Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

I know we’re in the middle of the second full week of January, but as I’ve mentioned in my previous blog entry, a rather hectic end to December and busy beginning of January have caused me to write this post later than I would’ve liked. In both December 2007 and December 2008, I created a slideshow with photos to look back at the calendar year that had just passed. Below is my slideshow for 2009. Enjoy!

Hi, readers! If you’re on winter break, I hope that you’re enjoying it! Also, good luck to those of you who are finishing last-minute college applications. I’m posting this entry as a brief hello and also as a heads-up that sometime next week, I’ll post a longer blog entry that I’ve been brainstorming over the past few days. I was originally hoping to post it today or tomorrow, but a family emergency has come up that my family and I must attend to first. Stuff happens. Well, with that said, may you all have a wonderful New Year’s celebration! Also, stay tuned…

Saying that my first month of my senior year has been topsy-turvy might be an understatement. For one thing, I’ve been doing the usual balancing act of managing classes, research, work, and extracurricular activities that I’ve been maintaining since my freshman year–and as this blog has testified over the years, that alone can become hectic at times. As humans since the beginning of time have known, as recurring themes in history have demonstrated, and as even recurring story lines in literature have discussed, unforeseen events are always happening, and plans are always in need of adjustments because of unexpected problems popping up.

That could sum up my first month of the school year.

Before I sound like a mood dampener, I will clarify that despite how crazy this month has been (or maybe even because of it), it has flown by quickly, and it has been (bizarrely) enjoyable nonetheless! Then again, it might not have anything to do with what’s happened this month so much as the fact that I try to be what people call a realistic optimist. Well, I guess you could read this entry and figure it out for yourself.

For instance, I’ve had apartment-related issues ever since I moved into my apartment at Homewood Apartments during an early move-in period at the end of August, since I assisted with this year’s freshman orientation as a “Family Ambassador” (so I talked to a lot of parents at many of the parent-oriented events and answered whatever questions they had about student life at Hopkins). The kitchen ceiling started leaking whenever it rained outside (and it still does), the bathroom toilet was leaky (and it still is), ceiling lights throughout the apartment flickered, and so on. I must say, however, that because Homewood Apartments is a University-owned apartment building, the maintenance staff has been pretty helpful in attending to the numerous maintenance requests that my roommate and I have been making. Regarding the leaky kitchen ceiling alone, the maintenance staff has made at least three or four visits over the past month and making phone calls to roof repairmen to determine what needs to be done. (After living in an off-campus apartment last year as a junior, I must say that it’s easy to take for granted just how convenient living in University-owned housing can be, especially with regards to maintenance-related issues!)

Meanwhile, there are the microbial creatures lurking out there in the world. While I think the stuffed animal renditions of E. coli and Salmonella and other microscopic pathogens that I’ve seen being sold in stores and online are adorable, they’re not fun in real life! (For instance, read JHU_Wafa’s most recent blog entry about the flu.) I became sick with strep throat a little over three weeks ago, and I ended up having to spend the latter half of that week in my room. I even ended up having to miss an annual back-to-school potluck I had helped organize for the Filipino Students Association (I had been working on the logistics for that event since the summer), and I had to help run it by sending text messages and making phone calls from my room. In addition, I was sick last week with a pretty bad cold and had to take it easy for a few days towards the end of last week as well. Last, but not least, since many other students here at Hopkins have been sick with H1N1, the “regular” flu, strep throat, or colds, quite a few events that I’ve helped organize have had to undergo some restructuring because of people being sick and not being able to help out as they had planned.

I had thought all of that was crazy enough, but then Typhoon Ondoy (its international name is Typhoon Ketsana) hit central Luzon of the Philippines on Saturday this past weekend. (Luzon is the northernmost major island of the Philippine archipelago.) To summarize quickly what happened, the typhoon dumped several hours’ worth of rain on the capital Manila, Metro Manila (a political administrative area that consists of Manila itself and some cities that immediately surround Manila), and a few provinces right outside Metro Manila, especially the province Rizal. The total amount of rain that fell on Saturday was more than what Hurricane Katrina had dumped a few years ago. Meanwhile, ever since Saturday, there has been a lot of flooding, not to mention a few mudslides, in Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces. Property has been destroyed, and flowing water and electricity has been cut off in some areas. In short, the typhoon wreaked havoc, in addition to killing many people (the current death toll is 246 and counting) and displacing many others (about 400,000+ people are estimated to have been displaced, and it’s not certain how many people are still missing). (For a news article with some more background information, click HERE.) According to news articles I’ve read, Ketsana (which has subsided from a typhoon to a tropical storm, and from a tropical storm to a tropical depression) seems to be doing some damage in Vietnam and Cambodia as well. (For news articles, click HERE and HERE.)

I have numerous relatives who live right in the middle of the flooding in Metro Manila, including many first-degree aunts, uncles, and cousins. Many of my family friends also have relatives from the areas affected by the typhoon. The past few days were an emotional roller coaster of trying to figure out where everyone was and how everyone was doing, and it involved lots of communication with my parents, members of my extended family who aren’t in the Philippines at the moment, and quite a few of my family friends. It was an extremely harrowing experience for all of us. I wouldn’t want to wish the up-and-down cascade of emotions I felt this weekend on anyone. I only found out just around 36 hours ago that all of my relatives are alive and safe. (The amount of property damage they’ve suffered is another story, but that’s nothing compared to the fact that they’re alive.) Many of my family friends have also learned not too long ago that their relatives are safe, but there are still people I know who know families with still-missing individuals.

And yet, somehow, I’ve been able to scrape by through all of that in terms of maintaining my usual academic, work, research, and extracurricular obligations. Granted, I’ve had to take a few days off here and ask for some extensions there, but I haven’t found myself needing to shut down completely at any point. (Whew!)

As I hope you’ve been able to notice, while there have been quite a few unforeseen setbacks over the past month ranging from the benign to the emotionally distressing, I’ve been able to manage them on the most part so far–not to mention that (thankfully) they have been resolved well or they are in the middle of being resolved. Furthermore, as I’ve noticed many times over the past three years (and one month) that I’ve spent at Hopkins, I’ve had a good group of close friends here at Hopkins (and also some from home with whom I’ve been keeping in touch over the phone or online) who have been helpful in many ways, as they’ve been so many times before. And, of course, keeping in touch with my parents at home has been very helpful, too. I’m very grateful to all of these people. I suppose the take-home lesson from this blog entry is that anything can happen while you’re away from home at college; however, a good support system comprised of family and friends who are both there at college with you as well as in other parts of the nation (or the globe) but a mere phone call away can help you go through it. (I know this from experience, and I know many other people who could testify to this fact as well.) Plus, things will work out somehow in the end. What if matters still don’t quite resolve themselves the way you want them to? You still have your support system.

Now that is what I call a wonderful thing to know.

N.B. I found the images that are used in this blog entry via Google Image Search.

As a little update to my previous blog entry about my personal goals for the semester, I’ll say that I’m definitely still working on those goals. I’ve been making slow, but steady, progress towards accomplishing a few of them. Granted, my body is currently cursing me towards my goals relating to ballet, running, and rock climbing–especially my legs. Despite the fact that I’ve been dancing since I was a child, I’m a klutz. Add that to the fact that ballet is something from which I took a nearly two-year-long break before this year and to the fact that I only started running and rock climbing on a regular basis last year and this year, respectively–and you have fodder for a slapstick comedy every time I step foot into the dance studio or the recreation center. What keeps me going is realizing that I want to live a long life, and physical exercise (along with a healthy diet and a good sleep schedule) is part of the key to being healthy. Plus, I find dancing and being physically active to be quite fun–even during my clumsy moments.

Anyway, I’ve realized over the past few weeks that I want to set yet another personal goal for myself. However, it’s not a specific goal that I want to reach at the end of this semester, but one on which I want to work over my lifetime: to become more proficient in non-English languages. I’m the eldest daughter of two Filipino immigrants, and I learned foreign languages in middle school and high school, but I’m fluent only in English. In this age of globalization, I find this fact a little embarrassing.

I came to this campus being very fluent in English–but nothing else. Yeah, I had enough of an understanding of Tagalog to get a gist of a Tagalog conversation whenever I hear it. Yeah, I learned some Latin in middle school. Yeah, I learned some Spanish in high school. In signing up for electives in the fall of my freshman year, I was considering continuing with Spanish, which I had taken in the first three years of high school. Unfortunately, two summers and one school year without any Spanish usage had taken its toll, and I was placed in the beginner level when I took a placement exam. I figured that since I was at the beginner level, anyway, I might as well take Latin. I missed the language, and I knew that learning it in the classroom at Hopkins might be my last chance at getting any kind of Latin instruction. Thus, I enrolled in “Elementary Latin” in the fall of my freshman year.

Two years later, I took the course “Advanced Latin Poetry” in the fall semester of my junior year (that is, the previous semester)! I loved it. This semester, I tried taking “Reading Latin Poetry” (which is yet another course that focuses on advanced Latin poetry), but it didn’t fit well with my schedule. For now, I’m just working on keeping alive my basic knowledge of Latin grammar. I’m hoping to resume “official” study of Latin in the fall semester of my senior year (i.e., next semester) by taking “Advanced Latin Prose.” I think I want to read Latin texts casually on my own until I grow old and gray, even when I’m done studying Latin in the classroom. I don’t want to give up my knowledge of the language anymore! However, as much as I enjoy learning Latin, I also miss learning Spanish.

Thus, since last semester, I’ve been re-exposing myself to Spanish little by little by listening to Spanish-language pop/rock songs while I study (in addition to the salsa music I normally hear during salsa practices with the OLÉ Dance Group). So far, it’s been helping me refresh my vocabulary, and even simple grammar rules (particularly with verb conjugations). For instance, I’d look up the lyrics of a song, try to translate them, and then check myself by looking up the definitions of words I don’t know and going over different verb tenses. If I’m feeling really motivated enough, I end up going over some more Spanish vocabulary and grammar rules (not just what I need to learn to understand a song I enjoy). Of course, learning Latin in the classroom doesn’t hurt, either! (As you might already know, Spanish is one of the Romance languages.) After having been introduced to quite a few Spanish pop/rock songs that I like over the past two weeks, I’ve realized that I really want to continue this pattern of re-teaching myself Spanish little by little to the point that I can be as proficient in it as I used to–and, like with Latin, I don’t want to let go of that knowledge ever once I have it again.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, I had a conversation with a friend who speaks Tagalog fluently and is a fan of a few Filipino pop artists and rock bands. While we were talking, I described to him how I’m re-teaching myself Spanish by listening to Spanish-language songs. Then I realized to whom I was talking and had a “Eureka!” moment: I could do the same thing with Tagalog! I asked my friend to recommend me a few songs, and now I have a bunch of new Tagalog rock songs on my laptop.

So there, you have it: I want to increase my proficiency in Latin (which will be mostly in being able to read texts in that language), Spanish, and Tagalog over the next who-knows-how-many years of my life. And, as a second-semester junior at Hopkins, I’m working on those goals by going over some Latin grammar on my own this semester (so that I could take “Advanced Latin Prose” next semester), listening to Spanish pop/rock songs while I study, and listening to Tagalog pop/rock songs while I study and I want to take a break from the Spanish songs.

Speaking about the first paragraph of this blog entry, I’m sooooo sore right now–but I should quit my whining!

Photo Captions: (1) This is an image I found that shows some of the muscles in the human leg. (2) This is a photo I found that had various words displayed on it in a random fashion. I thought it was pretty. (3) This is a Latin inscription that was found at an amphitheater in Pompeii, Italy. I couldn’t figure out what it says, since most of the words are incomplete. (As you can see, the entire inscription wasn’t found.) (4) This is a photo for the rock band La Oreja de Van Gogh, which is based in Spain. (5) This is a photo of the Filipino rock band Eraserheads.

P.S. The title of this blog entry is the name of a song by the rock band La Oreja de Van Gogh. I like the song (whose title means “you can count on me”), and I like the music of the band I’ve heard so far. I also like Van Gogh’s paintings, but I still don’t understand why a rock band would name itself after the ear that he chopped off. “To each his own,” I suppose!

P.P.S. I found the images used to illustrate this blog entry via Google Image Search.

Like many other students here at Hopkins–and, I’m guessing, like many of you prospective students reading this blog–I thrive off setting goals for myself and working to reach them. This semester is no exception! By the way, these goals are listed in no particular order–especially since I want to reach all of them, anyway. I think I’ll have an exciting semester trying to reach these goals–and I know that even if I don’t meet all of them completely, I’ll have improved as a person in various ways. That’s a nice thought to have, isn’t it? I think so.

1. I’d like to do well academically this semester.

2. I’d like to improve a lot in ballet. I’ve been dancing ballet since the first grade, but it was only during my first three years of high school in which I was serious about the art form and danced it several times a week. From my senior year of high school to the midpoint of my sophomore year at Hopkins, I didn’t dance ballet much–save attending occasional ballet classes and demonstrating simple ballet steps as a volunteer ballet teacher at Baltimore elementary schools. Just a little over one year ago, however, the JHU Classical Ballet Company was founded–and I joined it. Since then, I’ve been working towards getting back into the ballet form I once had. I’m almost at that point, and I’d love to become even better at ballet than I’ve ever been! I’m hoping that by the end of this semester, I’m flexible and strong enough that I could do an arabesque penchée that’s at least 135 degrees high. (In case you don’t know what a penchée is, it’s a ballet pose in which a dancer stands [or tiptoes] on the foot of one leg, bends forward, and extends the other leg behind her [or him] as high up as possible. The ballerina in the photo is doing a 180-degree penchée with her right leg.) While doing a good penchée is not all there is to ballet, having the flexibility and strength to do it would allow me to do many other ballet steps and poses much better than I currently can! I’d also like to improve my pirouettes and other turn-based steps. They were my weak point in high school, and they still are.

3. I’d like to run a mile in 7 or 8 minutes by the end of the semester. Right now, I could run a mile in about 10 minutes effortlessly. I know a 7-minute mile isn’t impressive via cross country or track standards, but knowing myself, I’d be really happy to run one come May.

4. I’d like to climb a 5.10-level course at the rock wall at the recreation center. I started rock climbing in November but didn’t have the chance to continue climbing in December and January for various reasons. Anyway, I started rock climbing on a regular basis again about two weeks ago. The rock wall has various set courses at levels starting at 5.4, then 5.5, 5.6…and so on. (This numbering is from the Yosemite Decimal System, which is one of various difficulty rating systems that climbers use.) Partially due to my heigh (I’m 5’1″), partially due to the fact that I’m still a beginner rock climber, and partially due to the fact I need to work on my upper body strength (thanks to ballet, my leg strength isn’t an issue), I’m currently struggling with courses at the 5.7 and 5.8 level.

5. I’d like to take a few of the drop-in yoga classes that the rec center offers.

6. I’d like to expand my baking and cooking repertoire. Before I came to Hopkins, I was baking and cooking illiterate–save knowing how to boil water and use a rice cooker. I started cooking on a regular basis in the fall of my sophomore year–and while my first cooking attempt resulted in overly-spicy chili, I’ve improved since then. Meanwhile, I started baking in the winter of my sophomore year with a Filipino rice cake recipe–and didn’t bake again until I baked cookies from scratch for the first time a few months ago. (Both baking attempts had good results.) Over the last few months, though, the only foods I’ve baked are various cookie recipes (all from scratch). Anyway, while I want to expand my baking and cooking repertoire overall, there are specific foods for which I want to develop my own recipe by the end of the semester: cheesecake (which is my favorite dessert) and crab cake (which is one of my favorite entrées).

7. I’d like to finalize my plans for the summer. Right now, I have several options that involve either going home to Connecticut and commuting to New York City to do an internship and/or research and/or volunteer or staying in Baltimore to do one, two, or all three of those things. As you can guess, those are a lot of possibilities!

8. I’d like to keep in touch with my family and relatives a lot more. I’m not saying that I haven’t been keeping in touch with them–I have! I’ve found that no matter how busy I am here, taking time to communicate with the members of my immediate and extended family is worth every minute. I want to have more of those precious minutes of communication with my loved ones this semester.

9. I want to strengthen my current friendships and expand my social circle. Yeah, I have many acquaintances and casual friends here at Hopkins, and I’ve been told I’m a fairly social person. However, most of my closest Hopkins friends either have graduated already or will graduate this year. Meanwhile, even my close Hopkins friends who’ll graduate with me next year have boyfriends or girlfriends. Being in a social circle filled with couples and soon-to-be alumni means one thing: I should reach out, get to know some of my acquaintances and casual friends better, and meet new people in general. I’ve been working on doing that over the last two weeks, and I’ll continue to do that for the rest of the semester.

10. I want to be happy. That, I think, is the most important goal of all.

N.B. I found the images used to illustrate this blog entry via Google Image Search.

I hope this blog entry finds you readers enjoying your winter breaks! For those of you who are putting last-minute touches to your college applications, good luck and don’t forget to re-read your essays and applications before you submit them! As for myself, I finished my last final exam of the Fall 2008 semester on Wednesday, December 17. I came home to Connecticut the following day, and I’ve been here since then! I’ve been sleeping a lot, doing leisure reading, spending time with my family and friends, and also reliving my childhood by watching several Disney movies. I mean several. If you couldn’t infer from my previous sentences, I’ve been enjoying my break so far! I have a little over a week until I’ll go back to Baltimore on Sunday, Januay 4–because for the third consecutive academic year, I plan to take advantage of Intersession. I’ll discuss that my Intersession plans in another entry.

For now, I thought I’d repeat what I did at this time of the year last year and create a little video looking back at the past calendar year. Most of the photos that are in the video below are of Hopkins events or are of me socializing with my friends from Hopkins, but a few have to do with my family and friends from home as well. Anyway, enjoy the video! Here’s to celebrating the end of another calendar year, with all its ups and downs–and hoping that the upcoming year will be better.

N.B. I found the image illustrating this blog entry via Google Image Search.

The second full week of classes for the Fall 2008 semester has just finished–so whether I like it or not, I have to admit that I’m now a full-fledged junior at Hopkins. Just for your information, I’m much more excited about this fact than not. Anyway, so that you have an idea of what I’m eagerly expecting to do this year at Hopkins, you can read a blog entry I wrote two months ago, as well as watch the video below that I made. Enjoy!

In a little more than 24 hours, the year 2007 will end! This year was the first full calendar year in which I was a Hopkins student, as well as the first full calendar year that was chronicled in this blog. Ergo, I’ve decided to make a video filled with some photos from the past year. Also, for your information, the songs that I used as the soundtrack for this video are “Señorita” and “Allegretto,” both by the string quartet bond. (And yes, that’s a lower-case b.) Finally, there are some crescendos and decrescendos in both songs, so you might have to adjust your computer’s volume every now and then. Anyway, enjoy!

I spent about 20 to 30 minutes typing a blog entry just a while ago, and I was in the middle of typing its last sentence when my Internet browser unexpectedly quit. Unfortunately, I didn’t save the entry periodically while I was typing it, so I lost everything that I typed. With that said, here’s a valuable lesson that we all could learn from this incident: SAVE your work whenever you’re using a computer to complete something!

Eh, maybe the lesson is more like the following: DON’T FORGET to save your work whenever you’re using a computer to do something! I actually knew about the importance of saving your work on a computer while I was typing my blog entry a while ago. I forgot about it, however, hence my current predicament.

Anyway, this is a lesson that’s handy to keep in mind when it comes to using a computer to complete work by a set deadline, whether it’s for college applications or college homework or post-college office work.

N.B. Here’s an explanation why my blog entry is illustrated with an image of a lion and a mouse: I got reminded of how each fable in Aesop’s Fables has a moral written at the end when I typed the sentence with the words “here’s a valuable lesson.” Then I recalled how I’ve seen several artists’ renditions of the fable about a lion and a mouse. I thus typed the words “Aesop’s Fables” in Google Image Search, and I found the picture that now illustrates this blog entry. The original image is at the following URL: http://www.uen.org/utahlink/activities/view_activity.cgi?activity_id=16748

As a sophomore, I know my way around Hopkins, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t make laughable mistakes on campus. Come to think of it, the word sophomore is derived from Greek words that translate into the phrase “wise fool.” My silly actions at Hopkins make me live out that definition of sophomore. I’m definitely wiser than I was last year, but I can act like a fool sometimes.

1. I was riding the elevator from the terrace level to the sixth floor of McCoy Hall (a residence hall that houses mostly sophomores) with my friends Mary and Nian when the elevator stopped at the second floor. (In McCoy, there’s a “terrace level,” which is the floor where the building’s main entrance is located, and then there are six floors above it.) The other people in the elevator were three guys, two of whom were tall with athletic builds. Without thinking, I sarcastically expressed my wonder over who could’ve possibly ridden the elevator for two floors instead of walking up the stairs: “Who the (la-la-la-la-la) would be getting off at the second floor?” Then I realized what I had just said, but it was too late to eradicate the awkward feeling that lingered as the two athletic-looking guys got off the elevator at the second floor. The third guy, who ended up getting off at the fourth floor, was smiling to himself for the rest of the elevator ride after I spoke my mind rather bluntly. Meanwhile, Mary and Nian were laughing at me.

2. I was fishing through my purse while (a) I was walking down the stairs connecting Q-Level and M-Level of MSE Library and (b) my hands were filled with items, including my cell phone. I should’ve realized that I was setting up myself for disaster. I ended up dropping my phone, which tumbled down the stairs and fell onto the floor of M-Level, nearly missing a student studying on an armchair. It’s a good thing that neither my cell phone nor a person at M-Level got damaged or injured.

3. I was walking around Maryland Hall several times on the first day of classes, wondering why I couldn’t find the room where one of my classes was scheduled to meet. Then I realized that I couldn’t find the room because that class was scheduled to meet at Mergenthaler Hall. It’s a good thing that I realized this fact soon enough to rush from Maryland Hall to Mergenthaler Hall and still reach class on time.

Since writing this blog entry is making me feel like I’m a mindless individual (which is a depressing thought for a Hopkins student), I shall end it now. Meanwhile, enjoy the photo of me, Mary, and Nian in the kitchenette of the suite in McCoy Hall where Nian and I live with our friends Miriam and Zainab (both of whom were mentioned in my previous blog entry, as well as a few of my freshman year blog entries).