Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

When I wrote my last blog entry, I was a fresh graduate from Hopkins and didn’t quite “feel” like an alumna. (On a slightly tangential note: if you’re curious, here’s my first blog entry for Hopkins Interactive as an undergraduate: CLICK HERE.) Two months later, several events and trends have helped me get accustomed to my new phase in life: getting adjusted to my new role as full-time research technologist in the same neuroscience lab where I did undergraduate research, saying farewell to several of my friends from the Class of ’10 as they left Baltimore, moving from my senior year apartment at Homewood Apartments to a new apartment in a different building, and more. Thus, it’s now time for me to say a formal farewell on the Internet to my undergraduate life at Hopkins, as well as blogging as a student for Hopkins Interactive.

As cliché as it might sound, my young 20-plus self has come to learn in life that saying goodbye is always difficult to some degree. You can say many different kinds of goodbyes in your life: from saying goodbye to someone who has passed away, to saying goodbye to someone who’s moving to another town/state/country, to a community where you lived and had many wonderful memories, and so on. Still, after forming an emotional connection with someone or a community, there’s some kind of “tugging of the heart strings” when you have to part ways and say goodbye.

Given that I’ve spent four years living, studying, working, socializing, and growing (in many ways–except physically) as an undergraduate at Hopkins, saying goodbye to my college days is definitely a tough farewell. Yes, I’m still a part of the Johns Hopkins community not only as an alumna but also as an employee, but I’m at the East Baltimore Campus (where the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions are located) for the majority of my waking hours. To an extent, two months of full-time work here have made me feel almost as though I might as well have moved on to a new city besides Baltimore.

There are so many things that I miss (and will continue to miss) about my college life–back during the last month of my senior year, I even wrote a blog entry detailing some of those things. Now that I’m a two-month alumna, I can say that I was right in my speculations three months ago! I think what I miss most, though, is something that I didn’t write in that entry: the relative sense of innocence and youth that I had during my college years compared to now.

Of course, I wasn’t as innocent when I was 18, 19, 20, and 21 years old as I was when I was five years old! Still, as you grow older, you learn more things about life and become wiser–so, in a sense, you’re more innocent now to some extent than you will be in the future. And, what I mean about missing the sense of innocence and youth that I had in college is that I’ll miss the experience of learning what I learned for the first time in college: from ways to study a lot more efficiently, to dealing with living with non-relative roommates, to navigating a new city (i.e., Baltimore) on my own, and more.

What do I miss the second-most? The sense that “the real world” is something in the future–but, now, I’m right in the middle of it as a full-time employee. Sure, I plan to pursue a master’s degree, and eventually a medical degree, but paying for graduate and professional school are entirely students’ responsibilities (instead of jointly between students and their parents); thus, in my view, graduate and professional school are as much as part of “the real world” as working full-time.

Around the time of final exams in the first week of May, someone from Hopkins sent a postcard to PostSecret: CLICK HERE. At the time, I, too, was nervous about going out into the real world–and, I, too, was hoping that my four years at Hopkins were worth it. I thus found myself whole-heartedly agreeing with the postcard. Hopkins wasn’t a state school. It wasn’t inexpensive to attend, and it wasn’t a place where I could party whenever I wanted. If I wasn’t studying or participating in an extracurricular activity, I was working to cover the expenses that my financial aid couldn’t.

Now that I’m working full-time, I’m doing a lot of budgeting; I try to have as few daily and monthly expenses as possible in order to save money for paying off my undergraduate loans and paying for graduate and medical school. Do I find myself wondering every now and then whether it might have been better off to take an easier route and attend state school? Definitely. Still, in just two months after graduation, I’ve realized that I learned two very valuable lessons in my four years at Hopkins: how to speak up for myself and how to question everything around me, instead of simply accepting what I was told.

So, was it worth it? For me, it was.

With that said, I bid a fond farewell to my college days–and to sharing my college experiences via Hopkins Interactive for four years. I hope my four years’ worth of blogging, as well as answering prospective college students’ and parents’ questions on online forums and in person at open houses, have been helpful to families trying to make a decision on where to send their college students to study. My parting advice to the next generation of prospective students? Take a good, thorough look at the colleges you consider–including Hopkins. Thus, hopefully once you’re at that said college (especially at an institution such as Hopkins, where opportunities abound), take advantage of everything you can: academic resources, extracurricular resources, social resources, etc. Make the most out of your experience, because it’s ultimately up to you whether you enjoy your college years or not. It might sound cliché, but it really does boil down to perspective at the end of the day.

Take care, readers.

Adieu.

Photo Captions: (1) My freshman year housemates and me by the entrance of Wood House of AMR I in September 2006. (2) Three other freshmen girls in the Filipino Students Association (FSA) and me after Culture Show in November 2006. (3) Some members of the OLÉ Dance Group and me following a salsa performance in April 2007. (4) My sophomore (and junior) year roommates and me in January 2008. (5) Some JHU Classical Ballet Company members and me backstage during a performance in April 2009. (6) Three other senior members of FSA and me after Culture Show in November 2009. (7) Some members of the Hopkins Catholic Community and me at an off-campus retreat in April 2010. (8) Members of the ballet company and me in May 2010. (9) My mom and me (with my dad in the background) immediately after Commencement in May 2010.

I found out a little over a week ago that I’ll be working next year as a full-time research technician for my neuroscience lab at the medical school! This means that (1) I no longer need to worry about the job search, and (2) I’ll be in Baltimore for at least one more year. As far as this blog is concerned, it also means that my entry “Just Some Things I’ll Miss About Hopkins” needs to be updated–for I’ll still be at Hopkins, but as a staff member and not an undergraduate student. So, here it goes…”What I’ll Miss About Being a Hopkins Undergraduate”:

Classes: I’ll miss the feeling of attending lectures and reading related textbooks and journal articles at home so that I could understand the lectures, and the feeling of delving into a topic over the course of a few months. I don’t know if I’ll miss the stress of preparing for exams, though–it might have to do with the fact that I know I’ll have plenty more of those when I continue to graduate school and medical school. In fact, I’ll be working on research projects and papers during my job next year, so I won’t need to miss writing papers (for better or for worse)!

Being Based at the Homewood Campus: I’m hoping to live in Charles Village and commute to work in East Baltimore since (a) I’m familiar with Charles Village after having been a Hopkins undergraduate for four years and (b) Charles Village is a much more residential neighborhood compared to East Baltimore. Still, I won’t be at the Homewood Campus nearly as often as I used to be. As I mentioned in my original blog entry, the Homewood Campus is a gorgeous one that’s like an oasis of a park in the middle of a city.

Ease of Interactions with Peers: While I still will be in Baltimore next year, I’ll spend my entire morning and afternoon working, and my evenings will consist primarily of studying for the MCAT and doing outside reading related to my research. Plus, many of my friends from the Classes of 2010 and before will have graduated and moved out of Baltimore–and, while I’ll have friends from the Classes of 2011 and after who will still be students at Hopkins, my schedule will be different enough from the undergraduate lifestyle that it won’t be as easy to meet up with people.

Extracurricular Activities: As the past four years’ worth of blog entries can testify, I’ve been heavily involved with extracurricular activities at Hopkins. While I’m still hoping to spend a little bit of leisure time next year playing the piano and taking ballet (and possibly even Pilates) classes in the area, it still won’t be the same as participating in a student-run organization.

Vibrancy: By “vibrancy,” I mean the energy that emanates from undergraduate students. Even during exam weeks here at Hopkins, there’s a certain degree of youth and energy that I’ve observed from being surrounded by my fellow students that’s not quite there whenever I’m at the medical doing research and surrounded by older adults. I will say that I like the idea of “learning from” older adults whenever I’m in the research lab environment (since I’m among the youngest people–if not the youngest person–in most situations related to research); still, being a young 20-something myself, I do like the higher levels of energy I see in people my age.

Free Membership at the Recreation Center: Even though most of my exercise comes from regular attendance at ballet classes, I still like going to the rec center to take advantage of its indoor track and the rock climbing wall. Membership there is free for undergraduate and graduate students based at the Homewood Campus–but since I’ll be considered a staff member of the medical school, I’ll have to pay dues if I want to continue using the rec center.

Lunch: While the food options at the Homewood Campus and Charles Village aren’t the most diverse, there still are enough that you can vary up your lunch options when you’re too busy to prepare lunch ahead of time and thus must buy food to eat for lunch. There are also a variety of food establishments from which you can buy lunch near the medical school, but they’re more spread out and aren’t as plentiful.

On-Campus Events: I’m pretty sure I’ll still take time to attend major on-campus events such as Culture Show in November, Homecoming Weekend and Spring Fair in April, events for young alumni (such as those during Young Alumni Weekend in November and Homecoming Weekend in April), and performances of friends of mine in performing arts groups; however, since I won’t be an undergraduate anymore, many on-campus events won’t quite be “attendable” (so to speak) because (1) they are targeted towards undergraduates and (2) they fit the schedule of an undergraduate lifestyle better than that of a full-time working employee.

I must say that despite the numerous aspects of being an undergraduate at Hopkins that I’ll miss next year, I’m quite glad that the next year will be a nice transition from the undergraduate life to my life in additional education (since I’m hoping to pursue a master’s degree, and then ultimately an M.D. after my one-year stint in the workforce). I’ll be living a non-undergraduate lifestyle next year, but I’ll still be very well a part of the Hopkins community (not just as an alumna)–I must say that I’m not complaining about my prospects for next year!

Commencement is drawing closer, and while I’m currently planning to stay in Baltimore while my apartment’s lease lasts until the middle of the summer, it’s not yet certain whether I’ll stay in Baltimore or live elsewhere to work next year. (I’m still in the middle of the job application process, and nothing has been finalized yet as far as employment plans go.) Knowing that fact, I’ve found myself viewing different aspects of Hopkins as though my days left are numbered–because they may very well be. There are many things about Hopkins that plenty of us students here love. Nonetheless, attending college can be a very personal experience, and so leaving Hopkins still feels like a personal goodbye–even though many students say farewell to Hopkins every year. Thus, while quite a few things on this list are somewhat universal to the Hopkins undergraduate experience, I still find them special enough that I know I’ll miss them upon leaving Baltimore.

The Beauty of the Homewood Campus: Whether it’s autumn, winter, spring, or summer, the Homewood campus looks–and sometimes feels–like a large park in the middle of Baltimore. I’ve found myself looking more carefully around me whenever I walk through campus lately, now that I’m getting closer to commencement.

Businesses in Charles Village: While this has nothing to do with Hopkins itself, there are several small business establishments close to campus where I’ve found myself buying food to eat or purchasing groceries over the past few years. While there are a few chain stores in the neighborhood, most of them are locally owned and have a very “Baltimore” feel to them.

The Plethora of Opportunities: On the academic front, there are numerous lectures and colloquia occurring on campus on a weekly basis, there are many opportunities for undergraduate research, and so on. On the extracurricular front, there are literally hundreds of student organizations on campus–and there are always new clubs being formed each semester. On the community service front, there are many ways to volunteer either through the Center for Social Concern here at Hopkins or directly with one of the numerous non-profit organizations in Baltimore that always need volunteers. This is a rather generic summary of how immense the wealth of opportunities seems when you’re a student here at Hopkins and seeing every day how there are so many possibilities for you to spend your time at present as well as prepare for your future.

Quirks and Traditions of Hopkins: Our homecoming takes place during the spring, and lacrosse is the “football” of Hopkins. We have a student-run spring fair at the end of every spring semester. We have a different set of colors for formal purposes and athletic purposes. Our school’s name has caused so many misspellings and mispronunciations that it’s a legend in itself. (It even prompted an April Fool’s Day joke recently.) This, of course, is just a sampling of many little things at Hopkins that help characterize everyday student life at Hopkins.

Ease of Interactions with Peers: This characteristic has more to do with college undergraduate life itself than Hopkins specifically. In college, it’s easy to meet up with other students around campus, or by stopping by their apartments or dorm rooms. You don’t have this ease with interacting with your peers so easily before college in high school (unless you attend a boarding school) or after college in the real world–that is, you can’t walk within a merely approximately two-mile radius if you need to collaborate on a project with a classmate or even just hang out with a friend.

The Food: No, the on-campus food isn’t gourmet, but I’ll still miss it.

The Breezeway: On most days during the school year, the Breezeway is busy with student groups hosting fundraisers, banners advertising events flapping in the wind, and throngs of people walking up and down the marble staircase by the Breezeway. It’s a beautiful sight, I think–granted, I sometimes find myself wishing on rainy or snowy days that the marble staircase were either brick or asphalt instead, but it still is lovely!

MSE Library: As nerdy as it sounds, I’ve spent so much time either studying at the library or browsing its stacks to look for books for reference that I know my inner geek will miss it.

The Mattin Center: The Mattin Center isn’t a first-class building for the arts, but it does have basic facilities to keep the performing and visual arts alive at Hopkins. I’ve spent much time there throughout the years either in the piano practice rooms or the dance studio–as well as its numerous meeting rooms–and I’m sure I’ll have many fond flashbacks of the time I’ve spent at the Mattin Center during the years to come.

Large-Scale Events: Spring Fair. Culture Show. Orientation. Homecoming Weekend. A cappella concerts. Dance showcases. Some large-scale events at Hopkins are analogous to those at other colleges and universities, and some are unique to Hopkins. There are many large-scale events that happen here on a regular basis, and since I’ve either attended or helped plan many of them, I’ll miss those events.

People: It goes without saying that I’ll miss the friends I’ve made here, and my colleagues and supervisors frommy work-study jobs, my research lab, and my extracurricular activities. I’ll also miss people with whom I haven’t had extensive interactions, such as professors whose classes I’ve enjoyed, staff members around campus (such as friendly security guards and cafeteria workers–somehow, I think I also might the occasional run-in with a surly staff member, simply because it’s something that many [if not all] people at Hopkins experience at one point), and other students who may not bemy friends, but still are my acquaintances.

This list is by no means all-inclusive, but I hope it summarizes some of the things about Hopkins that I’ll miss after I graduate. More and more, I find myself telling myself sayings that have to do with enjoying the present, because that’s quite true in my desire to make the most out of what’s left in my experience here at Hopkins.

Four out of 13 weeks for the Spring 2010 semester have already passed, and the fifth one is about to begin. Even though this is my eighth (and final) undergraduate semester at Hopkins, I’m still caught by surprise at how quickly an entire third of the semester has passed! As always, a lot has happened in just a month, from pursuing my academic goals to researching to participating in extracurricular activities to working part-time to catching up with friends and family members (both immediate and extended) at Hopkins and around the globe.

What I didn’t anticipate would happen this semester is a major undertaking that several other undergraduates and I started working on during the last few days of Intersession that has grown into a major project: organizing fundraising efforts for post-earthquake relief in Haiti. What I also didn’t anticipate happening this semester is how these efforts have caused me to do a lot of thinking about what I want to do with my life after graduating in May.

Becoming a physician has almost always been among my career considerations since I was in elementary school. (There were many phases in my childhood when being a physician was just one of several career paths that I thought were alluring.) To be even more specific, I’ve considered becoming a pediatric neurosurgeon or neurologist since my junior year of high school. Being a neuroscience major and doing a lot of volunteer work with elementary and middle school students during college have only helped to keep a career in pediatric neurosurgery or neurology a possibility in my book. They’re no longer the only areas of medicine I could see myself entering–and enjoying–someday, however. Over the course of the past month, I’ve come to realize that several events that have happened during my senior year have made me realize the beauty of emergency medicine.

As you might recall from blog entries, I spent much of the Fall 2009 semester collaborating with other officers in the Filipino Students Association (of which I’m the co-president this year) as well as officers in the Taiwanese-American Students Association in organizing fundraisers for the victims of typhoons that occurred in the Philippines and Taiwan from August to October 2009. These efforts included a fundraising banquet that featured performances from performing arts groups on campus, a silent auction, and a guest appearance by D.C.-based Filipina spoken poet Jenny Lares. I first got interested in organizing such fundraising efforts because (1) I had several relatives who were affected by these typhoons and (2) it was a no-brainer that it would behoove FSA to fundraise for typhoon victims in the Philippines. Despite these two semi-selfish motivating factors, I ended up getting much more involved with typhoon relief fundraising than I had originally planned, I loved the collaborative efforts that resulted between FSA and TASA, and I started paying more attention to news reports of natural disasters around the world in general.

Before the fall semester, I thought I had already done all that I could to think of others more than myself. I was wrong: the fundraising efforts of that semester opened my eyes just how much more I still needed to think beyond myself. On one level, I was conscious during much of the fall semester about the plight that Filipinos–including my relatives–were enduring after the typhoons. I often found myself realizing that as stressful as school can be, that paled in comparison with dealing with the destruction of three typhoons that struck within three weeks. On another level, getting in touch with members of TASA and becoming educated of the typhoon destruction in Taiwan helped me realize that I was only one of a large number people around the globe who were worrying about their loved ones affected by typhoons in the Asia-Pacific region.

Not surprisingly, I found myself at the end of the semester wanting to do similar fundraising efforts again–in fact, several of the FSA and TASA officers with whom I had collaborated agreed that we would like to collaborate in organizing at least one more fundraiser this semester. None of us imagined that an even larger tragedy would happen that would bring together not just members of FSA and TASA, but also several other student organizations in collaborating on fundraising efforts this semester.

During Intersession, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12. As many of you reading this blog entry might have already learned from news reports, the earthquake has resulted not only in hundreds of thousands (if not more) of dec, injured people, and displaced individuals; on top of those statistics, the destruction of the capital and surrounding areas of what already was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake has been monumental. This time, I didn’t even need to think: I knew I wanted to help out somehow. I had returned to Hopkins shortly before the earthquake struck Haiti, so I ended up being directed by JHU_Jessica (via a Gchat conversation we had, since she was at the time preparing for her semester abroad in Geneva) to an officer of SEA (Students for Environmental Action) who wanted to organize fundraising efforts for Haiti. Literally within hours of my first contact with that SEA officer, both of us ended up getting in touch with officers of other student organizations who wanted to collaborate with us–in less than a week, there were over 10 of us undergraduates forming an ad hoc committee that we hoped would organize large-scale fundraising efforts at the Homewood Campus, and even in collaboration with other campuses of Hopkins.

A little over a month later, that ad hoc committee has now become a young Center for Social Concern (CSC) organization called JHU Haiti Aid* that oversees a coalition of over 70 undergraduate student organizations and 10 academic departments and programs based at the Homewood Campus, that has now gotten in touch with similar organizations based at the medical campus and SAIS, and that is in direct contact with President Daniels’s office about our progress. So that I don’t use too many words describing some of the events we’ve organized, I’ll direct your attention to two articles from The Johns Hopkins News-Letter: (1) an article on a brainstorming interest session that we held on the second day of the semester, and (2) an article on “Saturday for Haiti,” which was a major-scale day of fundraising held on February 20. (By the way, the latter article has some quotes that are attributed to the wrong individuals–but the information about the events that occurred is mostly correct.)

(* Note that whenever CSC student organizations are founded, they have a “trial year” before they become official; since JHU Haiti Aid just started this semester, you might note that it’s not yet listed as an organization on the CSC website.)

As I’ve mentioned earlier in this blog entry, the amount of destruction that occurred in Haiti was, so we still have a lot of goals for the rest of the semester; we want to organize a few more large-scale fundraisers as well as organize some educational events so that members of the Hopkins community could learn more about and discuss the web of intertwined political, economic, and social issues in Haiti that were affected by the January 12 earthquake–and that are currently being affected by post-earthquake relief efforts.

To top off everything, all of these events happened just this weekend: a 7.0-magnitude earthquake striking Japan on the evening of February 26, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile on the morning of February 27 (i.e., yesterday), and there were tsunami warnings all over the Pacific Rim (in Chile, in Japan, in Hawaii, in the West Coast of the U.S. and Canada, in the Philippines, and in more nations); only within the last ~12 hours have the tsunami warnings been canceled by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Between the two recent large-scale earthquakes, the death toll has especially been higher (and climbing) in Chile, especially since the area affected by the earthquake there was much more populated than the area in Japan (not to mention that the earthquake was much larger). Those of us JHU Haiti Aid area already feeling an itch to help out Chile in some way as well while still keeping in mind our goals for relief in Haiti.

All of these current events have made us look up information online about earthquakes–did you know that it’s common for multiple large-scale earthquakes to happen annually, as listed in the U.S. Geological Survey’s website? (Kudos to you if you already knew that before the recent earthquakes.) What makes an earthquake particularly deadly depends on the infrastructure and the population of the area affected.

I don’t want to stop doing this kind of work after I graduate Hopkins in May; part of me wishes I were more aware of global public health issues (especially in the context of natural disasters) sooner in my college career, but I guess the adage “better later than never” applies here. For the reasons I was initially attracted to the medical field, I still am very much attracted to that field–but because of my increasing awareness of post-natural disaster relief around the globe, I’ve found myself increasingly wanting to become one of the physicians who use their medical expertise to provide immediate relief to people affected by such tragedies. As you may or may not know, there are many NGOs who have physicians, from well-known ones such as the member organizations of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and the World Health Organization (WHO) to many smaller-scale ones (such as JHU’s own Center for Refugee and Disaster Relief). I recently found out from Class of ’07 JHU alumna whom I’ve known since my freshman year that she works with several ER physicians who rotate between working in hospital ERs here in the U.S. and going abroad to assist in international relief efforts–and, as you might guess after what I’ve written so far, I’m liking that idea.

Of course, there’s a long way to go until I become a physician. First, I have to finish what’s left my undergraduate career at Hopkins well. Second, I need to have a few productive “years off” (which I’ve decided to take for several reasons, both personal and practical). Third, I need to do the whole apply-to-med-school-then-get-accepted-to-med-school-then-go-to-med-school-then-become-a-resident-and-yadda-yadda shindig. Plus, as I’ve come to learn over my four years at Hopkins, one never knows what surprises (both good and bad) life will cast one’s way–who knows what I’ll experience during all of that! Thus, it’s still a long way to go until I finally can be sure of what I’ll do to support myself (and my family, if I end up having one).

Nonetheless, I’m finding a career in emergency healthcare and international post-disaster medical relief an alluring possibility right now.

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

A lot of things have happened since my winter break in which I spent time both at home in Connecticut and with immediate and extended family members in California. After spending the first week of Intersession continuing to divide time in Connecticut and California, I returned to Baltimore for the remainder of Intersession and have been here ever since. It’s only been a little under a month that I’ve been back in Charm City (as Baltimore is fondly nicknamed)–but as I’ve said, a lot has happened. Among those things includes taking several steps in exploring numerous options for what I’ll do upon graduating.

To make a long story short, I still don’t know yet what I’m doing next year, but I’ve continued to work on weighing the pros and cons of different options. I need to consider a lot of factors, including my ultimate educational and career goals of eventually attending medical school and becoming a physician, as well as the realities of the present (i.e., factors relating to academics, finances, family circumstances, and so on). Currently, I’m considering returning home to the southwestern Connecticut/New York City area and exploring my options there for next year (instead of staying in Baltimore); however, as I often stress, one can never be sure of what the future will be until the future is actually the present. In short: we’ll see what happens!

I like to be organized, and I like to plan things ahead of time as much as possible, so I’ll admit that I’m a little apprehensive about not having my plans for next year anywhere close to set in stone. After learning a lot of life lessons from the time I spent with many people from my family over winter break and after talking to several friends of mine who graduated either last year or two years ago, however, I’ve learned to be not too worried about the future. I’m starting to realize that I just need to do whatever I can–be it researching job opportunities, applying to jobs, exploring grad school options just in case, and so on–and not fret too much about what I can’t do.

Being less than four months away from graduation and fretting about the uncertainty of the future reminded me of how much more anxious I was in high school as a senior–and it made me realize that many of you reading this blog entry might be feeling the same way, too (unless you’ve been accepted ED). With that in mind, I have three pointers on how not to freak out about the future:

1. Breathe. As cliché as it sounds, you do need to take a deep breath, relax, and know that as long as you’ve done what you could, everything will be fine.

2. Have an open mind. Hope for the best, but brace for yourself for the worst. Chances are that the worst probably won’t happen, the best might not happen, and you’ll find yourself somewhere in between (but preferably closer to the best case scenario). In any event, mentally preparing yourself for any kind of situation you can imagine can help you out a lot–not to mention that if your college plans do go as you’ve hoped, having braced yourself for the worst possible scenario will make experiencing your ideal situation all the sweeter.

3. Continue to do what you must do. I can’t stress that enough. If you waste time fretting, all you would’ve accomplished is wasting time. Given that the future is always uncertain, don’t waste the time that you have! Continue to focus on your classes. Continue to do your extracurricular activities. Continue to do whatever you need to do on a daily basis, as you wait to hear word of your college decisions.

With that said, I shall do #1, 2, and 3 myself and resume my daily routine of studying and doing homework! Even though I’m a college senior, I do have a lot in common with many of you who are reading this blog.

When I originally started brainstorming this blog entry almost two weeks ago, I initially was in a “looking back” mood for three reasons: (1) the Fall 2009 semester had just ended, (2) the year 2009–as well as a decade–was coming to a close, and (3) I had just finished writing a draft of my senior reflection for this year’s “Insider’s Guide.” (Just so you know, the “Insider’s Guide” is a publication that we student volunteers for Hopkins Interactive produce in the spring for admitted students who attend our admitted students open houses; the Spring 2010 publication will be our third annual one, so make sure you grab a copy if you end up getting admitted and visiting Hopkins!)

I’m still in a “looking back” mood for the three reasons–and now, there’s also a fourth reason: a family emergency that led my family and me to fly across the country from Connecticut to California and visit our relatives there. I usually avoid discussing my personal life on this blog aside from social events that I experience with my friends, but I will say that I attended the funeral of my paternal grandmother on New Year’s Eve. It was tough for many reasons that I won’t discuss here. There also were other family issues (practical, emotional, and so on) that needed to be resolved, and those were difficult in their own right as well.

As I’ve already mentioned, I won’t discuss the details; however, I will say that the series of events that I just mentioned made me quite contemplative. For one thing, I was thinking about the events themselves. I also ended up thinking about how this wasn’t the first time that I’ve had to deal with a loss in the family–and how during every year in college, I’ve had to deal with a loss in the family, with each loss being tough. There also have been other downs that my family and I have experienced during my college years such as hospitalizations of loved ones, among other things on which I won’t elaborate–and the funny thing is that before I went to college, I didn’t experience these kinds of events. Family members had died before I started my college years, but they were distant relatives; family members have gotten injured or become sick, but not to the magnitude that I’ve witnessed during the past four years. I know that this timing is all a coincidence, since different families experience different milestones at different times; nonetheless, experiencing these kinds of occurrences with my loved ones all while I’ve been in college has been one major factor in why I’ve come to view college as a large learning experience for me.

When I attended the funeral of my maternal grandmother in the Philippines, I was a four-year-old toddler. The only memory I had of my grandmother was wishing her a happy birthday on the telephone. I still have that memory, but I don’t even remember my maternal grandmother’s voice anymore. Thus, I felt sad at her funeral more for the sake of my mother, my aunts and uncles, and the other adults around me who were sobbing profusely. I was a four-year-old–seeing sadness around me was enough to be overwhelming! Meanwhile, staying with my relatives during the days following the funeral were like one pleasant vacation. Everything was perfect in my eyes. I was on the other side of the world in a tropical climate with my family and many doting relatives; of course my little toddler self was happy!

Nearly two decades later, I attended the funeral of a grandmother with whom I’d had many years of interaction; I had seen and communicated with my paternal grandmother through visits, phone calls, letters, and greeting cards. While I certainly enjoyed the times I was able to spend bonding with my relatives after the funeral, I also was old enough to notice and understand that families aren’t perfect and that mine was no exception. There were good times, and there were bad times during the days that followed. Instead of perfection, there was bittersweetness.

What happened over those two decades? Kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, and–of course–college. I know that the first four phases mentioned did do a lot to contribute to the metamorphosis from the small four-year-old girl I was to the not-as-small-but-still-somewhat-small 21-year-old young woman I am now; however, I think that college has been the most major maturation experience among all five of those phases. As an excerpt from my original draft of my aforementioned senior reflection says, “I stepped foot at Hopkins in late August ’06 as a fresh-faced freshman (as cliché as it sounds, it’s true–compare photos of college students when they’re freshmen versus when they’re seniors) with a set idea of how my college years would go in my ideal world. Sure, some of the things I dreamed of happening did happen. Even more so, though, I had many highs and lows that I didn’t even dream could happen, both inside and outside the classroom.”

Whenever one looks back on the past, he or she ultimately returns to the present. That’s the lesson that I learned in high school while slaving away through numerous practice–and actual–”DBQs” (document-based questions) for AP U.S. History and AP European History. That’s the lesson that is repeated numerous times in the news, whenever current events are compared to famous–and obscure–moments from history. That’s the lesson that I’ve come to appreciate as part of the even larger lesson called life.

In looking back on the Fall 2009 semester, I ultimately realized that I have one semester left as a college undergraduate. I may be planning to attend graduate school for a master’s degree and medical school for a professional degree in the future, but those years will never be quite the same as these four years that have passed. In looking back on the past calendar year, I reflected on the mistakes and triumphs that I made as a second-semester college junior and first-semester college senior–which, once again, brought me back to the present, as I resolve to work on avoiding the mistakes I made in the past. In looking back on the past decade, I relived memories of middle school, high school, and college–including the painful and embarrassing ones, but also the wonderful ones. Those memories–both the good and the bad–have made me glad to be living in the present; while the “old days” were simpler, I like having the additional insight that I have now compared to previous years. (I hope I continue to have this opinion as I grow older!) In looking back over my college years because of my senior reflection, I had to think about my current status as a college senior. Last, but not least, in looking back at the recent events that I’ve shared with my immediate and extended family, I’ve done a lot of thinking about the interactions with the people whose flesh and blood I share–and, therefore, who are very much like me whether I like it or not. For better or for worse, they have played a large role in helping shape the person I am today.

I have a reputation among my family and my friends to be an energetic and peppy person, and I don’t mind that reputation. At the same time, however, I also enjoy my fair share of contemplation. (After all, a scholar–even a fledgling scholar such as a Hopkins undergraduate–needs to have thinking abilities, eh?) I hope that if readers of this blog entry glean a lesson from this lengthy piece of writing, it’s this: think! The 21st century is certainly a busy-busy-busy era in human history (and I’m pretty sure I’m a contributor to that trend), but set aside time to think about, meditate on, contemplate about, or chew on whatever suits your fancy. It could be a relatively trivial issue or a deeper matter. Draw connections. Exercise your mind. At the very least, it would only serve as an innocuous mental exercise; at most, taking time to think about matters that intrigue you can help you realize things about yourself. And yes, even if history isn’t your favorite subject, there are merits to looking back on it and reflecting on it.

That is all for now.

N.B. Because of the reflective mood of this entry, I decided to upload photos of nature that I had taken. The top photo is of a flower from my family’s backyard in Connecticut; the second and third photos are from a park in central New Jersey that my family, maternal relatives, family friends, and I have visited on several summers; and the fourth photo is from a trip to Lake Tahoe that I took with my family and paternal relatives.

I mentioned in my previous blog entry that I was thinking of writing this entry about my classes, but I’ve decided to write this blog entry about a common theme that I’ve observed so far during this senior year: uncertainty about the future. The title of this blog entry is an English translation of the Ilocano proverb, “Ita ken dica pay laeng di ammo ti mapagpagteng.”

It’s so true.

As fall semester freshmen, my (then) newfound friends and I weren’t sure about our futures, either; however, we had dreams about what we wanted to do during our four college years and in the years afterwards. Three years later, the events of most of our college days have already been set in stone, and the days until graduation are starting to tick down. For some of us, the dreams we had back then have been replaced by new ones; for others among us, we still have the same dreams, but we’ve realized that we might need to achieve them by different means than we once had envisioned.

On a more practical note, we’re experiencing that dreadful feeling that many of us last experienced four years ago as high school seniors: not knowing what the answer to “Where will you be next year?” is. For three years, we knew that after the summer vacation, we’d spend the following autumn back at Hopkins as college students (or at a study abroad program, but still as college students from Hopkins). This year, however, we don’t have the cozy certainty of having that kind of knowledge. Furthermore, not knowing where we’ll be in one year might be an even more frightening idea for some of us than it was when we were high school seniors. Since we’ll be armed with bachelor’s degrees come May, we have many more options from which to choose for next year: jobs as careers, jobs as temporary stepping stones before graduate/law/medical school, graduate school, law school, medical school, volunteerism…

Personally, I find myself slightly panicking on some days. I know that I’m pre-med, and I know that I’d like to obtain a master’s degree before matriculating into medical school; however, I find myself worrying about the graduate school application process like the way I did as a high school senior applying to colleges. How do I narrow down to which master’s programs to apply? What are those programs’ application requirements? Will I get into the ones to which I’ll apply? Et cetera. (I wouldn’t be surprised if those questions are also playing in the heads of seniors who are applying to jobs, law schools, or medical schools. Applications are innately stressful.)

Probably for the preservation of my own sanity, however, I find myself coolly thinking about what I need to do this year in preparation for determining where I’ll be next year–and feeling confident that somehow, no matter what will happen, I’ll figure out a way to make the most out of the circumstances.

Besides, I’m still a college senior–and I still have homework assignments to complete and exams for which to study. With that said, I’ll end this blog entry and return to my books! Later.

N.B. In case you’re not already familiar with it, the image at the top is of Auguste Rodin’s statue The Thinker.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked that question during the two weeks in which I’ve been back at Hopkins. Speaking of the last two weeks, they’ve been quite busy for me–so busy that I’m surprised everything that has happened so far has occurred in only two weeks! In case you’re curious, here are just some of them (in no particular order): classes, research, meetings for work and extracurricular activities, interacting with parents of freshmen at Orientation 2009 events as a Family Ambassador, ballet rehearsals, settling into my apartment (I’m living in a different apartment this year than I did in my junior year), and more.

Oh yeah, I’ve also had to answer these questions several times over the past few weeks: “How does it feel to be a senior?” (as I’ve just mentioned), “Do you know what you’re doing next year?”, and “Are you excited that this is your last year at Hopkins?”

The second and third questions are the easiest to answer. First of all, I don’t know what I’m doing next year. I know what I’m hoping to do next year (i.e., start a master’s program in either biology, neuroscience, public health, or a similar field that’s heavily oriented in the natural sciences and that would include research in addition to classroom work). Still, given that the type of master’s programs that I’m currently considering won’t release decisions until the end of next spring (or, in some cases, even next summer) and considering the current state of the economy, I don’t know what I’m doing next year. As for whether I’m excited that this is my last year at Hopkins? Yes, I am. It’s not because I hate Hopkins; rather, I love the “home stretch” (or “final lap”) feeling of a “last something” in general–including the last year of my undergraduate experience.

But, “How does it feel to be a senior?” That question has a complicated answer. For one thing, I’m only beginning my senior year. For another thing, thinking about the fact that I’m in my senior year elicits a lot of thoughts and emotions–and not just excitement. I also feel a bit old, but that emotion is only in a relative sense–this feeling mostly occurs whenever I’m around freshmen. (In the real world, of course, I’m still on the young side!) I feel nostalgic, knowing that a lot of the things I’m doing are among my “lasts” at Hopkins. I feel a bit overwhelmed at the fact that I have to spend this year planning out my next stage of life–and that, as I’ve already mentioned, it will be several months until I’ll know for certain the nature of my next stage of life. I feel reflective: I often look back at the previous three years I spent at Hopkins to think about what I enjoyed, what I disliked, what I wished I did differently, and so on. I feel resolved, because I have several academic, extracurricular, and personal goals that I really want to meet before I graduate. I feel appreciative: knowing that it’s my last year at Hopkins makes me take a second look at the buildings I pass by every day, treasure the times I spend with my friends even more than before, and even revel in the feeling of sitting in a lecture hall.

This is just the beginning of my senior year, but that list doesn’t cover everything about how I feel to be a senior. I know these feelings–and many more–will only intensify and multiply over the next nine months, as I prepare for my graduation in May 2010.

It’s been said that a person’s college experience is like a roller coaster ride–but I already have a feeling that senior year will be like an insane roller coaster ride, especially with the emotions factor. It’s time to brace myself for it.

So, between the time I last posted on this blog and now, I’ve gone from the one-third mark to the one-half mark of my fifth semester at Hopkins! (Wow! Already?) The following video summarizes some of my thoughts on how time seems to fly when there’s a lot to do:

In other news, I spent quite a bit of time within the past 48 hours in baking-related situations! Over the past week, my friends Aparna and Jose have been “trash-talking” each other as to who’s a better baker and decided to settle the argument with a “bake-off” yesterday. However, because they didn’t give their friends enough notice so that there would be plenty of people to judge their creations, what happened was that Jose’s friend Tiffany and I ended up being the only non-competitors present at this bake-off–plus Tiffany and I ended up assisting Jose and Aparna in finishing their respective creations. It goes without saying that Tiffany and I ended up refusing to give a verdict upon tasting the two wonderful cakes, and so Aparna and Jose agreed on a tie–but not before vowing to have another bake-off in the near future!

By the way, in this “bake-off,” Aparna and Jose had agreed that their “secret ingredient” would be pumpkin, and that they would have a fall theme to whatever they bake. (Originally, they wanted a neutral third party to come up with those two things–but once again, because they gave their friends very short notice about this bake-off, they didn’t find someone to do that.) Aparna ended up baking a vanilla cake with pumpkin filling that was decorated to look like a pumpkin patch. Jose ended up baking a pumpkin roll cake that had a mascarpone cheese filling and English toffee topping. Who would’ve thought two very different approaches to baking a pumpkin cake would both turn out to be so delicious?

As for today, I spent part of the evening baking cookies from scratch for the first time ever! Before today, the only baking I’d done was (a) baking a Filipino rice cake called bibingka from scratch for the dinner party that Aparna and I co-hosted during Intersession ’08 and (b) baking cookies from pre-cut, ready-to-bake cookie dough a few times earlier this semester. I incorporated bits and pieces of various recipes from the Internet as well as a few tips from my friend Renato (another friend of mine who likes to bake) to come up with an oatmeal chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie recipe–and it worked out wonderfully!

With that said, I shall go off to continue doing my homework–as you might have noticed from the video, I have a lot of work left for this semester!

Photo Captions: (1) Aparna with her cake (2) Aparna’s cake (3) Jose’s cake (4) my cookies

Note: As you read this blog entry, please note that during all this thinking, I still was doing my everyday routine! I still went to class, I still did research, I still participated in my extracurricular activities, I still socialized, and I still ate/drank/slept. I didn’t sit on a stone all day with my chin rested on my right hand, my right elbow on my left thigh, and my left hand on my left knee. I’m just saying that these topics have increasingly invaded my thoughts over the past three weeks.

During the past three weeks, the end of classes drew nearer (the last day of classes for the semester was this past Friday, May 2), the beginning of reading period drew nearer (today is the first day of reading period), and the start of finals drew nearer (the first day of finals will be Thursday, May 8). For obvious reasons, I’ve found myself thinking a lot more about school: what’s my status in x course? How well must I do on the final for x course to get y grade? How much z studying must I do to get y grade?

I’ve also found myself thinking a lot more about my friends and acquaintances who are seniors (or, in some cases, juniors) who are graduating this year: who’s graduating this year? Who’ll stay in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area next year (and thus I can easily meet up with them next year)? Who’ll head off to other U.S. cities next year (and thus I’ll have to do long-distance correspondence with them)? How is it that time has flown and they’re already graduating?

I’ve also found myself thinking a lot more about how I’m almost half-way done with college. I’ve also found myself thinking a lot more about wrapping up business for my various extracurricular activities, from coordinating end-of-year events to dealing with transfers of power from this year’s officers to next year’s officers. I’ve also found myself thinking a lot more about the logistics of moving from my suite in an on-campus dorm to the off-campus apartment where I’ll live from the beginning of this summer to the end of senior year: transportation of belongings, payment of rent, et cetera. I’ve also found myself thinking a lot more about the finalization of my summer plans — which still haven’t been finalized as I’m typing this blog entry.

In the meantime, dear readers, please take what I’ve written in this blog entry as some food for thought — and stay tuned for my next blog entry, which will come towards the end of this month and re-cap my tumultuous (yet still wonderful) sophomore year!

N.B. I got the images illustrating this entry from Art.com.