Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

Last week was Week 4 of the semester, and now it’s Week 5–so that means with 13 weeks this semester, we’ve just passed the one-third mark! That would explain why my first physics exam of the semester was on Thursday last week, so I spent most of last week preparing for that exam. The fact that we’re one-third of the way through the semester would also explain why my first Greek philosophy paper of the semester is due today–so after spending most of Friday and Saturday catching up on sleep, I spent Saturday night and Sunday (i.e., yesterday) afternoon and evening finishing the paper.

Besides academics, the fact that we’re one-third of the way through the semester has also meant that it’s been time to buckle down for extracurricular activities as well. For instance, in addition to preparing for my physics exam last week, I spent a lot of time sending numerous e-mails regarding the CSC Dance Program,
of which I’m the co-president this year. The CSC Dance Program volunteers to teach after-school dance classes at various elementary schools in Baltimore, and this week is the first week of after-school programs for two of the schools where we’re volunteering this semester–hence the need for me to send confirmation e-mails last week asking volunteers whether they still intended to volunteer this semester, asking schools whether the proposed dance class days and times will work this semester, and so on. It was quite chaotic in the world of e-mail last week.

In addition, last week’s salsa practices for the OLÉ Dance Group were more serious than usual, since we’ll have an audition this week to determine whether or not we’ll perform in the annual Culture
Show (held by the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs) later this semester. Furthermore, I spent part of this weekend planning the choreography for part of this year’s Culture Show folk dance routine for the Filipino Students Association–and attending a two-hour-plus practice for FSA’s Culture Show audition.

By the way, even though I spent the past week and weekend being more serious about school and extracurricular activities, I still managed to socialize a bit. For instance, I spent part of Friday night at a potluck for the ballet company–unfortunately, not many people showed up to it besides the board members (including yours truly) and two freshmen, because a lot of company members were either sick or studying for exams)–and I spent part of Saturday afternoon climbing the rock wall at the rec center for the first time! Because I went to the rock wall when two of my freshman year housemates invited me to go with them, I consider that something I did to socialize–however, it was definitely a good workout, and now I intend to climb with them at least once a week.

To close this entry, I’ll show you a video I made on Friday afternoon in anticipation of this past weekend, which I’ll reiterate did prove to be fun and relaxing overall, despite the paper writing and dance choreographing/practicing!

Photo Captions: (1) These are the ingredients for my far-from-genuine version of the Indian dish chicken tikka masala. (2) Along the veins of not-from-scratch cooking, I used this pre-made cookie dough to bake cookies. (3) This is the food I brought to the ballet company potluck (and because not many people showed up to it, I brought at least half of it home as leftovers). (4) This is my side of the master bedroom that I share in an off-campus apartment–and yes, I know it needs some more decorations! I’m working on that little by little.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Later

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

There have been several student dance groups here at Hopkins over the past few years–but believe it or not, there hasn’t been a student ballet company until the end of the last semester! I used to dance ballet from elementary school to high school, but when I came to Hopkins, I was disappointed to find out that (a) there was no student ballet company and (b) most of the ballet classes offered at the Homewood campus, at Peabody, and at Goucher College didn’t fit into my schedule. It goes without saying that I was really excited when I found out about this year’s founding of the JHU Classical Ballet Company.

With that said, we were recently featured in an article in The Johns Hopkins News-Letter–to read the article, click here!

While I’ve mentioned the Filipino Students Association numerous times during this semester in my blog entries, I don’t think I’ve properly conveyed why this student organization is close to my heart. It’s true that part of the reason is that I’ve spent a lot of time working with this group in preparing for Culture Show and organizing other events over the past two years; however, even more so is that I love the people in it. Therefore, I’ve decided to discuss eight people in FSA, although there are other individuals in FSA who are also dear to me.

*****

AMETHYST: I first met Amethyst last year during my freshman seminar on tuberculosis, so when we saw each other at the first FSA meeting in September, we instantly recognized each other from class. Since then, I’ve been glad to have her as a friend. This year’s treasurer in FSA, Amethyst is a sophomore public health major. While she’s currently undecided whether she wants to be pre-med or not, Amethyst is passionate about public health; she spent this past summer volunteering with an epidemiology program of the Florida state government’s public health department. She’s also actively involved with Colleges Against Cancer, and she’s in her second year as a committee member for Relay For Life, which is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Furthermore, Amethyst is a mentor in MAPP (Mentoring Assistance Peer Program), and I hope that the freshmen who are her mentees realize how lucky they are to have her as their mentor (if they haven’t already)! If you get to know Amethyst, you’ll instantly love her infectious laugh and her tight hugs–she’s a very warm, welcoming person.

JEREMY: A senior economics major, Jeremy is the current president of FSA. He often works at Signatures, which is a stationery store on St. Paul Street that’s close to campus; whenever I walk down St. Paul Street and see him working at Signatures, I usually stop by to chat with him, since I barely see him around campus (aside from FSA events). Jeremy likes organizing potlucks, restaurant outings, and other social events, and he’s also a hilariously quotable guy. Last, but not least, he’s a good friend who’s willing to listen to you and try to comfort you if you’re stressed out or upset over something.

JOANNA: “JoJo,” as we call her, is a recent alumna; she graduated from the School of Nursing this past spring. Last year, when I was a freshman and she was a senior, JoJo was the president of FSA–and a great one at that! Despite having to commute from her apartment near the Homewood campus to the nursing school almost every day to attend classes and long clinicals, she managed to organize and oversee various FSA events throughout the year; furthermore, she was a mentor in MAPP (and JHU_Roxi was one of her mentees). Whether it was to underclassmen in FSA or MAPP mentees, JoJo was a very motherly figure who often took the time to check up on us to see how we were coping with our lives at Hopkins. I miss her–we all do. Ironically, of all the FSA alumni who are from the Hopkins Class of 2007, she’s the farthest from Baltimore, since she’s working as an ER nurse at the UCLA hospital–yet she’s the one who keeps in touch with us the most, from calling us periodically to sending a care package filled with Filipino food from the L.A. area!

JORGE: Jorge is a living example of how you don’t have to be Filipino to be a member of FSA! (He’s Guatemalan.) He joined FSA at the beginning of last year when a Filipina friend of his, Clarisa, asked him to join it with her because she didn’t want to join it alone. Meanwhile, she agreed to join the Chinese Lion Dance Troupe with him, so that he wouldn’t have to join it alone! Since then, while Clarisa (who’s now a sophomore applied mathematics major) has dropped out of the Chinese Lion Dance Troupe and remained in FSA, Jorge (who’s now a sophomore pre-med biology major) has remained in both. Anyway, Jorge has become a beloved member of FSA, not only because he enthusiastically attends and helps organize events, but also because he’s a very amicable guy. Even when he’s stressed over schoolwork, he always manages to put on a smile, and as a result, it’s hard not to smile and feel cheered up whenever you run into him around campus! Furthermore, Jorge is one of the most generous people I know, and he’s often doing favors for his friends without expecting anything in return–because of this, one of my friends has told me that he sometimes feels bad asking Jorge for a favor, just because he already is busy doing favors in general.

NIAN: While she’s one of my closest friends at Hopkins (as well as one of my suitemates), Nian (who’s also a sophomore) and I didn’t become friends instantaneously. Even though she and I were among the attendees of the first FSA meeting in September last year, we didn’t talk until after Culture Show in November. By then, two thirds of our freshman fall semester had already passed. Nonetheless, we somehow bonded quickly, and by the time the semester was over and it was time to go home for winter break, we were already pretty good friends. This year, Nian is FSA’s representative in the Inter-Asian Council (IAC), and she’s actively involved with many IAC activities as its cultural co-chair; she’s also a MAPP mentor and a sister in the Delta Xi Phi Multicultural Sorority (into which JHU_Stefanie has recently been inducted). You can read about Nian’s thoughts on extracurricular involvement in her recent guest blog entry. Nian is a public health major, and while she’s currently pre-med, she isn’t sure yet whether she’d rather pursue an M.D. or a Ph.D.–and she has strong feelings against individuals who look down on the fact that she’s not dead-locked on which of those two degrees she wants to pursue after college. Quote Nian: “I’m just a sophomore!”

PHILLIP RICO: I normally call him “Phil,” but I’ve decided to list his full first name just because I love the story behind it. Anyway, Phil is half Filipino and half Puerto Rican, hence the name “Phillip Rico”! Like Nian, Phil and I barely talked for the first two thirds of the fall semester of our freshman year; however, we started to talk and hang out more often during the last third of the semester (which, ironically, was when FSA got together less often, since Culture Show was over) and somehow became fairly close friends by the time we had to go home for winter break. Since then, we’ve become good friends, and he’s probably my closest male friend at Hopkins–he’s almost like a brother to me, and he even calls me “hermanita” (“little sister” in Spanish) sometimes. A very admirable trait about Phil is that he rarely lets himself get stressed out by his schoolwork; in fact, his overall chill persona somehow gives a mistaken impression that he doesn’t study at all! (But he does.) By the way, in case you’re interested in this kind of information, Phil’s a sophomore pre-med biology major; he’s also considering having a second major or a minor in psychology.

PRECIOUS: Precious is extremely quirky, but the more you get to know her, the more you realize what a brilliant (and golden-hearted) girl she is. She’s notorious for pulling pranks such as bringing Chinese take-out food to potlucks and insisting that it’s her own cooking, or for eating food on other people’s plates during meal times, but if you find the time to have a conversation with her, you can see that she’s much more mature than she might seem. Now a junior, Precious originally was a chemistry major who intended on pursuing a Ph.D. in the field, but she recently decided to be a pre-med anthropology major instead. Listening to Precious discuss how she decided to perform this seemingly sudden change of major and long-term plans is inspiring; in her words, she realized that she should do something because she’s passionate about it, and not just because she’s good at it. Outside the classroom, Precious is also involved in various activities, including being a MAPP mentor, an organic chemistry tutor, and an organic chemistry lab TA.

RODELL: The other active senior in FSA this year, Rodell is the vice president of FSA for the second year in a row, as well as my Culture Show dance partner for the second year in a row. While I barely interacted with him during the fall semester last year, I started talking and hanging out with him during the spring semester last year. He’s on the quiet side, so it might take a while to get to know him at first–for instance, he’s currently a chemistry lab TA, and one freshman I met this year who has Rodell as his TA told me, “Uh, he’s kind of quiet…I haven’t really talked to him…” However, once you get to know him, he’s a pretty nice guy to know. While he can tease you annoyingly like a sibling would, when he’s serious, you can have pleasant conversations with him–and, like the other amazing individuals mentioned in this entry, he’s a wonderfully supportive friend. Rodell is a chemical and biomolecular engineer, and he spent the last summer working for Bristol-Myers Squibb. As for his post-graduation plans, he’s in the middle of applying for several job positions–hopefullly, he’ll be accepted into a few!

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Now we interrupt this blog with a special Hopkins Interactive advertisement:

The members of Hopkins Interactive recently launched a Facebook group for prospective Johns Hopkins University students. In the group, prospective students can learn even more about Hopkins by looking at pictures, watching movies, accessing quick links to blogs, and more. Members of the group will also get monthly message updates with the newest insider information. To learn about how you can join Facebook and/or become a member of the group, check out this message board thread: click here.

As well, we wanted to remind you that each member of the Hopkins Interactive team has their own personal message board thread. These message boards are meant to be a place for prospective students to ask questions directly to current Hopkins students! These threads are organized by area of study. You can explore these personal message boards: click here. So, what are you waiting for? Go explore Hopkins…and while you’re at it, send a student a question or even just a friendly hello!

~The Hopkins Interactive Team

Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging …
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Do you remember my blog entry in which I mentioned how I only knew how to upload photos of the videos on my digital camera? Well, I’ve finally figured out to upload the videos themselves! Whee. The following are video clips from FSA and OLÉ dance practices for Culture Show, which will be tonight at Shriver Hall.

The first video clip is from an FSA dance practice, in which people are dancing tinikling. Tinikling is a traditional Filipino dance in which people hop between two bamboo poles, and according to Filipino tradition, their movements imitate that of the tikling bird:

The following is a video clip taken from the same FSA dance practice, in which people are dancing modernized tinikling while hopping between masking tape that marks where bamboo poles are supposed to be. The bamboo poles were being used by people dancing traditional tinikling, as seen in the previous video clip:

This video clip is of my friend Miriam and her boyfriend Vanti practicing some steps in a “shine” portion of OLÉ’s salsa routine for Culture Show:

Here are Craig (my salsa partner during performances) and Rachel (a senior in OLÉ Dance Group) practicing the same steps:

This is a video clip of yours truly practicing (and messing up) the same steps:

Last, but not least, here are Pablo (a sophomore in OLÉ Dance Group who helped choreograph this year’s Culture Show dance routine) and Gilberto (a senior and one of the two co-coordinators of OLÉ Dance Group) practicing the same steps:

During the past week, I took several video clips from recent FSA (Filipino Students Association) and OLÉ (La Organización Latina Estudiantil) dance practices for Culture Show with my digital camera. (By the way, Culture Show is an annual showcase of cultural performances by various student organizations–you can read my blog entry about last year’s Culture Show to get a better idea about it.) However, I haven’t been able to figure out yet how to upload the video clips, so I’ve uploaded photos of frames from those video clips for now. (Photos 1-4 are from an OLÉ dance practice, and Photos 5 and 6 are from an FSA dance practice.) Stay tuned for the videos!

It’s already the last weekend before finals?!?!?

Friday, April 27, was the last day of classes. Since then, the campus has been alternating between celebrating the end of classes and studying for final exams/working on final projects. For me, as soon as the last midterm for Cognitive Neuroscience (and hence my last class of the semester) was done on Friday, I relaxed. Okay, I’m sorry. I just lied. I didn’t relax. Instead, I went to an OLÉ Dance Group practice at the Mattin Center’s dance studio, had an hour-long break in which I chatted with some friends at the library, and returned to the Mattin Center’s dance studio to take a ballet class. Then I went to a dinner that the underclassmen of the Filipino Students Association threw for the FSA seniors. It’s an annual tradition for FSA to eat dinner at a restaurant at the end of the year, and the underclassmen would chip in to pay for the seniors’ meals. Because there are seven seniors in FSA this year, however, we did something different: we reserved a patio of the apartment building where JoJo (i.e., the senior who’s the president of FSA) lives, and we held a dinner there. We chipped in money to order steamed crabs and buy beverages and desserts (i.e., ice cream and muffins), and my friends Amethyst and Gabby prepared chicken bog and potato salad. By the way, chicken bog is a delicious Southern dish that Gabby, who’s from South Carolina, introduced to us all; it consists of rice, chicken, sausage, and seasonings. Also, the photos from the FSA dinner are Jeremy’s; this is the same Jeremy mentioned in my blog entry about Relay for Life. I decided to include a photo of him and JoJo in this blog entry, because JoJo is this year’s president, and Jeremy will be next year’s president.

Last night (i.e., Saturday, April 28) was the First Annual Eclectics Dance Showcase, which was hosted by the Eclectics Dance Group. While the show featured mostly numbers by the Eclectics, it included guest performances by the JHU Modern Dance Company, the OLÉ Dance Group, and two dance groups from University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). I danced in a salsa routine to the song “Ella Volvió” with OLÉ (a link to the song’s music video is in my previous blog entry), and it was nothing but fun! I also saw parts of the other dance groups’ routines, and I thought they were good. What a fun evening of dance!

The following is a video that my friend Clarisa took of OLÉ’s salsa routine–FYI, I’m the girl at the far left at the beginning of the video:

That expression aptly describes how I felt this week. After nine days of relaxation at home for spring, returning to the busyness of Hopkins campus life this week was like jumping into a cold swimming pool on a hot day. It was refreshing, but at the same time, a little overwhelming. I wasn’t carefree in terms of academics, with homework assignments to complete and exams for which to study. In addition, while I love my extracurricular activities, they felt more routine this week than usual.

Don’t misunderstand what I’ve just typed. Despite the stress, I like my classes and activities! I’m just saying that nothing is completely peachy keen, my academic and extracurricular passions included. Okay, so what helped keep me sane this week? First, getting sleep whenever I could. Second, taking the time to chat with friends and acquaintances whenever I could. Third, playing piano at the Mattin Center’s practice rooms whenever I could. Furthermore, these are a few fun things that happened this week that don’t happen on any week:

1. FONDUE NIGHT: Last night, my RA held a small fondue party in her room for me and my housemates! She had banana slices, pretzels, and strawberries that we could dip into pots of melted dark chocolate, white chocolate, or vanilla dip. Yum! After a long day, hanging out with my housemates while eating banana slices with melted vanilla dip was a huge treat for me.

2. HOPKINS INTERACTIVE ONLINE CHAT: On Tuesday night, some of us SAAB-ers participated in a Hopkins Interactive online chat; the people who chatted that night besides me were JHU_Adam (albeit briefly), JHU_Andrew, JHU_Jackie, JHU_Liny, JHU_Ramy, JHU_Roxi, and JHU_Tanmay. I can’t speak for the others, but I thought it was pretty fun to be chatting with those of you who participated in it! If you weren’t in that chat but would like to talk online with SAAB-ers, visit this page for more information about future chats: http://apply.jhu.edu/hi/chat/chat.html

3. VIJAI NATHAN: Earlier tonight, I watched the comedienne Vijai Nathan perform a comedy routine and and her one-woman show “Good Girls Don’t, But Indian Girls Do” at the Bloomberg auditorium. The event was co-hosted by the multicultural sorority Delta Xi Phi, SASH (South Asian Students at Hopkins), and the fraternity Sigma Chi. It also ended up being like a mini SAAB event, since I saw both Ramy and Tanmay at the auditorium. (I think Liny was there as well!)

I’m tired, so I’ll go to bed now. Good night!

N.B. I got all of these photos from various websites; none of them is mine.