Caught in Between

Hello friends,

In the spirit of the New Year, even though this is an old blog, I thought I’d make some resolutions.

are you not making resolutions? shame.

This is my first time back at Hopkins since last spring, and I want to make the most of it. Terrifyingly, this is the beginning of the end of my time here (countdown: 3 semesters) and even if I try to avoid thinking about it, the stacks of job applications, GRE books, and general proof of real life are everywhere I go these days.

maybe “be neater” should be one of my resolutions.

As I mentioned before, I’m now back on campus, settling into a charming (read: old) apartment on North Charles Street. My roommate Laura and I are finding out about fun things like electricity bills, parking tickets, and painting. A crash course in real life living.

But before I get too carried away talking about my apartment, though (more to come on this topic later), I’ll dive right into my resolutions.

1. Get organized at the beginning of the semester (no buying notebooks in the third week of classes). This should help with….
1.5 Keep up with reading for classes so I don’t suddenly have an entire book to read by tomorrow
2. Explore Baltimore (and Maryland) like a study abroad student.
3. Take better care of myself. I’m notorious for being sick…all the time, and after my little bout with pneumonia I’m not eager for this to continue into the new year. Go running at least a few times a week, learn how to cook properly and stop eating soup or cereal three meals a day, drink less coffee etc.
4. Once a week see someone I don’t usually hang out with (coffee with people who actually don’t live in my apartment building?!)
5. Save money for travel.
6. Keep in touch (I’m known amongst my friends at home for being terrible at this, and now I have a whole extra group of friends—from abroad—to keep in touch with as the year goes by)
7. Get. A. Job.
8. Read a book (not a textbook) every two weeks.
9. Do the things at Hopkins I talk about on campus tours but never get around to doing ($10 Tuesdays at Gertrudes, art classes, Peabody)
10. Never complain about being “bored.” Do something. I noticed when I was abroad I never ever said I was bored—and the people who did, freaked me out. Now that I’m back in the States there’s no reason to be bored here either, and I’m going to try to fill my time the same way I did when I was in South Africa—with new things, exciting things, and only the occasional day spent lounging on the couch.

one of the many “not bored” things i’ve done recently. impromptu trip to new york coincided with a huge snowstorm!

Hopefully writing these resolutions out—and online, where they’ll be forever—will help me stick to them. Classes resume on Monday and I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. And, big nerd that I am, I’m excited to put on my glasses, pack my backpack, and head out for another semester of intellectual stimulation. I’ve never been more of a Hopkins student. And just in time.

Happy 2011! Hope you are happy, healthy, and never bored.

Lauren

(This blog is a continuation from my most recent one: http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/shared/2010/11/butterflies/ In that one, I talked about my experience with Chem lab and how it taught me to use all resources available to me…in this blog, I’ll talk about what it’s actually like to be a TA for the course.)

Butterflies… I’ve never known what it was like to love a job before I got one earlier this semester as an Intro to Chemistry Lab Teaching Assistant. And as cheesy as it sounds, it gives me butterflies every time I step into the lab, ready to do work with students for 3 hours.

I would have never thought that I’d be in this position–when the possibility of it was mentioned to me as a freshman right after I’d completed the course, I thought it sounded cool and was interested. But by sophomore year, orgo had me feeling defeated and I never really took steps on being a TA until some of us got emails from the professor, Dr. Pasternack, this summer. So I bit my lip and applied, and well, here I am!

Lesson 1: Don’t count yourself out before someone else does…you never know what can happen!

no I don't usually look like this...if I did I would ruin experiments hehe

I was really nervous when I got the position because I honestly doubted myself and felt as if I was not good enough to do the job or as competent as the other students who were selected to be TAs. But at the same time, I was thrilled that I got to be one of the people I used to admire for their influence and ability.

Then the work began…we had to do a training module to ensure that we would know how to act in the case that large acid or base spills happened, that glass broke, that fire broke out, or that a student was injured by some chemical. Thankfully nothing major has happened this semester, but we always have to be on guard and able to respond if something does happen.

one of the posters used to warn students about the dangers of not wearing goggles in lab

The first day of lab was weird, because students were writing my name in the space entitled “TA name” on all of their assignments. As silly as that sounds, it was like “wow, I’m somebody’s something.” Some asked if they should call me “Miss” which was weird. But it was all so cool!

Lesson 2: Just because something is scary doesn’t mean it can’t be awesome at the same time… so don’t let prospects of scariness scare you away.

Then I began thinking, hmm, I wonder if they will like me? I wonder if they will think I am stupid if I can’t answer a question clearly? I was a student once and I know what students often thought of TAs…some were great, some didn’t know what they were doing, some were rude and pretentious jerks, some were down to earth. So when the professor told us to give out citations for improper footwear on the first day of lab, I was thinking “this i snot how I wanted to start out…seeming like a mean TA.” But it was my job and you do what your boss tells you to do so I did it, apologizing to each student and ensuring them that it was not going to adversely affect their grades or anything.

But after that, I got more comfortable with having to be the leader of my section, making sure students had on proper attire, shoes, and goggles. I walked around often to help students who were having experimental issues and just to check up on them. I rarely sat at my desk because I was too jittery at the thought of a student saying “Dominique! Dominique! I don’t know what to do!” (yea I heard a lot of my name this semester :P  )

the TAs desk...with attendance sheet and pencil.

Lesson 3: Discomfort can mean moving out of a place of complacency, which makes you a better leader…so it’s ok to be uncomfortable at times! It means growth.

I eventually got to know each of my students’ names after the 2nd week and made sure that they knew I knew who they were. I’m very big on remembering people and letting them know that I do remember them, because who doesn’t like to be remembered?

So my semester was spent fluttering from lab bench to lab bench, using my prior knowledge, knowledge from other TAs, and Dr. Pasternack’s very detailed lab notes to help my students (even saying my students gets me all weirded and  cooled out at the same time!)  I will say that one thing that has definitely helped me a lot is the ability to ask the 2nd year TAs for help, because there were some times where I did not know what to do for some experimental faux pas. And in the case that something happened where we didn’t know what to do, Dr. Pasternack was always a phone call away, in her office.

Lesson 4: Using fellow co workers is an awesome thing.

The downside of TA-ing? Well, grading is no fun. Especially when you have large quantities of it stacked up next to your already large pile of homework. It’s even less fun having to explain to upset students why he or she lost points here or there, and sometimes that ends well and sometimes it ends in “I don’t care I am submitting it for a regrade.” But as most things do,  it teaches you, even if the process is no fun.

All in all, I will have to say that I loveeeee being a Chem lab TA and I actually like when people question my judgment for wanting to be one (since, as I mentioned before, it is one of the most hated classes at Hopkins). I love meeting new students, I love the growth opportunities it has offered me, and I love that it has been forcing me to become more of a leader. And most importantly, I love being able to help as much as possible. If you’re able to be a TA, in college, in highschool even, I’d highly encourage it! It’s a great thing. :)

So this will be my last blog until finals are over, so I hope you enjoyed it!

–Dominique

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