, May 22): Ironically, this event was free to anyone who donated at least $2 to the Class of 2010 Senior Hopkins Fund, but the freshly grilled burgers were much better than those served at the previous evening’s $37 admission crab dinner. I guess it was a way of demonstrating that free food somehow tastes better, especially when you’re in college. By the way, in case you haven’t already learned this fact from any of the other Hopkins Interactive blogs, “the beach” is a large lawn in front of the MSE Library that overlooks North Charles Street. It’s quite lovely, actually–just nowhere near the likes of an actual beach. In addition to freshly grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, there was also free Rita’s Ice gelato served–and there was a large, inflatable obstacle course. Some of my friends tried out the obstacle course, and it looked fun. I was considering going through it myself, but I got engrossed in catching up with some of my freshman year housemates who were attending the barbecue.

Senior Formal @ Evergreen House (Sunday, May 23): Just FYI, the Evergreen House is a historic estate located adjacent to the Loyola University campus, but owned by Hopkins; for this reason, school buses transported those of us who bought tickets for the formal. The formal was more like a semiformal in terms of set-up, people’s attire, and the food served (there were heavy hors d’oeuvres, but not a full sit-down meal), but I had no problem with that. By the way, the formal wasn’t at the Evergreen House itself, but at a smaller building on the house’s grounds that looked like a converted barn. It was quaint (I mean this in a good way), and with the decorations and the dusk turning into evening light, the building looked quite nice. It also was nice seeing a lot of fellow seniors dressed up for once! Like I did on the evening of the club night, I didn’t want to stay for long at the formal, so I ended up walking back to the Homewood Campus–while wearing high heels. The 1- to 1.5-mile walk wasn’t that bad, really. It might be due to the fact that I’m used to painful toe shoes, or I have comfortable heels, or both.

MSEEYA Cocktail Party @ MSE Library (Tuesday, May 25): That’s right: a cocktail party at the library. Granted, it was restricted to the Q and M levels of the library (a.k.a. the two highest levels of our famous underground library), especially M Level. Admission was free, and the event was for graduating seniors, young alumni, professors, and their dates (or their friends who were of the appropriate age); everyone who was 21 and older received three free tickets for wine or beer (and there was also soda and water available), plus there were plenty of heavy hors d’oeuvres served. I actually didn’t redeem any of my tickets, since I was rather intimidated by the large, rowdy lines of people clamoring for their free drinks; I ended up doing plenty of mingling and eating instead. I saw quite a few SAAB (Student Admissions Advisory Board) members there, including fellow senior JHU_Jackie as well as JHU_Jessica (back from Geneva!), JHU_Lauren, and JHU_Mandy.

In addition to the official Senior Week events, I met up with several of my senior friends for lunch or dinner; there even was a potluck dinner on the evening of the same day that the barbecue was held at the beach, and there were many seniors I knew who attended it. There was plenty of good food, and the best part was bonding while we sang our lungs out and danced heartily to the songs of the playlist that the co-hostesses had put together. I’m not a huge pop aficionado, but I still maintain there’s nothing like goofing around to Lady Gaga’s music–especially when you’re not worrying about exams or papers and you’re confident that you’ll get your bachelor’s degree in a few days. I actually remember having a conversation with another senior at the potluck about how the period in between the end of finals and graduation is probably among the most fun times to socialize as a college student–it’s so true. As fun as that week and a half were, they were also bittersweet, though. All of us seniors were saying farewell to the undergraduate way of life, and many of us were also saying (temporary) goodbyes to each other, knowing that we’d be scattered all around the world after graduation to pursue our educational and career goals.

Commencement itself–which, as I mentioned earlier, was held on Thursday, May 27–was a bittersweet event (not surprisingly). This year, the traditional morning commencement exercises were combined with the undergraduate diploma ceremony, which used to be separate events in previous years. Also new this year was having the bachelor’s degree graduates walk through the Homewood Campus one last time before they joined the procession of doctoral and master’s degree graduates going into Homewood Field (a.k.a. the lacrosse field). Given the beauty of the Homewood Campus, I liked this new change of walking procedures–it also was a fairly bittersweet moment. (How many times have I used bittersweet in this blog entry?) It struck me then that it was my last time walking through campus as an undergraduate–and while I knew I’d walk through the campus again in the future, it would be in the context of an alumna attending reunion-type events or doing errands such as visiting the pre-professional advising office. Basically, it just won’t be quite the same. Maybe if I decide it’s worth paying for alumni membership at the recreation center during the next year, I might find myself walking through the Homewood Campus regularly–but for now, I don’t see treks through the campus being a regular occurrence for me.

What wasn’t nice, however, was the fact that everyone at Commencement had to sit through 90-degree weather for four hours. Even though I brought two water bottles and one bottle of apple juice with me (and drank almost everything), I still felt somewhat dehydrated. On the bright side, the speeches were definitely worth listening to (in my opinion)–and Mayor Bloomberg’s keynote address was hilariously memorable. (You can read the text of Mayor Bloomberg’s address as well as President Daniels’s speech here.) Also, being able to grumble about the weather made being jam-packed into tight rows of folding chairs with several other graduates bearable. Following the ceremony itself, I was able to meet up with a few of my friends before I joined my family for a post-Commencement reception on the Upper Quad. After the reception, my family and I went to the bookstore to purchase a frame for my enormous diploma (diplomas for tertiary education degrees are much larger than high school diplomas) as well as a class ring, before we ate a celebratory dinner at Roy’s of Baltimore in Harbor East. (On a side note, I saw several other graduates and their families eating there, too.)

To close this entry, I’ll share with you a few links:

• The Official JHU Commencement Website: It gets updated every year with information for that year’s Commencement, but you can view it now to see how this year’s Commencement and other graduation-related ceremonies were like at JHU.
• The JHU 2010 Commencement Video: There’s a summary video made after each year’s Commencement, but this year’s is unique because of the fun surprise at the end.
• The Flickr Gallery of Commencement Photos: Among the photos there, there’s one of me hugging my mom after Commencement. Yay!

Also, below is a short video I made with photos of some of the events that I described above. While the background song, Dave Matthews’s “So Damn Lucky,” is of a rather romantic nature, I think the lyrics somewhat describe some of my feelings about my four-year Hopkins experience that has just happened.

N.B. I found the image of steamed crabs in a pot through Google Image Search.

Because it’s the end of the Fall 2009 semester, I looked through and organized several files on my laptop and realized that among them were videos from this past semester. I’ve decided to compile clips from some of these videos, and the compilation is below. Enjoy!

(P.S. Partially because of the music in the video and partially because this past semester was my second-to-last one as a college undergraduate, this video makes me feel a little nostalgic when I watch it!)

A few days ago, I joked to a friend that I know it’s December whenever I hear Advent hymns at Mass, holiday songs in stores, and excerpts from The Nutcracker in the ballet studio–and yes, I’ve heard all of those kinds of music in those contexts ever since Thanksgiving break ended. Upon making that remark, I realized that quite a lot of things are happening at Hopkins around this time of the year that make this time of the year unique. Here are some (but not all) of them:

YOU KNOW IT’S DECEMBER AT HOPKINS WHEN…

1. The Lighting of the Quads occurs. The “Lighting of the Quads” is an annual Hopkins tradition that’s relatively new; this year was the fifth time it was celebrated. Strands of small white lights are strung around the lampposts at the Upper Quad, Lower Quad, and Freshman Quad for the holiday season–and they’re all lit during the “Lighting of the Quads” event, where there are performances by a cappella groups perform and the pep band plays, food and hot drinks are served, and people such as Dean Burger and President Daniels speak to the students gathered before the lights are lit.

2. An inordinate number of exams, papers, and projects seem to be due all at once for you and your friends. You’re all stressed, but you all find comfort in knowing that you’re not alone–and that you can help out each other if need be!

3. There are numerous holiday-themed study breaks being held by RAs as well as student organizations.

4. Graduate students who are your TAs talk about how they and their fellow graduate students now know it’s the time of the year when they should avoid the MSE Library, because many undergraduates are studying there.

5. Evergreen wreaths adorn the glass panels above the doorways of the MSE Library’s two main entrances (at Q-Level and at M-Level).

6. The first snowfall of the winter enchants almost everyone (if not everyone), no matter how minute or how massive the accumulation of snow is.

7. Scarves and boots are the norm–no more tank tops and flip-flops!

8. Conversation topics tend to include the following: (a) final exams/papers/projects, (b) what people’s plans for celebrating Christmas this year (or what people plan to do instead of celebrating Christmas), (c) asking people if they’ll return to Hopkins for Intersession and what their plans are if they will be around for Intersession, and (d) asking people whether they plan to study abroad next semester (if they’re sophomores, juniors, or seniors) or graduate early this semester (if they’re seniors).

9. Sweets abound because of study breaks, holiday-themed parties, fundraisers on campus, and even TAs feeling generous and bringing a bag of candy or chocolate to the last class of the semester.

10. The days are growing shorter and shorter–we’re approaching December 21, which is the shortest day of the year in North America!

I could say a lot more, but I’ll end this entry with an even number of 10 items on my list. As you could see, this time of the year can be pretty stressful, but it does have quite a few perks! Well, it’s back to work for me. To those of you reading this entry who are high school seniors working on the last steps of your RD college applications, good luck! Also, good luck to those of you who are waiting to receive ED notifications!

N.B. I found the second and third images that illustrate this blog entry via Google Image Search; meanwhile, I found the first image via the website for the JHU Office of Student Life.

I’d love to type a long blog entry laden with photos and videos that summarizes the past week–especially the very busy weekend I just had–but I’m in the midst of finishing a paper due tomorrow and starting to study for an exam I’ll have on Thursday! I’ll quickly summarize what happened this past week and what will happen this upcoming week–and then I’ll go back to my homework!

This Past Week:

Academically, I spent some time working on the usual weekly physics problem set as well as doing the usual pre-class assigned readings for Latin. In addition, I spent a lot of time studying for a Latin exam I had on Friday afternoon last week, as well as reviewing some of my organic chemistry notes in preparation for an exam I’ll have on Thursday morning this week. Besides the academics, I also spent time during the week preparing for the JHU Catholic Community’s Fall 2008 retreat, which was an all-nighter retreat that started on Friday night and ended on Saturday morning. (I’m one of two retreat co-chairs for the JHU Catholic Community this year.) Furthermore, I attended ballet classes and rehearsals and numerous Culture Show practices for both the Filipino Students Association and the OLÉ Dance Group during the week–and then spent all of Saturday rehearsing, attending sound checks, and performing in Culture Show itself! It was a large success, and since both FSA and the OLÉ Dance Group performed in the first half, I had the privilege of sitting in the audience and watching the entire second half. (When I performed with FSA and the OLÉ Dance Group at Culture Show in previous years, the two groups were scheduled to perform in different halves of the show, and so I spent most of the production backstage.)

This Upcoming Week:

As I’ve mentioned, I’ll have an organic chemistry exam on Thursday of this week, so I’ll spend a lot of time tomorrow, on Tuesday, and on Wednesday studying for it. I’ll also have a physics exam on Thursday of next week, so I’m starting to prepare for that as well–and I’ll really start preparing for it once I’m done with my organic chemistry exam! Meanwhile, I’m also looking at the registrar’s online list of classes for the Spring 2009 semester, since online class registration for that semester will start next week. When it comes to the extracurricular scene for this week, I’ll just have a few meetings, one ballet class to attend, and one ballet class to teach–and I’m not complaining about that! After last week, I really need some extra time to focus on my schoolwork as well as to get some rest.

With that said, I’ll return to my paper! Have a good week, everyone! I hope to have some photos and videos from the retreat and Culture Show in my next entry.

As you may have noticed from reading other student blogs on Hopkins Interactive, Friday, October 31 to Sunday, November 2 (that is, today) was this year’s Family Weekend. My parents visited me here at Hopkins during Family Weekend during both my freshman and sophomore years, but they couldn’t come this year. Even then, I still had a rather busy time–and I couldn’t help but remember how I wrote a similarly-themed blog entry about my freshman year Family Weekend!

Friday, October 31 was Halloween, and I (of course) continued the Halloween celebration that I started last week. First, I dropped by a Halloween party held by some of my former housemates from freshman year. Afterwards, I joined up with some other Hopkins friends of mine who are seniors and recent alumni. Instead of our original plans of going to Fell’s Point (I guess I’ll have to check it out next year–as I’ve mentioned in my previous blog entry, I have yet to go there on Halloween), we ended up going to a club downtown where we heard there was a Halloween costume contest and good dance music. However, when we got to the club, we saw that most of the people there were in their late 20s and early 30s, thus making us the youngest group there. 

(After observing our surroundings for a few minutes, we also had an icky feeling that a few of the aforementioned late 20- and 30-year-olds were trying to act as though they were still in college. It was a fairly awkward impression to have in mind.) We managed to enjoy ourselves, though–after all, all you need to have for a good time is a nice group of people that interact well with each other! We alternated between having goofy and intellectual conversations–and we definitely were the best dancers on the dance floor.

I’ll admit I’m sounding a bit biased with this assessment here.

After the club closed, we went to Nam Kang Restaurant, a Korean restaurant that’s a little over 10 blocks from Hopkins and that’s open until 4:00 a.m.! We had lots of good conversations–and made plenty of jokes and barbs at each other–in between bites of delicious food. Of course, however, all things must come to an end. We finally called it a night when the restaurant closed at 4:00 a.m., and then we went home.

I actually started Saturday, November 1 (i.e., yesterday) on a quiet note: by eating breakfast by myself at my apartment. Then, however, I went to a dance practice for the Filipino Students Association in preparation for next week’s Culture Show–and after that, I did some errands before I went home to do some work. Soon, though, I found myself preparing for yet another event: the First Annual Engineers Without Borders Dessert Reception at the Glass Pavilion, at which I performed a salsa routine with the OLÉ Dance Group. Immediately after we finished performing our routine, some of us salsa dancers headed to the Diwali Dhamaka celebration held by the Hindu Students Council at the recreation center. We were too late to watch the dance performances and other planned segments of the event, but we still got to learn and dance a few raas steps during the open dance floor part of the event! At first, I felt self-conscious doing a set of steps in a completely new dance style while a little black dress with a red flower pinned to my hair–as I’ve said, I had come straight from performing salsa. However, after a while, I got so into the dancing that I accidentally broke two wooden sticks–called dandiyas–while clapping them together!

Oops.

After all the dancing I did–first, Filipino folk dancing, then salsa, then a very elementary form of raas–that day, it was time for me to go home and collapse onto my bed.

Today (i.e., Sunday, November 2), I cooked two Filipino dishes, as well as a pot of jasmine rice, early in the morning. In addition to the rice, I prepared some champorado (a chocolate rice porridge) as well as pancit (a rice noodle dish). I then brought over the food to the basement of the Interfaith Center (IFC) before attending the Catholic Community‘s 11:00 a.m. Mass in the sanctuary of the IFC. In honor of Family Weekend and the different cultures represented in our congregation, we made today’s 11:00 a.m. Mass a multicultural Mass. Different Bible readings, petitions, and hymns were read and sung in foreign languages, including French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Polish, Spanish, and Tagalog. After Mass, there was a multicultural food reception at the IFC basement–that explains why I cooked all that food–and I really enjoyed sampling foods from a variety of cultures!

However, I regretted eating all that food when I had a ballet rehearsal a little over an hour later. Don’t worry–I didn’t spew the contents of my stomach onto the studio floor! They stayed in my stomach. Nonetheless, I managed to move around enough during my ballet rehearsal to use a good bit of energy–when it was dinnertime a little over three hours later, I was hungry enough that I gladly decided to spend an hour eating at The Helmand Restaurant–an Afghan restaurant in the Mount Vernon neighborhood–with some of my friends. It was my first time eating Afghani cuisine, but I enjoyed the food a lot. My entrée was lamb lawand, a lamb dish that was prepared with tomatoes, mushrooms, herbs, yogurt, and mint–and served with spinach and basmati rice on the side. The dessert was especially good. It was a very creamy vanilla ice cream mixed with cardamom, dates, figs, and mango chunks. If you ever find yourself eating at The Helmand, make sure you order the ice cream there for dessert.

I still think it would have been nice to spend this weekend with my family here in Baltimore, but I’m glad I still managed to enjoy myself when I wasn’t doing homework in my room!

Photo Captions: (1) me in my flamenco dancer Halloween costume, (2) a couple that I saw dressed up as John McCain and Sarah Palin (I think Sarah Palin was a popular Halloween costume choice this year), (3) the plate of food I got at the multicultural post-Mass reception, (4) me with my friends Isha and Aparna at The Helmand Restaurant, (5) my dish of lamb lawand

Despite the fact that I probably spent most of my time this weekend sleeping, checking the e-mails that I didn’t read during the week, or doing homework, I managed to have a memorable time nonetheless. (Say that sentence thrice fast! Hmm, that doesn’t quite have the same ring as Say that sentence three times fast, does it?)

After my last class ended on Friday afternoon, I came home and helped two other girls from the Filipino Students Association cook karioka in my kitchen. Karioka (pronounced kah-ree-YOH-kah) is one of many Filipino names for a popular Filipino dessert–it’s the Visayan name for the dessert. In the Ilokano language, it’s called kaskaron, and in the Tagalog language, it’s called bitsu-bitsu (pronounced BEE-chu BEE-chu). In short, karioka is like a Southeast Asian version of doughnut holes. Its dough is made of rice flour, coconut, sesame seeds, milk, and sugar, and the dough is rolled into balls, then fried, then coated with a caramelized brown sugar sauce. If you want a sugar high, eat a lot of karioka!

Once we finished preparing the karioka, the three of us brought the sugary goodies to the multipurpose room of Charles Commons, where FSA’s “Karaoke-Karioka!” event was being held. As the event’s name suggests, this was a two-hour event devoted to singing karaoke while eating karioka. It’s an understatement to say, “It was fun!” Who wouldn’t like singing badly in the company of his or her friends while inducing himself or herself into a sugar high?

Then, late yesterday morning, my roommate Miriam and I cooked some food in our kitchen because we were organizing a physics study session at our apartment in the afternoon. It included homemade burgers that Miriam made, fries that Miriam prepared with her deep fryer, a chicken pasta dish that I made, and some cookies that I baked using pre-made dough. (I prefer baking and cooking food from scratch, but I wanted to spend more time studying than making food yesterday!)

With our friend Cy’s help (Cy is a physics major), Miriam and I did a decent amount of physics problems yesterday afternoon–we ended up concentrating on this week’s set homework problems instead of working on practice problems for our upcoming exam. We then took a two-hour break before the Fall Fest concert that was held at the recreation center; the concert was part of a tour sponsored by Verizon Wireless and featured a Canadian singer/songwriter called Lights as well as the bands Cute Is What We Aim For and Boys Like Girls. The funny thing is that I hadn’t heard of either band until two days ago. I got a ticket at the last minute yesterday afternoon only because I wanted to go to the concert with a few of my friends and check out the bands out of curiosity. However, I had heard their songs before–I’m guessing many of you reading this blog entry have heard them before as well–so I was pretty glad I ended up going! I also got a kick out of jumping up and down and bobbing my head along with the people around me at the concert.

To finish off the evening, Miriam and I trekked to the Glass Pavilion to enjoy some free food as part of Fall Fest’s annual “Midnight Breakfast”–it also helped that we got a chance to talk to several juniors we know whom we haven’t been able to see lately! As JHU_Jackie has mentioned in her most recent blog entry, being a junior means that most of the people you know are scattered across Charles Village in various off-campus apartments or rowhouses or on-campus dorms residences.

As for today, I’ve been sleeping, checking e-mail, and studying–tomorrow is Monday, so I need to be ready for another week of classes!

Photo Captions: (1) This is a photo of the karioka that we made–don’t they look like doughnut holes? (2) This is a view of the Charles Commons multipurpose room at the start of FSA’s “Karaoke-Karioka!” event–just FYI, more people came later that evening to make it a more festive little affair. (3) This is a photo of Lights performing during the concert. (4) This is a photo of Cute Is What We Aim For performing during the concert. (5) This is a photo of Boys Like Girls performing during the concert.

Last weekend, I spent some time eating food and looking at vendors’ wares at Spring Fair. As many of the Hopkins Interactive blogs have already mentioned, Spring Fair is an annual three-day carnival that happens at the Homewood campus on one weekend every April. Despite all the Spring Fair festivities on campus, however, last weekend was still relaxing for me. I spent most of my time last weekend either sleeping or studying.

Two weekends ago, the opposite was the case: I was more busy than relaxed. On Friday, April 18, I had classes and research non-stop for about eight hours — and once I was done with research, I went straight to Relay For Life! Relay For Life is an annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, and this year’s Relay For Life event was held at the Upper Quad from 7:00 p.m. on Friday, April 18, to 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 19. Last year, I participated in Relay For Life as a member of the OLÉ Dance Group’s team; this year, I participated in Relay For Life as the captain of the Filipino Students Association’s team. Ergo, except for a 15-minute break to buy food at Charles Street Market, I was at the Upper Quad for all twelve hours. Like last year, I enjoyed myself — and I got very little sleep. I slept in a tent on the Upper Quad for about 45 minutes sometime on Friday night, and I took a four-hour nap once I returned to my room on Saturday morning. I would’ve preferred to sleep longer, but I had to spend Saturday afternoon and evening helping other FSA members prepare for Filipino Cultural Night, from making props to rehearsing folk dances to creating and editing videos on my laptop.

After I went to Catholic Community‘s 11:00 a.m. Mass at the Interfaith Center, I helped with the final preparations for Filipino Cultural Night. Like last year, Filipino Cultural Night was held at the Glass Pavilion at 7:00 p.m. on a Sunday night, but the set-up of the event was quite different this year. For instance, we brought trays of food to the tables where the event’s attendees were seated, instead of having people stand in line while waiting to get food from a long table. In addition, we had more dancing and singing acts this year, but we didn’t have the presence of the talented pianist who performed last year. Finally, we used a lot of student-made video clips this year. We introduced the various dancing and singing acts with video clips that we had made. In addition, we played self-made video clips in which FSA members discussed cultural topics such as Filipino food and their reasons for joining FSA.

Because we had spent the entire year planning and preparing for Filipino Cultural Night, all of us in FSA were relieved that it progressed without a glitch. Once the event was over and we were done cleaning up the Glass Pavilion, it was back to — of course — doing homework and preparing for classes on Monday morning!

Here’s a video of us performing the folk dance singkil at Filipino Cultural Night:

Here’s a video of us performing a modernized version of tinikling at Filipino Cultural Night:

It’s 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday, and although I’ve slept for about six hours (which usually is more than enough sleep for me), I think I’ll sleep a little longer before I have to get ready to go to Catholic Community‘s 11:00 a.m. Mass at the IFC. I got sick towards the end of last week. Right now, my body is screaming at me, “Kate, get some more sleep!”

Before I’ll snooze a little more, however, I’ll update you on my shenanigans since my last blog post. First of all, the flowers continued to come to my suite every night — until last night. No flowers were left at our door last night. Even then, my suitemates and I still don’t know who was leaving the flowers and why. Oh, well. Meanwhile, school is…well…school. I’ve been doing research as always, I’ve been practicing piano and taking lessons as always, I had a Latin midterm last week, I’ll have a neuroscience midterm and a physics midterm this week, and I’ll register for next semester’s courses this week. Speaking of the Fall 2008 semester, I can’t believe I’ll soon be a junior!

Aside from the academia, I haven’t been doing much besides rehearsing ballet, practicing salsa, and helping organize two things for the Filipino Students Association. First of all, FSA has a team in this year’s Relay For Life event, which will be on Friday night this week. (Relay For Life is an annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in which various teams fundraise prior to the event and then take turns walking around a designated area of campus during the event itself.) I’m the team captain for FSA, so I’ve been trying to recruit people to sign up for the team and do some last-minute fundraising. Second of all, we’ll have a “Filipino Cultural Night” event on Sunday night next week, so I’ve been working on the publicity for that, as well as practicing various Filipino folk dances.

That’s all I have to say, and it’s off to bed for me!

Later

I did get some more sleep before attending the 11:00 a.m. Mass, and it was glorious! Anyway, here are two videos that show part of a dance practice yesterday afternoon for next weekend’s “Filipino Cultural Night” event. A bunch of us were practicing the finale to a modernized tinikling routine to the song “We Intertwined” by The Hush Sound, and I decided to videotape the others dancing:

I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time I’ll graduate from Hopkins, Culture Show will occupy a dear place in my heart. (I suspect it already does, though.) Culture Show is an annual fall showcase of dancing and singing by various cultural and performing groups that takes place at Shriver Hall. In past years, Culture Show was the closing event of a week-long affair called CultureFest. This year, however, the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (OMSA) has decided to revamp and rename CultureFest in honor of CultureFest’s 20th anniversary. Starting this year, OMSA is no longer holding a mere one-week affair crammed with events meant to raise multicultural awareness. Instead, it’s holding a year-long affair that consists of monthly events meant to raise multicultural awareness, such as Culture Show. Despite the “CultureFest —> CultureSCAPE” change, however, Culture Show was held on a Saturday evening in November at Shriver Hall this year, just as it always has been … and this is where my blog entry comes into play.

In last year’s Culture Show, I danced the sayaw sa bangko (a Filipino folk dance in which couples dance on benches that are five to ten inches wide–the name means “dance of the bench”) with the Filipino Students Association (FSA), and in a bachata / merengue / salsa routine with the dance group of La Organización Latina Estudiantil (OLÉ). In this year’s Culture Show, I danced with both groups again, so I was inundated with several Culture Show dance practices! See my blog entry with video clips from two Culture Show dance practices last month.

Now it’s time for me to discuss dancing in Culture Show itself. In the middle of Act I, OLÉ Dance Group danced in a five-minute routine that started with about 10 seconds of us females dancing the samba to the song “Magdalenha” by Sergio Mendez, which segued into couples dancing to about a minute of a “mereggaeton” (i.e., a combination of merengue and reggaeton) remix of the song “Mira” by Fulanito. Our number closed with the same couples dancing a salsa routine to the song “El Preso” by Fruko y Sus Tesos. You can see a YouTube video that my friend took of us here (unfortunately, a couple at the far right side of the stage is cut out for most of the video–meanwhile, if you want to locate me in the video, I’m the girl with a long-sleeved black dress who’s at the far left at the beginning):

Then, towards the middle of Act II, FSA danced in a five-minute routine that started with two couples dancing a slow version of traditional tinikling. Tinikling is a Filipino folk dance in which couples dance between large bamboo poles that are clapped together. When I explained this to one of my friends earlier this year, he said it sounded like “jump roping, but more dangerous if you miss.” In a way, he’s correct, because it hurts to have your ankle or toe caught between two large bamboo poles! Tinikling should be danced as gracefully as possible, because the purpose of the dance is to imitate the graceful movements of the tikling bird avoiding bamboo traps set by rice farmers.

Following the slow version of traditional tinikling, two different couples danced in a speedy version of traditional tinikling. Yours truly was one of the four people who danced in it. After both versions of traditional tinikling came a modernized version of tinikling, in which yet another set of two couples danced between bamboo poles to the song “Get Me Bodied” by Beyoncé, followed by my friends Nian and Jeremy dancing between the same bamboo poles to the same song–but as a modernized version of the Filipino folk dance singkil, in which a princess gets lost in a forest, and her prince searches for her. (Nian is the “princess,” and Jeremy is the “prince.”) Finally, the number closed with everyone dancing together.

Well, it’s time for more YouTube videos. Here’s a video of the FSA dance routine (unfortunately, the right side of the stage isn’t shown in the first half of the video–meanwhile, if you want to locate me in the video, I’m the girl in the couple dancing at the left when there are about 3 minutes and 10 seconds remaining in the video):

In addition, this is a clearer video taken by someone else that consists of the first 1/3 of the FSA dance routine–and it shows everyone dancing on the stage:

Last, but not least, the following is a clearer video taken by someone else that consists of the last 1/3 of the FSA dance routine. Unfortunately, that person wasn’t able to videotape the middle 1/3 of the routine, the part in which yours truly danced, because of technical problems. Boo-hoo. Oh, well. Anyway, enough with the lamenting–here’s the video:

For other points of view regarding this year’s Culture Show, you can read the article from The Johns Hopkins News-Letter about it or JHU_Stefanie’s blog entry about it.

Photo Captions: (1) This is a photo of the stage of Shriver Hall that my friend Precious took from the balcony before Culture Show. (2) This is a photo of the members of OLÉ Dance Group who performed in Culture Show, while waiting at the basement of Shriver Hall before dancing onstage. (3) This is a photo of most, but not all, of the members of FSA who performed in Culture Show this year. It was taken at FSA’s Culture Show afterparty, which a few performers didn’t attend. Furthermore, not everyone at the afterparty was a performer (e.g., FSA members who didn’t perform, FSA alumni who came to Hopkins to watch us perform, and friends of FSA members who aren’t in FSA), and one of my non-performer friends inserted himself into our group pose, not knowing that the photo was supposed to be of performers only. Take a look at the photo and guess who he is. (Hint: My friend Amethyst, who’s wearing a pink shirt in the photo, looks perplexed!)

This past Friday the 13th (i.e., April 13, 2007) was a good day for me! My psychology and neuroscience professors’ lectures weren’t hard to follow, I learned that I got a good grade on my last neuroscience midterm, and then I was busy having fun! It was not only the first day of Spring Fair, but also the day of Relay For Life, an annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in which various teams of students walked around the Lower Quad from 7:00 on Friday evening to 7:00 on Saturday morning. I participated as part of the OLÉ Dance Group’s Relay For Life team, but throughout the night, I ran into many of my friends who were walking with other teams. Some teams were for other organizations. For instance, JT from SAAB was with Alpha Phi Omega’s team, and I had a few friends who walked for Delta Xi Phi’s team. (APO is a co-ed, community service fraternity, and DXP is a sorority whose pillars include multicultural awareness and community service.) At one point in Relay For Life, I even took a break at midnight to go with some friends to eat at Paper Moon Diner. Except for that and a 4:00 a.m. break to go to my room and eat a sandwich from my fridge, I walked for the whole event. As dull and exhausting as that sounds, it was fun! There was always some kind of entertainment coming from the steps of Shriver Hall, whether it was a performance by an a cappella group or music blasting from speakers. Plus, as I’ve said, I had friends who participated in Relay For Life with teams other than the OLÉ Dance Group’s, so there was always someone with whom I could walk. While Relay For Life was a fun all-night activity, I returned to my room and slept as soon as it ended. I didn’t slumber for long. Four hours later, I woke up, since the food vendors of Spring Fair were right outside my dorm room window!

Photo Captions: (1) Most people in the group that ended up going to Paper Moon Diner are in this picture. Jeremy (second from the left) didn’t go with us, and a girl who went with us isn’t in this picture. (2) Jeremy was walking with JT, Nian, and me when he saw someone selling sparklers at a 3-for-$1 rate. He excitedly ran to the vendor to purchase some sparklers, and then JT took this photo of me, Jeremy, and Nian. (3) Caroline (second from the left), Miriam (second from the right), and I walked for OLÉ, while Nian walked for DXP. (4) Caroline and me (5) Dan shivering in the OLÉ tent, since it was a cold night (6) luminaria in honor of cancer patients spelling out the word “HOPE” on the steps the marble staircase that connects the Lower Quad and the Upper Quad (7) the members of OLÉ who were left by the time Relay For Life ended

P.S. Photos #1 and 2 are courtesy of Nian, photos #4 and 5 are courtesy of Caroline, and photos #3, 6, and 7 are courtesy of yours truly.

P.P.S. As my caption for photo #5 says, it was cold on Friday night (i.e., with temperatures in the 40s Fahrenheit). People wore several layers of clothing and/or walked around the Lower Quad with blankets wrapped around themselves.