Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

Wow, it’s August 2009. That means three things for me: (1) un-ending nostalgia as the other volunteers for Hopkins Interactive and I help the Class of 2013 prepare for their move-in via the Hopkins Forums and the Class of 2013 Facebook group, since I was in the same position a whopping three years ago; (2) my 21st birthday is this month; and (3) summer vacation is almost over.

Actually, make that four things: as shown by the previous three facts, I’m no Peter Pan. Time keeps flying by, and I’m growing up more and more (not literally, since I’ve stopped growing taller already) whether I like it or not. Good thing one of the things I want to accomplish in life is becoming a spry and mentally sound little old lady.

<pSpeaking of time flying by, here’s a quick summary of what I’ve done this summer: (1) I went straight home after my last final exam in early May to spend a week packing and relaxing. (2) My family spent the rest of May visiting relatives and family friends in California. (3) I spent the first few days of June unpacking what I had brought on my California trip and packed what I would need to spend two months in Baltimore. (4) I spent two months in Baltimore (namely, June and July) working in my research lab at the medical school, studying for the MCAT (I was originally planning on taking it in September, although I’m now planning to take it in January), and taking a class. (5) I came home to Connecticut just a few days ago, and I love it!

Ta-da! There’s the summary. Of course, there’s a lot more to the five phases of my summer, but it’d take a long time if I were to describe everything in detail. However, if there’s one thing that I can’t forget about this summer, it’s this: I can’t run away from politics. Before I’ll continue, let me clarify something: I’m not politically apathetic. As my close friends from home and Hopkins know, my favorite courses in middle school and high school (besides AP Chemistry) were my history and government courses and I loved engaging in political discussions in those courses; I follow global, national and local news avidly; and I’ve voted every year ever since I turned 18 (and I look up every candidate for every office before I vote–including the local politicians from my hometown).

At the same time, though, I haven’t taken a social science course in college, the closest thing I’ve come to studying something political in the classroom is reading Cicero’s orations in one of my Latin courses (because as you may know, Cicero was a Roman statesman), and my extracurricular activities are more on the artsy, community service-oriented, and multicultural side. The only time I did something remotely political on campus was attending a talk given by Ralph Nader when I was a freshman–and I fell asleep during it. (To be fair to Mr. Nader, it was because I was exhausted that day and seated towards the back of Shriver Hall. I do remember I was awake for parts of his speech.) And when it comes to elections? As some people who know me from home and Hopkins may know, I’m usually never too crazy over most candidates because of my political views, but I still end up voting because I feel very strongly against wasting your right to vote. (That’s another story for another time, though.)

In short, I’m probably not the kind of student at Hopkins who comes to mind when it comes to politics. As I’ve mentioned before in this entry and in my three years of blogging for Hopkins Interactive, my academic pursuits have mostly focused on the natural sciences and the humanities–and my extracurricular pursuits have mostly focused on arts and culture.

However, these interests of mine have proven this summer that, well, you can’t bury yourself in the research lab or twirl away in the dance studio and think you can avoid politics. The reality is that politics affects everyone–not just the people at the very center of it. Anyway, you’re probably wondering by this point: how did I realize this summer that a an ordinary college student who’s not a political activist in any way, shape, or form that she simply can’t escape it? Let’s see…

RESEARCH: Ever since my sophomore year, I’ve normally done research at the Ryugo Lab for credit; however, I was planning on doing research on a purely voluntary basis this summer because I had thought I would need to work in a summer job to support myself in addition to doing research and studying, so I didn’t want to make an academic commitment to research for a certain number of hours. (At Hopkins, if you receive credit for doing research during a semester, summer term, or Intersession, one credit is awarded for every 40 hours of work.) Only weeks before the summer vacation began, though, my P.I. (i.e., “primary investigator”–this term describes the Ph.D., M.D/Ph.D., or even M.D. who runs a research lab) told the other undergraduate researchers and yours truly that he’d just been awarded a grant that would enable him to hire interns–and he offered us to do research for pay during the summer if we didn’t want to do it for credit. We would be paid for every hour. It was perfect for me! I didn’t have to find an extra summer job on top of doing research. Now how does this have to do with politics? The grant that was awarded to my P.I. is one of several grants that have been awarded through the NIH as part of the Obama Administration’s economic stimulus plan, which includes encouraging scientific research. (Several other Hopkins professors have benefited from such grants; you can read an article from the JHU Gazette about it HERE.) It goes without saying that telling people about the source of my paycheck incited different people’s remarks on economic policies and so on.

THE MCAT: No joke. In a practice MCAT exam that I took, there was a passage in the verbal section describing the politics behind the arts. Think about it: up to the 18th century in western Europe, artists such as painters and musicians primarily depended on sponsorship by royalty or nobility for their livelihood. (That’s just one example of artwork being commissioned by political figures, of course. There are countless other examples throughout the world and throughout history–and even the present day.) As the passage on the practice exam noted, after events such as the French Revolution that involved upheavals of governments, revolutionaries often destroyed artwork that they deemed representative of the “old” political institution. They could be portraits of the recently deposed rulers–they could even be paintings on innocuous subjects such as landscapes but still be looted because of the fact they were painted by an artist sponsored by a despised monarch. Like most of the passages in the verbal section of the MCAT, it was a fairly brief one, but it was quite thought-provoking. It also made me recall Beethoven’s Third Symphony–which he had originally dedicated to Napoleon until the general crowned himself emperor, an action that clashed greatly with Beethoven’s political beliefs–and Picasso’s mural Guernica as two of numerous examples of artists independently expressing their political views in their art in one way or another. Political figures don’t just commission artists; artists also express their views on politicians.

ARTS FUNDING: While I spend most of the calendar year in Baltimore, I still keep in touch with the ballet school at home where I studied ballet almost religiously in high school, and I take open adult classes there whenever I am at home. As a non-profit organization, this ballet school is heavily reliant on funding to survive; this includes corporate funds, private donations, and local government grants. With the economic recession, my hometown is considering decreasing its budget, which includes various arts grants it awards–such as grants to this ballet school. Granted, the concept of non-profit arts organizations receiving grants from the government is also something economical and not just political–but still, it’s politicians who determine how much money to award to which non-profit organizations.

SUSHI: Okay, this example isn’t quite an example of how politics influences sushi, but sushi is involved. Anyway, earlier this week, my mom’s family friends decided to host a welcome dinner at a sushi restaurant in Manhattan for two Philippine politicians–Bayani Fernando and his wife Marides Fernando–from my mom’s hometown outside Manila. Mr. and Mrs. Fernando were members of Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s entourage in her recent visit to the U.S., and the entourage was staying in New York City at the time–hence the sushi dinner. My parents decided to bring my godsister (who was visiting my family from the Philippines until just a few days ago), my brother, and me along to this dinner–and the day before the dinner, they told my brother me the details that I’d just typed.

What they hadn’t told my brother and me was that last year, Mr. Fernando became the first Philippine politician to declare his intention to run for the Philippine presidency in 2010. Furthermore, because he’s of the same political party as the current Filipino president (i.e., Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo) as well as a prominent politician in Metro Manila, chances are that with enough funding, he could run a successful enough campaign to be one of the top contenders for the Philippine presidency. (FYI, the Philippines has a multi-party system, unlike the way the U.S. has two prominent political parties and several third parties.) The issues he’ll be facing, however, is gaining support among people residing in provinces outside Metro Manila and people from Metro Manila who currently oppose him and/or his party. I found out all of this information right there at the sushi dinner, which was basically a crash course in Philippine politics for me. It was hard not to learn all this when (1) Mr. and Mrs. Fernando were making stump speeches towards the end of the sushi dinner asking Filipino expatriates to help Mr. Fernando in his campaign and vote for him next year, (2) several of the Filipino expatriates were taking many photos at the dinner, and (3) my parents as well as my godsister from the Philippines answered the numerous questions I had because I was confused by everything going on around me. (By the way, I’d post a photo from this dinner if I had one, but I currently don’t–at least not yet.)

And to think I had thought this would be a low-key sushi dinner! I enjoy eating sushi, so I was very much looking forward to enjoying the food for its own sake. Oh, well. The good thing about being one of the few American-born individuals at the event was that I didn’t feel pressured to promise Mr. Fernando my vote. If anything, even though more than one middle-aged Filipino adults were trying to tell him that I’m “just an American” (i.e., because I was born in the U.S. and I’m a U.S. citizen, I’m not a potential voter for Mr. Fernando and thus I wasn’t politically important enough for him to talk to) while I found myself standing next to him at one point that evening and having to converse with him in English and broken Tagalog, he still made small talk. It felt like I was talking to one of my uncles or family friends, since he just asked me simple questions like what I was studying in college and what I wanted to do as a career. Not too bad.

*****

The moral of the story? Even if you think you’re just a sushi-loving, ballet dancing, neuroscience researching American college undergraduate, politics play a larger role in your life than you might think–whether you like it or not! It’s just like the way your high school physics teacher (or college physics professor, for that matter) explains to you the reasons why you need to study physics–and that one of them is because of its prevalence in everyday life.

N.B. I found the images illustrating this blog entry from Google Image Search.

Before I continue with this blog entry, I’m going to say that (1) I’m done with my final exams and papers for the Spring 2009 semester, (2) I started off my summer vacation by spending a few days here at my home in Connecticut, (3) I’ll continue my summer vacation with my family by visiting our relatives in northern California for two weeks starting tomorrow, and (4) I’m a rising college senior and quite shocked about the fact. For one thing, I feel like I was just spending the past three years getting a feel for Hopkins–and now that I know the ins and outs of this school after being here for three years, it’s almost time for me to leave? Craziness. Also, the fact that I look much younger than my age isn’t helping me accept the fact that I’m al. In fact, only a little over a week ago, I was volunteering at an end-of-the-year talent show at an elementary school where I’ve volunteered to teach ballet over the past three years. A teacher saw me alone in the gym cleaning up, thought I was an elementary school student who was loitering, and scolded me–until she took a second look at my face and realized I’m twice the age that she thought I was. True story.

Anyway, the reasoning behind my title for this blog entry is that I think the undergraduate student population at Hopkins is in itself a microcosm. As much as Hopkins encourage us students not to live in a bubble and have an awareness of the greater Baltimore community and even the global community, it still feels like Hopkins is its own little world sometimes. At the same time, however, the “little world” founded by the Hopkins community (which consists of 4000+ undergraduates, 1000+ graduate students, numerous professors, and several faculty and staff members) can feel overwhelming if you haven’t found at least one smaller community within Hopkins with which you feel comfortable. That community could be your freshman year floor, a club you join, a research lab where you help with research, and so on.

I wrote a blog entry about the Filipino Students Association in the fall of my sophomore year. At that point in my undergraduate career (wow, I felt old just uttering that phrase), I was already involved with various student organizations–however, not to same the extent as I was involved with FSA at the time. Now, though, I’ve felt “at home” with other organizations here at Hopkins:

Hopkins Catholic Community: I’ve attended Masses held by the Hopkins Catholic Community at the Interfaith Center ever since the start of my freshman year, but I didn’t get involved with the group beyond that at first. As a sophomore, I got more involved with the Hopkins Catholic Community by acting as the community service chair; however, I still didn’t spend much time with members of the Hopkins Catholic Community besides attending Masses and running monthly community service projects. It was this past year as a junior in which I got much more involved with the Hopkins Catholic Community–and, not surprisingly, I felt more like a member of this organization and more like it was a “small community at Hopkins” where I felt at home. For one thing, after keeping mostly to myself when it came to religion for two years at Hopkins, I found it refreshing to take the time to hang out with members of the Hopkins Catholic Community at dinners, retreats, and other events to discuss our thoughts on Catholicism. I also like the fact that not everything we do together always consists of religious discussions–some of my favorite memories include socializing and doing wacky things such as writing impromptu songs about hippopotami (true story), holding an end-of-year dance party (where yours truly danced so much and so energetically that she got exhausted and left the party half an hour early), and watching Jurassic Park while imitating the raptors’ movements. I guess the moral of the story (no pun intended) is that I like quirkiness and feel at home whenever I’m with a group of people who feel the same way.

JHU Classical Ballet Company: If you’ve been following my blog over the past few months, it should be no surprise that this performing arts group is on my list of “important microcosms.” Ever since I joined the ballet company when it was founded in the spring of my sophomore year, I’ve formed friendships with other students who share the same love for ballet–and the same appreciation for the therapeutic effects of dance. (Even just one hour of dancing, as tiring as it can be, is a huge stress reliever!) Especially this year, we’ve spent numerous hours together dancing in classes and rehearsals–as well as taking occasional breaks to goof off. And, of course, we’ve taken steps to hang out with each other outside the dance studio and Shriver Hall. Since the ballet company is predominantly a female dance group (we’re working on recruiting more males, though), we’ve had lots of “girl talks” over coffee, lunch, or tortilla chips and salsa!

JHU Filipino Students Association: As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve been an active member of FSA ever since the start of my freshman year. Unlike the other organizations that I’ve mentioned here, FSA has a very social nature–looking back, it’s probably the reason I felt “at home” with FSA before I had the same feeling with other organizations at Hopkins. I’m not saying that it’s all play and no work, though: running numerous cultural dance practices and organizing the logistics of events such as documentary screenings or our annual Filipino Cultural Night (in which 150+ guests watch us perform an hour’s worth of song and dance numbers while eating catered Filipino food) aren’t jokes! However, considering the fact that we frequently like to hold potlucks and karaoke nights, it’s hard to ignore the social aspect of FSA!

Ryugo Lab: I joined the Ryugo Lab at the medical school as an undergraduate research assistant halfway through my sophomore year, and I currently intend to stay with the research lab until I graduate one year from now. (On a side note, I still can’t believe I’m a rising senior.) While most of my interactions with the other members of the research lab have been on a professional level, I’ve been with the lab long enough that I feel comfortable joining in on random non-research-related conversations that go on during breaks; in addition, Dr. Ryugo (or “Dave,” as he likes to be called) tries to organize lunch outings to restaurants every now and then, and I join in on those if my schedule permits. Thanks to such breaks and lunch outings, I’ve come to feel a lot more at ease around the other members of the lab than I did when I first joined. (I was very quiet when I was a new member of the lab.)

Student Admissions Advisory Board: The Student Admissions Advisory Board (or “SAAB,” as we like to call it) is the undergraduate student volunteer organization that runs Hopkins Interactive–and is the reason why I’ve been writing this blog about my undergraduate experiences for the past three years! Time and time again, I’ve said that one of the reasons I’ve loved being a member of SAAB is how I’ve come to interact with a large variety of people: the Hopkins undergraduates who comprise SAAB come from a wide range of backgrounds, we’ve interacted with various admissions counselors and other Hopkins faculty members, and we’ve interacted in numerous prospective and admitted students and their parents virtually and in person. In addition, this past year, JHU_Julia took steps to hold social gatherings so that we SAAB members could bond even more. I’ve also found myself bumping into various SAAB members at different places around campus and having conversations with them every now and then–just like with the other groups I’ve mentioned with this blog entry, an organization where I feel “at home” is one where we don’t just do business but also socialize!

To close this blog entry, I also want to say that I’ve met many other people at Hopkins through organizations besides the ones mentioned above–in fact, some of my closest friends at Hopkins aren’t in any of these groups! However, I just wanted to focus on the “sub-communities” where I’ve felt very much “at home” here. Before I’ll return to my last-minute travel preparation tasks, I also want to say that I’ve had a blast spending the past few hours packing and double-checking my things in my bedroom at home. The reason lies behind two words: (1) dance and (2) playlist. Yep, I’ve been dancing in my room to a playlist while packing for the last few hours–it’s pretty fun!

Considering the fact that I’ve spent most of my summer at Hopkins and the fact that I’ll stay home for only three weeks starting tomorrow, I haven’t missed Hopkins much this summer, nor will I miss Hopkins much during the last days of this summer. (I’ll be too busy getting re-acclimated to home to miss Hopkins, and by the time I’ll start to miss Hopkins, I’ll be on my way back again!) However, while I’ve enjoyed my first summer at Hopkins — until this summer, I’ve spent every summer at home — I’ve been eagerly waiting for yet another fall at Hopkins to begin. Why?

1. WELCOMING FRESHMEN: For the second year in a row, I’ll be helping out with orientation. However, instead of being an OA (i.e., “Orientation Assistant”), I’ll be an SA (a “Student Advisor”) this year. This means that in addition to helping freshmen unload their belongings on move-in day, I’ll also be in charge of informally advising a small group of freshmen during orientation week. In addition to helping out with orientation, I’m looking forward to being a welcoming upperclassman figure to the freshmen of the different student organizations in which I participate, particularly SAAB (the Student Admissions Advisory Board) and FSA (the Filipino Students Association). While I didn’t get to know all the freshmen in SAAB immediately as a sophomore last year (there were eight freshmen last year), I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for “the freshmen” and awe for their enthusiasm for Hopkins once I got to know them. I’m pretty sure that because SAAB tends to have phenomenal Hopkins students each year as its members, I’ll be just as excited about this year’s batch of freshmen as well. Meanwhile, when it comes to FSA, the organization is so close-knit enough that we FSA members tend to treat each other as family. I can’t help but forget how FSA was almost like a haven of an organization for me as a freshman — partly because of the upperclassmen who were so welcoming to us freshmen, and partly because the then-freshmen I met in FSA quickly became some of my closest friends at Hopkins as well. Last year, I was excited to join in the tradition of being a warm ate (ate, pronounced “AH-teh,” is the Tagalog term of respect for an older sister or female cousin — kuya, pronounced “KOO-yah,” is the equivalent term for males) to the FSA freshmen — and now that this year’s FSA freshmen will be the same age as my own younger brother, I know I’ll feel even more of a desire to be a semi-motherly, warm-hearted ate.

2. CLASSES: My sophomore year wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t my best academically either. In a somewhat nerdy way, I’m itching to be even more serious about studying than I already was as a freshman and sophomore, so that I could do much better academically as a junior. Plus, learning is pretty cool on its own!

3. RESEARCH: While I’m talking about academics, I might as well add that this summer, I’ve done a lot of academic learning outside the classroom and inside the research laboratory. After having been an assistant on various miscellaneous projects since I joined the Ryugo Lab in January, I really started to find my niche in the lab this summer — and I’ve finally found a project on which I’ll focus for a good amount of time in the fall! When I’ll return for the fall, I’ll spend most, if not all, of my time helping the lab’s postdoctoral fellow on her project and possibly get published as a co-author in her paper on the project. Also, this fall will be a time in which I’ll seriously start thinking of what I’d like to do as my own research project — I know I want to complete my own research project sometime before I graduate. By the way, this research won’t be for the sake of meeting the requirements for the neuroscience major anymore — I’ve already completed the six credits of research needed for the major! It’s just that I’ve found that I’ve enjoyed doing research on the auditory system at the Ryugo Lab so much that I intend on staying with the lab until I graduate. I love the subject on which we’re researching (i.e., comparing the characteristics of the auditory system among congenitally deaf, normal-hearing, and “cochlear implanted” cats, in order to contribute to the general scientific understanding of the mammalian auditory system and learn enough about the mammalian auditory system to develop better cochlear implants for humans), I love learning and observing the different procedures involved with the lab’s research projects, I love discussing and listening to discussions about other neuroscientists’ research on the auditory system, I love learning about the auditory system from a professor who’s done a lot of research in the field (i.e., Dr. Ryugo) and has published numerous papers and written textbook chapters on the subject, and I love the quirkiness of the other lab members (one of whom is our very own JHU_Stefanie)!

4. DANCE: I’ve spent a lot of time this summer working on my ballet technique, so that I could be in good shape when the JHU Classical Ballet Company starts its first full academic year in September. (The ballet company’s first semester was Spring 2008, so it’s still in its baby steps.) After dancing ballet from elementary school to high school but then dancing much less ballet in my freshman and sophomore years of college, I really want to be back in the groove again this year when it comes to ballet. In addition, I’ll once again spend a lot of time dancing salsa with the OLÉ Dance Group and Filipino folk dances with FSA — not to mention I’ll start my third year of volunteering to teach ballet to elementary school students on a weekly basis.

5. FAMILIAR FACES: Compared to the university to which I commuted from home to take two semesters’ worth of biology last summer, Hopkins is very lively during the summer. There are quite a few faculty, staff, students, and alumni around taking classes and/or conducting research, not to mention there are several adolescents taking CTY courses, high school students taking Pre-College courses, adolescents and teenagers participating in sports camps and leadership forums, and people of all ages visiting the campus. Nonetheless, while there were many people on campus this summer, and while many of my friends and acquaintances were in Baltimore at one point or another this summer, I found myself missing seeing primarily college students milling around campus during the day, as well as missing my friends and acquaintances who weren’t in Baltimore at all this summer.

There are a lot more reasons why I’m looking forward to my third fall at Hopkins, but those five are my primary ones. With that said, I’ll now turn my attention towards packing my belongings for my three-week stay at home — later, everyone!

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

After my last final of the Spring 2008 semester ended on Wednesday, May 14, I went home and stayed there for a little over a week until I returned to Baltimore on Monday, May 26. Since then, I’ve had so much fun in Baltimore so far this summer that I’m a little disappointed that I have a little over a month left before I’ll return home for three weeks. Anyway, I’ve decided to summarize a few of the past month’s shenanigans in a journal entry kind of format. I hope you like it!

*****

TUESDAY, MAY 27:

This was the first day of class for Summer Session I (there are two summer sessions at Hopkins). I took Organic Chemistry I, and so did a lot of people I know. Meanwhile, I also know a few people who took General Physics I, and a few who took Biochemistry.

This was also my first day back at the Ryugo Lab in almost a month! In order to concentrate on studying for finals for the spring semester, I wasn’t able to do much research there during reading period and finals week — and then, right after my last final, I went home for a little over a week. I missed doing research a lot more than I thought I would during that three-week period! It was great to be back. (By the way, JHU_Stefanie has recently joined the Ryugo Lab as another undergraduate research assistant this summer — yay!)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28:

This was my first day of work as a student assistant at the administrative office of the Neurogenetics and Behavior Center (a.k.a. “the NBC”), which is located here at the Homewood campus. The girl who’s normally the student assistant during the academic year is away for the summer, so I’ve been hired to work as her temporary replacement this summer. In working in the administrative office, I do miscellaneous tasks such as fetching mail, booking the travel arrangements for the NBC’s primary investigator (Dr. Michela Gallagher, who not only attends various neuroscience-related symposia and conferences, but also attends various meetings related to her post as the vice provost of academic affairs), sending faxes, making spreadsheets to organize information, et cetera.

SATURDAY, MAY 31:

In the afternoon, JHU_Tanya and I visited the
family that Catholic Community had “sponsored” for Christmas 2007 through
Centro de la Comunidad, an organization that assists Latino families in the Baltimore area. Ever since we gave the family Christmas presents and some other items that we thought would be helpful in Christmas 2007, I’ve been trying to coordinate an on-going outreach initiative in which members of Catholic Community — as well as other interested individuals who aren’t necessary members of Catholic Community — keep in touch with and help out this family. Right now, it’s a baby project, but I hope it’ll grow into something more organized over time.

In the evening, my roommate Miriam and I walked to The Rotunda Cinematheque, where we watched Sex and the City. The two of us were laughing at how the camaraderie among the main characters reminded us of the chemistry among my three roommates and me (minus the expensive lifestyle and the scandal) — I know I keep mentioning this time and again, but I’m really excited that the three girls with whom I shared a suite in McCoy Hall as a sophomore and I are all renting an apartment together this summer and junior year!

SUNDAY, JUNE 1:

Because Catholic Community doesn’t celebrate Mass at the
Interfaith Center during the summer, some of us from Catholic Community who are in Baltimore for the summer have decided we’d attend Mass at a different church in Baltimore every Sunday. This was the first of our
“church-hopping” excursions. Along with five other people, I attended a Mass at Holy Rosary Church in the Fell’s Point neighborhood. Holy Rosary Church is one of Baltimore’s historic churches, as far as Catholic churches go. While the parish’s current church building was built in the 1920s, the parish was established for the Polish immigrant community in the late 1800s, and it still serves the Polish community in Baltimore today. In fact, the Mass we attended was a Polish-language Mass. We heavily relied on Polish-English Mass booklets to translate the readings and prayers for us, and one of the guys in our group (who’s Polish) translated the homily for us after the Mass. Some of us also went to the 35th Annual Baltimore’s Polish Festival near Holy Rosary Church, but I chose to return to Hopkins and attend the 11th Annual Charles Village Festival near campus with two of my freshman year housemates instead.

SATURDAY, JUNE 14:

This was my first day working for JHU Phonathon. (This summer, I’ve been working for JHU Phonathon during weekends.) The JHU Phonathon works with the Office of Annual Giving by calling alumni and parents of current students and alumni to request monetary gifts for the Johns Hopkins Annual Fund. My job as a JHU Phonathon caller technically isn’t telemarketing, since products aren’t being sold over the phone to randomly selected phone numbers — however, I’ve definitely gained more respect for telemarketers as a result of this job!

SUNDAY, JUNE 15:

My roommate Miriam (the same roommate with whom I watched Sex and the City) and I walked to the Hampden neighborhood to attend the 15th Annual HonFest. While Miriam was in Baltimore last summer, she didn’t attend HonFest last year, so this was the first time for both of us to attend it. We ooh’d and ahh’d over the various beehive hairdos that some women were having styled and looked at different vendors’ booths. I ended up buying a cute white and brown sundress, both of us ended up buying sunglasses — and, of course, we also got some food to eat.

SATURDAY, JUNE 21:

In the evening, my roommates Miriam, Zainab, and I spent the night in our apartment relaxing and chatting with each other. Then our friend Cy ended up IM-ing us to say that he was bored, so we invited him to come over to our apartment to hang out with us — and then before we knew it, the four of us were walking to the 24/7 Giant supermarket at The Rotunda at 11:00 p.m. to buy groceries. (Now how often do you walk to a supermarket to buy groceries late on a Saturday night?) Afterwards, Miriam cooked tacos, which we ate (as well as tortilla chips and salsa) while watching random shows on TV.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27:

It was the last day of Summer Session I, so a lot of people — including yours truly — had final exams that day!

MONDAY, JUNE 30 (TODAY):

Today was the first day of Summer Session II. For Summer Session II, I’m simply focusing on doing research at the Ryugo Lab as well as working at the NBC during weekdays and at JHU Phonathon during weekends.

*****

In addition to what I’ve mentioned, Miriam, Zainab, and I have invited friends to come over to our apartment to play board games on multiple nights; I’ve often grabbed lunch or dinner with friends during weekdays; and now that I’m living in an off-campus apartment without a meal plan, I’ve been cooking and eating meals at home a lot more often! Recently, I cooked the Filipino dishes pancit (a rice noodle dish) and adobong manok (chicken adobo) for the second time ever, with the first time having been the dinner party that my friend Aparna and I hosted back in January. They were much better this time around.

With that said, I’m about to walk to a nearby 24/7 Superfresh supermarket with Miriam and my friend Phil — and once again, it’s past 11:00 in the evening. Later, everyone!

Well, my three-part narrative of my Intersession experiences is now coming to an end! The first part was a blog entry about an outlook on life that helped me enjoy Intersession immensely. The second part was a blog entry about some of the things I did for leisure during Intersession. The third part is this blog entry, which will soon describe why I was at Hopkins for Intersession in the first place.

Like last year, I chose to came to Hopkins for Intersession, so that I could earn academic credit at no extra tuition. (Intersession tuition for academic courses is covered by fall tuition! It’s quite nice.) Last year, I took two one-credit courses; this year, I took one two-credit course and did one credit of neuroscience research.

The two-credit course that I took this year was called “Musicianship Intensive.” While I love music, my formal music education has only consisted of taking private piano lessons and learning some music history in the classroom. Meanwhile, my knowledge of music theory is very basic; I thus decided to take this course to expose myself to the rudiments of counterpoint, keyboard harmony, and solfege. Now that the course is over, I feel that I definitely have a basic grasp of the aforementioned musical concepts, which is a vast improvement from my pre-Intersession ’08 knowledge of them. As dry as my account of this course sounds, I found it to be quite fascinating, because it increased my appreciation of music a lot. Now, when I’m learning a new piece to play on the piano, I find it much easier to see why the notes I’m playing are arranged the way they are. In addition, I now understand why music from different historical time periods is divided into the classifications that musicologists use. In short, I found “Musicianship Intensive” to be a lovable dry course, because it’s so helpful in understanding a field of study that I’ve loved for most of my life (i.e., music).

While the other academic reason for my stay at Hopkins sounds very different from taking a course in music, it isn’t. During Intersession this year, I started my new position as a research lab assistant and earned one credit for the work I did. That might sound like the opposite of taking a music course, but I worked in the lab of a medical school professor who does research on mammalian auditory systems! Dr. David K. Ryugo, Ph.D. is currently focusing his research on various cats and mice who are congenitally deaf or “normal hearing.” Even though I learned about the auditory system when I took The Nervous System I during the Fall ’07 semester, being an assistant in Dr. Ryugo’s lab definitely has helped reinforce my knowledge of the auditory system. When I secured a position in Dr. Ryugo’s lab at the end of the Fall ’07 semester, I did it with the intention of staying for a long period of time, probably until graduation. Indeed, even though the first week of the Spring ’08 semester has passed, I’m still going to Dr. Ryugo’s lab and doing research there almost every day.

On different days during Intersession, I also managed to work at the undergraduate admissions office to join several other Hopkins students in filing applications. (By the way, good luck to all of you who are currently applying to college!) As a recent blog entry by Admissions_Daniel has indicated, I wasn’t the only member of SAAB (the Student Admissions Advisory Board, which runs the Hopkins Interactive website) to work in the admissions office. Even though filing applications sounds like a mundane task, it was quite fun! One reason why was the large number of students present; during the regular school year, only one to three students are working at the same time. During Intersession, however, there are usually about ten to fifteen students working at the same time. Therefore, the admissions room seemed very festive with several students opening mail and filing applications while glancing at a TV playing DVDs every now and then.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my three-part account of Intersession ’08! With that said and done, my next blog entry definitely will have something to with Spring ’08.

Photo Captions: (1) This is an image of the word “counterpoint” that I found via Google Image Search. (2) This is an image from the website of the European American Musical Alliance (EAMA); the Peabody graduate student who taught “Musicianship Intensive” participated in some of EAMA’s programs in the past and used several of its lesson materials in teaching “Musicianship Intensive.” (3) This is an image from the website of Dr. Ryugo’s lab. (4) This is an image of a file folder that I found via Google Image Search, in honor of the work that I did in the admissions office.