Caught in Between

Dear Jess,

I just thought you’d find this amusing…mostly because I know you must be missing my ridiculous antics over there on the other side of the equator.

So the other day I was at the gym and this whole time I’ve been here I’ve thought that I was just a super huge disaster and weak because I haven’t been able to lift as much as before and in the states.

WELL as it would turn out today I was lifting on a machine and suddenly realized that they are in Kilograms, so I’ve been lifting half as much as I used to because it’s 2 lbs to the kilo. Yea. Story of my life.

ALSO…I’m really going to have to learn to listen better and not just rely on sign language with people  who have strange and slightly unintelligible chilean accents. Today I was at a friend’s house before a soccer game (more about that game some other time, maybe not the wisest decisions of my life – it’s classified as the most dangerous soccergame in Chile) and he showed me to his bathroom, right? So he was explaining something about the door to me and I just assumed that he was telling me i needed to latch the door or it would fly open. Then, at the last minute after closing the door I realized that what he actually might have said was, “don’t close the door completely it will jam.”

So I started trying ot get out and find that the handle is absolutely unmoveable and there was no way I was going to get that door open. Then what was my genious plan? I decided that instead of yelling and making a scene, I would just jump out the window on their patio and try to open the door from the outside. Well, so I manage to hoist myself out the window but as I jump down EVERYONE in the livingroom where we had been hanging out turn and look at me like, “Why did that gringa just jump out the bathroom window?!”.

So the owner of the apartment then hoists his roommate through the same window that I had just jumped out of, and she opens the door on the first try. Turns out all I had to do was lift the handle up, not down like usual.

Note to self: learn Spanish.

So this week’s common blog topic is “Why Hopkins?”…but I think that my answer will be a bit of a departure from Jess’ response.

Like I’ve said before, my path to Hopkins was anything but ordinary. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really know anything about Hopkins when I applied, and I didn’t even seriously consider it until after getting it. I never appreciated how hard it was to get in until I got to the Homewood campus, all I knew was that Hopkins was renowned for medicine. With the single goal in mind of eventually becoming a doctor, I basically closed my eyes, stepped up to the edge of the VERY vast unknown, decided to make the best of anything that was to come, and jumped.

And it is from that perspective that I’m going to write. Not as someone who was super sure and hell bent on going to Hopkins, but as someone who had to discover for herself why Hopkins was ultimately the right choice and what it has afforded me. This semester, I’ve had the fantastic opportunity to be able to study abroad, so here are the things I miss most about Hopkins…in no paticular order because it’s hard enough for me to switch back to English, let alone truly have a coherent thought ;).

Great friends: I have met some of the most interesting, talented, and inspiring people in my time at Hopkins. They come from all walks of life: north, south, Cali or Florida. I have friends who grew up in rural America and friends who have lived all over the world and speak languages I’ve never heard of. If you open yourself up to meeting people and put yourself out there, I can say with no hesitation that there will be someone at Hopkins who you will be fast friends with. From astro-physics to cheerleading, we have students interested in everything. And these people have turned out to be some of the best friends I’ve ever had. They have stuck by me through thick and thin, and when I didn’t have my family to turn to during hard times, they stepped up to the plate, bought ice cream, and gave me something to lean on while I weathered the storm. So many of us travel far from home to go to Hopkins, and your friends really do become your family. Sure, it’s somewhat out of necessity, but we are all in the same boat, and that’s a bond not easily broken. I can’t wait to see what some of my colleagues do with their lives, there are some pretty big dreamers walking around campus! People never laugh at your dreams or tell you something is impossible. The Hopkins student body is incredibly supportive and you never have to be ashamed of who you are.

Springtime on campus: There is nothing cooler than sitting in the Lower Quad in April when the cherry trees are blossoming and catching up on a reading for class. I know I for one get caught up in classes and extracurriculars and running from here to there in the semester, but we really do have one of the most beautiful campuses…in the world (haha I just say that because I’m currently enrolled in 2 foreign universities but neither takes my breath away like Hopkins does). And not only is campus beautiful, but when springtime comes around so does lacrosse season (and TONS of Hopkins spirit), Spring Fair, and a plethora of other activities that would take me a lifetime to denotate. I miss the artisans sitting outside Levering Hall, and the concerts on the beach. For my birthday last year my friends threw me a little picnic on the beach while there was a live band, and that’s one of my favourite college memories. Baltimore in the fall and in the spring is so much fun, the temperature is perfect for just lounging  ouside or going for a long walk with no destination in mind.

Once in a lifetime opportunities: There are SO many opportunities available to Hopkins students if you just reach out and grab them. Students partake in cancer research and behavioral developmental studies. They do amazing social work in the Baltimore area and they travel to countires like South Africa or Ecuador. Speaking from experience, for those students who want to study abroad, there are SO many opportunities to go to a foreign country and not fall behind in your studies. From my experience, my advisors were nothing but supportive, and everyone I spoke with was more than happy to help me figure out how to be pre-med and still get to come to Chile to broaden my experiences in health care. Jess is traveling to Brazil to further her Public Health research and Camilla has been in London for a year studying international relations. I know people that have done genomic research in Ireland and a writing seminar major currently in India. But even if you have no desire to leave Hopkins (which I don’t blame you for, campus life is dynamic and I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to miss a minute of it) there are hundreds of volunteer organizations and student led groups that let you meet new people and do something you lovee. I got to teach music in a Baltimore City School 2 years ago and it was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. If i could give one piece of advice, it would be to not be afraid of biting off more than you can chew. Never say no to something you might be interested in, and try saying yes to a couple things you’re pretty sure aren’t your cup of tea, at least every couple of times you should be pleasantly surprised.

Stimulating (and RELEVANT!) classes: Even at Hopkins I get funny looks when I say that my favourite class was Biochemistry. ‘What I loved was that the class demanded a depth of knowledge that had never been asked of me before, and it was never enough to just go over the lectures and read the slides. You had to actively read the textbook, draw conclusions and find similarities between material from the first day to really understand what in the world was going on. It was like a puzzle, and once you put that last piece in and look at the finished work all the smaller details make sense and you feel so very proud. And that’s what happens to people in every department. If you love what you’re doing, you’ll love doing it here. I’ve had professors in every department from Art History to Chemistry, Spanish to Environmental Engineering, and every class that I’ve taken, though I may not remember every single tiny detail, has left me with a little something to apply to my life. Spanish gave me a basis for my conversational skills while I’ve been in Chile, Biochemistry helped me truly understand what I was doing in my lab research, Biostatistics has changed the way I read articles in the NEJM, and my Sociology of Latin America class helped me understand the radical tradition in Chile and now that I’m here, I have the unique opportunity to directly examine the impact a modern 16 year dictatorship had on the people. If you let them, you will find your classes becoming part of your everyday life – and for me personally, it was as if school finally became relevant.

Gilman: It breaks my heart that the newest batch of Hopkins matriculat-ees (uhm yea that would be me losing my English vocabulary) won’t get to wander into the basement of Gilman the first day of classes and try and figure out where in the world is a staircase that will take them back to the 1st floor. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: those staircases moved… I love that building.

So those are the things that I physically miss, those are the reasons sometimes when I’m feeling lonely aborad I wish I could just pick up and go home (and by home I mean Hopkins, haha). Studying abroad has made me truly appreciate the flexibility that we have as Hopkins students. Here, you enter college on a particular path and almost nobody changes (and if you do change your mind, you have to start from square one, credits don’t usually transfer). Without Hopkins’ flexibility, I would have never found Public Health, and becoming a Public Health major was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

When I get back to Hopkins, I get to take classes at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the thing I’m most nervous about isn’t wither or not the classes will be difficult, it’s narrowing down the list of classes I want to take there! International Health systems, Biomechanics of Nutrition…I don’t know how I’m ever going to chose between the fantastic assortment of classes they offer. But the best part is I’m in now way shape or form obligated to be purely Public Health. I want to take an Intro to Farsi course next fall, and if I have enough time there is a course of the History of Conflict in the Middle East I’d love to take. As Hopkins students we have some of the best faculty anywhere in so many different areas. I can diversify my education and become as rounded (or as sharply specialized) as I want, and no matter what my choice is, the caliber of professor and instruction won’t change. For someone who loves to learn just to learn, like me, that’s been the best part about being a Hopkins student.

Well. This year I find myself blogging not quite about my room or house, but about my city. Why, you may ask, a city? Well as it would turn out, this semester my place of residence is Santiago, Chile, in a part of town called Providencia in a wonderful apartment building with my adopted Chilean host family, who are maybe some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

There is a dad, Pato, mom, Marily, Constanza, who is 11 years old, and Vicente, who is 9. (I think it’s a good sign when as I’m typing this i wrote “Constanza, who has 11 years” the first time through…”jaja”!).

The city is incredible. It is in a valley so there are mountains, called the caudilleras, to the east and it’s about an hour west through the coastal smaller mountain range to get to Valparaiso and Viña del Mar to get to the beaches.

Getting around is SO much easier and more pleasant than in Baltimore, or most US cities for that matter. You absolutely don’t need a car here, the metro takes me to most anywhere I need to be, and to get further out from the center of town there is a (somewhat confusing but functional none-the-less) bus system.

Weatherwise, I love it here! Until about noon and after 6 the temperature hoovers in the mid to low 70s and in the daytime it’s hot hot hot…close to 90 degrees. A BIG difference from Albany let me tell you. The people have been incredible, the program I am in has 3 full time staff who are incredibly helpful and kind and actually live by the “there are no stupid questions” rule. How cool is that?

And I mention that because coming to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language makes you basically feel like an idiot a lot of the time. There are so many little things that are just different (like paying for things in small shops or department stores, you pick out what you want, get a receipt, take the receipt to another place in the store, pay, then take the new reciept and your old reciept back to get your goods. The first time I went through that process I was utterly lost.

And there are so many Chilenismos (phrases unique to Chile, kind of like “wazzap” for Americans, if you live there they make sense, but an outsider who learned the pure, gramatically correct form of the language would never encounter in any textbook). So the last 4 weeks have been a supreme rollercoaster, ups and downs corresponding to minor victories in understanding my new host culture and steppig out of my comfort zone, like trying mote con huesillos (an apricot juice with a dried peach and corn drink people use to rehydrate here, and it’s DELICIOUS).

Don’t let anyone tell you that study abroad is easy. Maybe your classes aren’t as demanding as Hopkins, but there’s a whole emotional aspect I don’t think people usually think about. I miss my friends so much sometimes, being thrown together with 28 strangers, on the wrong side of the equator and having to figure out a new language AND take advantage of traveling and exploring a new country is pretty stressful. There’s a lot of pressure to learn the language, to make Chilean friends, to do this, to do that…and all the while get used to living in a new home with a family who you want to like you because you’ll be living with them for the next 4 months and who wants to get off on the wrong foot?

BUT! Despite all the hardship and sometimes the dissapointment that comes with trying to make a new friend group, I couldn’t be happier. I’m only a month in and this has been the most incredible experience of my life, and I’m pretty sure it’s only going to get better! Next weekend I’m traveling to a volcano to go hiking and horseback riding, then we’re planning a trip across the Andes to Argentina to a wine town…and hopefully after that I’ll start traveling north. :)

I’ve gotta run though, my family and I eat dinner together every night, so I’m off to cenar. Disfruta mi video y no puedo esperar mostrarles mis otras fotos!

Can’t wait to talk to you again Jess. I’m glad you got through all those applications … they’d be absolutely insane not to want you working for them this summer!

So Il guess I’ll start at the begining.

True story, even though I’ve worked my butt off for the last 3 years to study abroad, as soon as I got on the plane bound for Santiago, I wanted nothing more than to get off and run back toward home. I couldn’t believe that I was ready for living on the wrong side of the equator from my family, my friends, my boyfriend, and (perhaps most importantly) apple pie.

4 1/2 months isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things, but everything about this country seems new. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like a kid all the time, discovering new things and trying to figure out how the world around me works -- knowing how to survive in an American city is far different from survival in the Chilean metropolitan.

Thank goodness I couldn’t turn back, because I would have missed out on so much! I made a movie of the trip my group took to the south of Chile to the island of Chiloè. It was absolutely beautiful , I’ve never seen anything like it! I’m that kid that has lived in the city all her life, and while we were there there was a clear night where you could see hundreds of stars and even the milkey way. I’ll absolutely never forget that image. It’s just no fair, if you ask me, that there are people who get to live amongst such beauty

I’ve also visited some universities and am in the process of chosing which classes I’m going to take. It’s certainly weird being in the process of class selection while the rest of my friends are coming up on midterms and spring break! Oh well… :) Vamos a ver.

Santiago is just amazing. It’s actually a very pretty city, not all grey and dirty like some American cities I know. There are trees everywhere! Streets don’t look like streets because you’ve always got a canopy of green above you. And the metro system is great. it’s so nice not having to worry about having a car to get around, plus it’s super convenient to get anywhere in the city and even in the country.

Tomorrow I’m going to the home of Pablo Neruda (Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet) and a port city called Valparaiso and some friends and I will spend the weekend on the coast at the beach (I’m trying to make the most ouf of my second summer of the year).

As it stands, I can already tell that my spanish is getting better. It’s going to take a bit before I’m actually thinking/operating/living in Spanish, but there’s no doubt in my mind that immersion is the only way to force yourself to really learn a language and how to speak it correctly, especially with all the crazy “chillenismos” that they use here…it’s almost like learning a whole new language with all the phrases and the accent they only use here.

Right so there’s a tango concert in the park next to my house so I’m going to check that out. Chao Chao!!

…and I love it.

So Saturday was my MCAT and I’ve been celebrating/living my life ever since. And what, exactly, have I been up to you may ask?

I know, maybe not everyone’s idea of relaxation, but I’m in a program called ProjectHEALTH and part of the program is taking responsibility for your clients, and seeing as I’m leaving the country, I wanted to make sure that mine were in good hands before I left.

So what is ProjectHEALTH? Basically it’s an organization manned by college students who want to help low income families provide for their children. What we do is help those families with the socioeconomic factors that would normally harm the health of their children and get them in touch with the public services they qualify for.

So what exactly is a socioeconomic factor? Well, what about having adequate food for a  growing child? Maybe the parent is unemployed (lets face it, college graduates have trouble finding jobs, what if all you had was a high school diploma or less?, and on top of that you having to provide for yourself and your kids?), there are programs like WIC (Women, Infants, and Children that provides vouchers to pregnant women and mothers with children under 5 for them to buy the kinds of food important to growing kids like eggs, milk, and bread) or Food Stamps. We have databases with local food pantries and we help clients find places close to them if they don’t have transportation.

And there are plenty of other resources we help clients get in touch with. I’ve helped clients fill out the paperwork to get everything from Birth Certificates to passports, energy assistance to…well, you name it.

ProjectHEALTH Website

Check out the website but do be forewarned: it’s a huge commitment. This isn’t one of those show-up-once-a-week-and-you’re-done kind of organizations. Part of what we do is weekly followups with the families we’re helping on top of physically being at the clinic for 2 hours a week.

Truth be told, ProjectHEALTH has probably been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done at Hopkins thus far. The Homewood campus is really an oasis, and undergraduates are pretty effectively sheltered from the realities that face the greater Baltimorean population. Having to provide for yourself and a child at age 19 isn’t exactly the kind of situation your typical Hopkins student has experience with, but I can’t recall a single visit to the clinic where I didn’t see teen moms younger than I am and I still can’t imagine being in their shoes.

In other news, my final days in Baltimore were sad and exciting at the same time. I made a trip down to Washington D.C. to get my student visa to study in Chile (and ran into the Johns Hopkins SAIS campus, small world, eh?) finally made it out to Fort McHenry like I’ve wanted to the last couple of years, and threw an alien themed birthday party for a really good friend. I’ll miss you Baltimore…but the countdown to Chile has begun!

I have a confession to make…I’m a hopeless tool. Jess, I need you back in the library so I stop making a fool of myself. I have a terrible habit of not plugging my earphones into my computer correctly and then when I put my music on it plays out loud but I have my earphones on and don’t realize it and everyone can hear my music.

And today’s genre is blue-grass/banjo/folk.

I’m so mortified.

And this isn’t the first time…

OKay…so maybe I’m being a little bit of a drama queen, but in the history of Intersessions this one, well, it wasn’t one of the better ones. I’ve been locked up in the library cramming for my MCATs.

It’s coming.

Oh good gracious it’s coming.

January 31st is the day my life officially ends. oh me oh my.

I’m actually at a loss of words for this blog. I think i’ve spent all my words on writing samples and relearning orgo, physics, bio, and chemistry.

Jess and I spent some quality bonding time on C level of the library and I think that I might be developing a vitamin D deficiency from being indoors so much…otherwise I’m great!

This is good though! I mean, in a slightly masochistic kind of way. Yes, I’m miserable, and yes, I’m an abysmal abysmal standardized test taker. But going through this process: studying and trying to deal with the stress that comes with the fact that this test is pretty darn important in the grand scheme of my medical school application, I think I’m finally sure that medicine is absolutely what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I’ve always hated testing, and one of the things that bothers me the most is when people ask about your scores or grades on anything. But that’s me on a soap box…anyway I’m not giving up. I’m just going to keep preparing and doing my thing and do my best.

And you know what? if it doesn’t go well, it’s not the end of the world. No standardized test is the end of the world, I don’t care what admissions counselors or college confidential says. If my sitting goes poorly this Saturday, I’m just going to collect myself and find a way to take the test again in a couple months. Not that I want to do bad or that I’m justifying a terrible score…but everyone has off days and I just hope this Saturday isn’t one of mine.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as badly as I want to get into medical school. I want to be like the doctors at the clinic I volunteer at. I love people and hate being sick…I want to be someone’s doctor who they trust with their health, that’s a huge amount of trust, but I want to be there for my patients. I I hope that every pre-med goes through this same…I guess you’d call it soul searching…before the MCAT.

Word to the wise: you’ll never make it through the pre-med process if you don’t really want it. It’s so easy to give up and switch majors or find another career and path that don’t include the medicinal hoops, but to stick with it? To get through the orgos and the MCATs and the applications and the waiting…it’s not easy, but having a clear purpose has probably been the only thing that got me through the last couple of weeks.

So on that note I’m heading back to the library!

Sorry no pictures…I took one of Jess on C level but my phone won’t bluetooth it to my computer. Jess, I hope you’re being fun outside of the library now that classes have started!!

Posted by Roxi R.

Before I begin ushering in the new year, I’d just like to say that Jess is probably one of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. While everyone else on campus was teetering around, bemoaning their finals schedules and how “awful” their lives were, not once did I see her lose her composure and put someone in their place (though I had half a mind to do it myself). Jess, your strength really is inspiring and I have personally learnt so much from seeing you go through this hard time. I feel confident in saying that there are very few people who could cope with a loss such as the one you suffered with your grace, and certainly fewer still who would manage their responsibilities  and school work as effectively as you did. That you thought of other kids in your classes and the “fairness” of extensions speaks to your character. I miss you and hope the holidays and being with family have been good for you!

All right, 2008. Your time has come and gone! Time for New Years Resolutions and the like! So lets see,  where to start:

I solemnly (do you “solemnly” do these kinds of things?)…well I solemnly none the less…resolve to have more dinner parties in 2009. The Christmas party was a raging success! I cooked my very first turkey, although I won’t lie there were some pretty hysterical moments preparing the little bugger, and there was SOOO much food! I even stole Daniel’s mom’s amaretto sweet potatoe and gingernap topping recipe :)

Also, I solemnly resolve to begin learning persian. I’m staying with my dad in Albany for the holidays and it’s rather embarassing not to know one’s own heritage. Therefore I’m going to suck it up and take a Persian class in the upcoming year. Probably when I get back from Chile, but by gosh if college isn’t the time to do it, when is? I was at a dinner party and apparently, step one to becoming persian is learning to belly dance, or maybe they just wanted a good laugh. Anyway I got this skirt with gold coins and it’s really not that bad…except for the whole hips thing, I’m  miserably discombobulated.

Furthermore, I solemnly swear that the next time I’m in Houston I will enjoy it. Albany is…north. I  never realized how much I appreciate palm trees being decorated for Christmas. And as far as I’m concerned a “white” christmas is overrated and I’m pretty sure it’s just another greeting card scam…like Valentines day! But the good news is I’ve finally got myself a legitimate wool winter coat and I’m learning how to, I believe they call it “layer”.

I also solemnly resolve to explore Baltimore more. I found a fantastic pizza shop down the street from Vacaros that also sells my favourite sliced meat ever. Plus Vacaros is just so good, I had an Amaretto Tiramisu and everyone else had canolis as a “get off campus and celebrate being done with finals” treat. That trip was great and I’ve decided that when I get back to Baltimore after study abroad I will find more hole in the wall establishments like that!

Plus all the usual: exercise, read more, call parents  more often, call grandparents more often than parents, upload facebook pictures sooner after events, dress better in the cold, don’t complain when I’m sick because I didn’t bundle up enough and went out in the snow, study more effectively so I can spend less time in the library, check email more often and  respond to messages in a more timely manner, compliment someone every day, make ancestors proud, stop getting gushy over romantic comedies, watch less romantic comedies, be less influenced by what I read in the news, figure out how bad the economy really is, support the commander in chief (EVEN up until Jan 20), take better care of my skin, learn to love my new haircut (I lost 5 inches through a slight misscommunication with my hairdresser), find something beautiful to appreciate at least once a day, learn how to snowboard without causing people on the chairlifts above me to break into hysterical laughter when I inevitably eat it, pay attention to mirrors less, take more pictures of/with the people I love, buy something plaid, try ethiopian food, sweat the small stuff less, and last but certainly not least: turn 21 so I can start lying about my age.

Oh, and kick butt on my MCAT :).

Looks like I’ve got a lot to do in 2009…1 day down, 364 to go.

And P.S. Jess – Yes, I’ll be bak at Homewood next week studying for my MCAT and I’ll be there until early February, when I’ll leave Baltimore and come back to Albany to get ready to take off for summertime in Chile :). When will you be back?

Posted by Roxi R.

Dear Jess,

I cannot believe how many finals you have. Seeing you in the library near broke my heart earlier this afternoon.

Please make my day and come to my holiday party this Saturday!Just take a 1 hour break from the library (it gets stuffy when you’re there too long!) and join us for a little dinner.

I promise there will be carrots and apple cider to your heart’s content!

Love,
-Roxi

Posted by Roxi R.

….I’m still learning every day. Today I officially had my last class of this semester and it feels absolutely surreal. Can I even fathom that my friends who are studying abroad have already been gone for a semester and they’re returning to me in the states? Absolutely not. Can I believe that somehow I have made it through 5 semesters worth of classes on this campus and have yet to fail out? Also shocking. But most of all, have I come to terms with the fact that next semester I will be thousands of miles away, on the wrong side of the world, living as a Chilean far from the insanity that usually accompanies the Hopkins lifestyle? HA.

So instead of looking towards the future (which currently includes my grandparents visiting on Friday, the Christmas party I’m hosting on Saturday – with a turkey, green bean casserole, and 3 kinds of pies!- and the traditional end of semester dinner my lab does on Sunday not to mention my Biostatistics final on Monday) I’m going to look back at what has kept me sane the last week and a half.

Haven’t heard of them? Neither have…most people, anywhere! Even my professor thought I was off my rocker, but for some reason their story struck something in me, and when I found out this wasn’t going to be just a run of the mill research effort, I couldn’t drop it. Maybe it’s my inner masochist but I stuck with it, painfully translating journal articles from Spanish, checking out book after book on South America for 1, or if I was lucky, 2 pages of information. I ended up with a 3 page bibliography, a pretty substantial amount of historical references for a science person!

I think at the end of the day I realized I had more than a “thesis”…I had a story to tell. A story that hasn’t been told before, and one that I learnt from myself. Sure, they’re obscure and maybe I do think they’re crazy for living in a desert, but they have been conquered time and time again, from the Tiwanaku to the Inca, Spanish to the English, but no matter how many civilizations have asserted dominance over them, they have preserved their unique traditions and way of life. They had incredible perserverence, and to this day have so much pride in their ancestors (they rose against the Chilean government and got to rebury 10 of their ancestors — what you may not know is that the Atacama Desert is home to the oldest mummies in the world, they predate the egyptians — a couple of years ago). I think its good to remember that every story is worth telling. None is too small or insignificant. I love my majors :)