Caught in Between

hello all!

hope you had a wonderful weekend.

i’m writing to you after a whirlwind week that included lions (phi mu rush) and a bat (no joke) as well as my computer’s hard drive taking a turn for the worse, a big interview, and the (real) start to the semester. phew.

our phi mu mascot, sir fidel the lion.

so to recap….

last week was the beginning and end of formal recruitment period for the sororities on campus. we began on saturday with “ice water” and had several back-to-back days of big events, voting, girl flirting, and generally fairly exhausting, extremely organized socializing. on thursday night we got 38 fabulous new phi mu’s, and i’m so excited to get to know all of them! friday night we had sister dinners, a hilarious and great way to meet all of the new girls. and Lucie Fink, another SAAB-er, is one of our fab new additions.

after a very late rush event, my lovely roommate woke me up to inform me that there was a bat hanging from her ceiling. a bat. i struggled to comprehend what she could mean (8 am practical joke?) but the look on her face confirmed she was quite serious. a few calls to maintenance later, a bat exorcism was performed with a large cardboard box and a broom, while our landlady screamed hysterically (at least it wasn’t in her room).

not the nicest way to start the morning, but it did make for a funny story, and a lot of confused looks. our apartment is otherwise great though, and laura’s mom brought us a couch this past weekend so we now have seating for more than just the two of us. our previous arrangement was fine but resulted in a lot of games of charades and spontaneous dancing, as in any group larger than two or three, it was standing room only. it’s now looking much better and a lot more useful.

last week, though actually the second week of the semester, was for all intents and purposes the real beginning. work picked up, classes ran all the way through the allotted time, meetings began, and the library was filled with more than just people getting coffee.

for my first real week back from abroad, this was a bit overwhelming. between school, rush, preparing for an interview, and fending off bats, i hit the ground running.

crazy busy first week!

i had a very exciting interview for a summer position in washington d.c. this past friday, but it seems like bad karma to give any more details so ill be silent on the subject until my plans are more definite.

on the way to the interview, heading out the door, i decided to print an extra copy of my resume (heeding the career center’s advice). if any of you have a mac you’ll know the significance of what I saw when I opened my computer…the blank white screen with the sad question mark. that, coupled with a crazy clicking noise coming from somewhere inside my laptop, told me i would not be printing my resume anytime soon.

after marinating in its problems for a couple of days, the laptop has been resuscitated by the lovely people at the apple store. luckily they are amazing and i clearly looked pretty distraught, so i now have some/most of my files back, on a brand spanking new hard drive. the casualties were my entire itunes library and all of my pictures from abroad–which to be honest, i would have traded my files from freshman year for, but i didn’t get to choose, despite making puppy eyes at everyone in the store.

my laptop is now the proud owner of a brand new case (just try to break again) and I will be backing up my files much more frequently in future, as my parents kindly pointed out that my external hard drive is actually not a desk accessory.

my phi mu "family"

it’s been a good, if busy, start to the semester, but hopefully this week will be a bit less insane, with a few less woodland creatures in my apartment.

until next time,

-Lauren B

p.s. sorry for the boring pictures this week, as i said, my pictures are all gone!

posted by Lauren B.

So we’ve just had possibly the longest snow day (week) on record, and in the spirit of keeping the snow day going, I’d like to talk about the least academic thing I do at Hopkins. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I’m in a sorority….

We just finished up rush week, so after theme parties and pref rounds and endless flirting with girls, we now have 53 lovely new pledges, or “babies” as we refer to them. The new Phi class really is amazing, and it happens to have two of our lovely SAAB-ers in it, as well (Sarah and Becca)!

Last year I blogged about my decision to join a sorority, and I have definitely loved it, but it was much different being on this side of the process. It was so exciting to meet girls in the rush room, and so frustrating to not be able to talk to them outside of our parties–Phi Mu, and the other Panhellenic sororities at Hopkins, follows a “Strict Silence” policy up to and during formal recruitment to make sure everyone is given a fair shot and not influenced by any older girls they already know in a particular sorority.

I had spent tons of time during intersession in the Blackstone, an off campus apartment where our rush chair lives, painting crazy huge banners and putting my minimal art skills to work. I contributed painting by numbers talent and neat handwriting, while the more artistic Phi Mus worked on drawing Mr. Mint, Queen Frostine, and the other Candy Land inhabitants. It was exciting to see all the hard work that everyone put in pay off when the rushes got there and saw the huge banners, hundreds of cupcakes, and piles of candy.

The last night of rush, Preference (Pref) Night, is a much different night than the rest of rush, which can otherwise tend toward the screaming clapping summer camp variety of party. I think Pref can best be described as date night with a sorority sister…I think Becca K. can back me up on this one, and hopefully I didn’t creep her out too much, but I was so excited to be able to pref her!

After pref, we all go home and eagerly wait to hear which girls will be a part of our newest pledge class. Rush is a “mutual selection process” so throughout rush we are voting, and the freshmen are ranking their favorite sororities. On bid day you receive a formal bid from only one sorority, who is offering you a place in their pledge class. Our lovely pledges wear white on bid night, and we get the chance to finally talk to them and get to know them a bit better! This year we got amazing Lady Gaga shirts for bid day, while last year our shirts were gossip girl-esque.

My favorite part of this whole thing though has been getting to know the amazing baby Phis! We threw a dinosaur themed party, dressed them up in crazy visors with their names on them (my apartment looked like a glitter bomb exploded when we made those ones), and generally tried to get to know these 50 some-odd girls really well! We’ve schlepped through an unprecedented 2 feet of snow with them, gone sledding, dancing, eating, and this Wednesday they’ll all be attending their first ever Phi Mu date party, in downtown Baltimore! I hope they’re all as excited as we are!

Hopefully you’ll get another perspective on this whole crazy process from Becca, Sarah or Lauren Carney, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on rush and explain what on earth I’ve been doing these past few days/weeks…as it certainly hasn’t been schoolwork.

So over the past few weeks I’ve been going out and celebrating with my big, playing in the endless snow, meeting the new Phis, and baking with my roommates when we got cabin fever on snow day number 4.

Hope everyone is having a lovely winter!

-Lauren

So unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard that the east coast has had some serious snowfall this past weekend. I’m currently back at home, in lovely Summit, which has been blanketed under about 10 inches of snow. It looks great, and has given me a great excuse to do absolutely nothing. Since getting home on Friday afternoon in the worst holiday traffic I’ve ever seen (six hour drive from Baltimore? no thank you) I’ve done very little, save Christmas shopping and some playing in the snow. It’s been wonderful, and a great antidote to the stress of the past few weeks.

Probably the cutest picture of the snowstorm (Thank you, New York Times)

As mentioned before, I had a fairly atrocious exam schedule, where I took four tests in 48 hours. Luckily, those four finals fell as the very end of  exam period, so I had plenty of time to prepare, but it was still quite overwhelming. I’ve always known I’ve worked better under pressure, but I think this was a bit too much. Needless to say, I’m glad it’s over, and now I’m just nervously awaiting my grades. Unfortunately I have a Blackberry so my emails come through to my phone, surprising me at inopportune moments with that horrid phrase “A new grade has been posted to your ISIS account.” Now it’s just a waiting game, but I’ve come to the very Zen-like realization that there’s nothing I can do about it. Thus, I am in full holiday celebrating mode.

Home Sweet Home!

I’m now at the start of a wonderful winter break. My high school friends are slowly making their way back to NJ right now, and I get to have a full week with them before Christmas hits. My town has a really nice tradition of placing candles out on Christmas Eve, so my house has been overrun the past few days with neighbors organizing this, as my Mom takes charge of our neighborhood’s “Luminaries” every year. It looks really beautiful every year, and will be even better this year in the snow.

My Dad and I in the snow last night.

The highlight of this year’s break might just be the trip to New Orleans. Out of sheer luck, my roommate Laura will happen to be there at the same time, visiting friends and family. I’ve never been there, nor has anyone in my family, so it’ll be great to be shown around the city by some (almost) natives. The other serious benefit of this travel situation is that it limits the amount of time I have to spend sans-roommate. After living with someone and seeing them round the clock for a full semester, it’s very very strange to be apart.

One of my roommates and I before formal.

I’ll actually be back at Hopkins for all of Intersession this year, which is a big change from last year when I loafed about in London with some old friends, and attempted to find entertainment in the NJ suburbs while all my friends were back at school. It was a relaxing time, but I nearly lost my mind of boredom, and I can’t wait to get back to Hopkins. I’ll be working in Admissions, and taking a class called “Free Will and Determinism, a Psychological Perspective.” I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it seems really interesting and I’ll be taking it with a friend as well….and it’s pass-fail.

More from Winter Formal!

I’m excited to be back for Intersession as it kind of gives me a middle-ground with returning to school. I only have classes 2 or 3 days a week, so I have plans to visit my best friend from high school at Notre Dame, swing through Chicago to see my cousin and her new baby, and head back to Summit with my friend Megan to celebrate her amazing 20th birthday. Hopefully I’ll also be able to fit in some day trips to Washington DC and Philly to visit more high school friends, but I’m really excited about having so much time to travel while still being at Hopkins.

More frolicking in the snow.

Even though I’m still winding down from this semester and how incredibly busy it’s been, I’m so exciting for what’s coming up in the spring. I have a bunch of great classes (and luckily, fewer than last semester), I’m going to be training to be a tour guide, might be working at an internship, and the spring is always so fun anyway. Right after we get back from break, official recruitment and rush begin, which will be so fun. I can’t wait to be on the other side of the process, and I’m excited to get a great group of new Phis.

This has been a great semester and I’m so happy to be home recuperating from everything. I hope you all have a wonderful and restful holiday season and a happy new year.

-Lauren

p.s. CONGRATULATIONS NEWLY ADMITTED CLASS OF 2014!!!

So I’ve disappeared for the last few weeks, and I’m sorry to be MIA! I’ve had a super busy end of October/early November, and I’ll try to re-cap it all in a few blogs.

So last I posted it was right before Halloween, and I was super excited to dress up. Naturally none of those costume choices worked out and I ended up dressing as a Harajuku kid from Tokyo, which was probably the best costume idea I’ve ever come across, as it enabled me to wear a ton of goofy clothes, thus being warm enough for the slightly chilly night, and I also looked insane.

My roommates dressed up as a frog and a geisha, and we encountered included several vampires, Hello Kitty, ladybugs, 80s work out gear, etc. It seems everyone at Hopkins was down in Fells Point, as well, which was really fun. Interesting skill I learned? I now know how to do traditional geisha hair, courtesy of a 10 minute long Youtube video. So useful.

A harajuku kid, a frog, a geisha, a soldier, and then a Telletubby, below.

Post-Halloween continued with more celebrations, as my sorority (Phi Mu) had its annual Halloween date party, which was actually after Halloween as our pledge class had midterms galore the week of the 31st. It was great to continue the absurd costume fun, though. My roommate’s mom is really involved with the theatre department at her high school, and she’s in charge of all the costumes. So we all headed back to her house that weekend, made millions of shortbread cookies, grocery shopped, and tried on 4,000 dresses. We decided as a group to go in crazy ’80s dresses, which was an excellent call, as we found more sequined, shoulder pad-ed creations than I even knew existed.

My roommate, Laura and I, at formal, and

spelling O-H-I-O…a lot of my friends are from the Midwest.

After the fun of formals and Halloween and whatnot, things did settle back into a routine at school. October has been pretty busy with work, and somehow I chose a truly appalling schedule where I had midterms every week from September until this past Friday. Kind of unreal, but it did give me a crash course in time management. I’ve taken on a lot more on-campus activities this year, so it’s been a challenge to keep up to date with SAAB responsibilities, homework, work work, tutoring, studying, Phi Mu stuff, community service, and whatnot. I definitely wouldn’t give up any of these things, and I’m really interested in my classes this semester, but it’s really been difficult to not let anything slip up. In speaking to upperclassmen though, it seems almost unanimous that sophomore fall is one of the toughest semesters, so I feel pretty good about what’s coming in the spring. Other exciting things in the spring include applying for study abroad–and in the mean time, figuring out where exactly it is I want to be next fall.

Speaking of spring classes, we had registration this past week. I am notoriously bad at registering–past mishaps have included my computer crashing, trying to register at a party, and failing to choose a single class for my major. All successes. This term, I registered at lovely 7:01 am, and still only managed to get into 3 classes (9 or 10 credits, I believe). 12 credits makes me a full-time student, so as of now I’m only kind of going to Hopkins next semester. Luckily my past registration failures have taught me that Hopkins professors are really kind, so I’m not too concerned, I’ll just be making a few strategic office hour visits in the next week to convince these professors that actually they really, really want me in their classes.

Final exciting October/November activities included Parents Weekend, and my roommate Eve’s 20th birthday. So excellent. We went to Charles Village favorite cafe, Carma’s, and had a baking extravaganza that included gluten free brownies, rice krispy treats, and chocolate chip cookies. We also spent far too much time decorating the suite.

Laura and I with Eve’s birthday cakes, and Eve, celebrating her birthday and our crazy decorations.

Right now I’m back in lovely NJ for a wonderful break from school. It’s great to be home, but I’m excited to get back to Hopkins–the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is so much fun!

-Lauren

p.s. another blog is coming soon with more updates, and hopefully information about what classes I’ll be taking in the spring!