Registration and Horror Movie

Well it has been a long time since I last posted. Been pretty busy over the vacation since my entire family was sick. Probably need to go back this weekend to help out. Anyways today is our first chance to register our own schedule. I am hoping to get a better schedule this time like not having a seven hour break between classes. Though sometimes I actually think it is nice to have such a long break, because sometimes I just want to sleep so badly. It really is a personal choice. I think by the end of the first semester you really figure out what works best. I know some people prefer night classes and don't finish their classes until 10 P.M. Some people like clustering their classes together so they can extra days with no classes or some like to spread it out and have a light load each day. But sometimes you truly can't get what you wanted because of classes conflicting or that you really want a teacher over another but the schedule doesn't fit. For example, I would prefer Professor McGregor for chemistry over any other teacher. She teaches honors chem and is one of the nicest but also helpful teacher I have met.
As for the dorms, my friends and I on the ninth floor and the mezz are planning to film a horror movie for the holidays. I really wish finals, especially the biology final, can be over already so we can start. We have already started looking at ways of making fake blood and guts. So eager to start!

post-thanksgiving minimal motivation

so I thought that thanksgiving would get me energized and pumped for the last two weeks of the semester -- a little resting period that would get me through the next two tedious weeks. well, I was wrong. and maybe it's because I'm still feeling the thanksgiving slump, but I am not happy with myself. I feel like I'm at a low-point in motivation. I can feel myself on the verge of saying "nah, this assignment isn't important" which NEVER has happened for me before. so, I am scared for myself. so, I am going to push myself.

last night I e-mailed the promotional director for the hunter radio station to start helping out with that like I promised myself I would do (2 months ago) so I'm going to help table tomorrow (not that I know what that is) and register for classes (with my embarrassingly late registration time) and go to my snapshot meeting (which I'm kind of over) and I will not whine about any of this.

my biggest thing is not to let fear stand in my way of doing something that I want to do (as in, no, I am not one of those girls who asks another girl to come pee with her) so I need to just keep pushing on and if I don't like something then I'll stop doing it but class-wise and out-of-class-wise, I am going to try and stay motivated.

As things pile up, my life falls to pieces.

It's that time of year again! And I'm not talking about the holidays, sadly. Finals are approaching and that means having final projects, papers, and reports being thrown at you. Right now, I'm worrying about my Biology lab report because it's so tedious with the graphs and so vague with the questions. Later, I'll probably obsess about my English paper and Seminar project. But that's for another all-nighter to worry about. Peace out.

The last two weeks on TMV

Here are this week's (and last week's) videos from Hunter on the Macaulay Vlog. Enjoy!

Getting what you want out of your education

Last week I was really fed up with my college career thus far. I felt like my undergrad education has been a series of poor choices and a continuous search for that special subject that would I would so passionate about I would no longer have any doubts, which has not been forthcoming. And I just felt that I simply wasn't where I would like to be, in my academic, career, or personal development.

There is a point to all the above complaints, namely, that they were mostly unfounded, or if not then they were at least reparable. Throughout my education, both at MHC Hunter and certainly before college, my guiding principle has been to seek out what I want - people to learn from, opportunities, stimulating environments, etc. The problems always arise when I get complacent and stop seeking things out, and I think my angst in the past weeks - my dissatisfaction with my education, my unrest in my lab, where I felt unproductive and discouraged - has been due to that. I had had a few less-than-great experiences with some advisors and faculty members, got discouraged, and just stopped putting in the effort. And, not surprisingly, I stopped getting results I was happy with.

So today I did exactly what I would recommend that you, readers and potential MHC Hunter students, also do in tackling your education: I went after the things I wanted. Today I approached my calculus professor about auditing calc II next semester (my class schedule is booked straight through graduation, but I'm enjoying calc I so much that I want to fit II in somehow or other), organized myself to apply for an intensive undergrad neuroscience pre-research program here at Hunter, and started lining up recommenders for a scholarship application, then I came to lab and sat down with my boss to see how I can be more efficient and productive about working on my project.

The moral of this blog post, if you'll excuse the pedantry, is that school will only meet you in the middle, and it's up to you to make it at least halfway. College is a pool of resources and, sometimes, not much more - sometimes it is more, sometimes opportunities do pop out at you, but often times it takes some looking and a lot of work. And if you don't do that work 100% of the time, that's fine of course, but you will get very different results.

Cheers and happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate it.

- Celine

As my internship at the Rubin takes off, the semester is coming to an end.

My internship at the Rubin Museum of Art has just started to take off. I lead my first tour for second graders on Wednesday and on Friday I co-lead a tour with a fellow Macaulay student, Irene. It was very intimidating and nerve-wracking but afterwards I was relieved that I had gotten valuable experience and also valuable critique from my supervisor. Giving tours of art is an art in it of itself. There is such an immense amount of theory and previous scholarship behind current museum education methods and incorporating that knowledge on a one hour tour of two to three pieces in the galleries is challenging to say the least. But it is also immensely rewarding. But perhaps even more rewarding is working with the Teen Guide Council who on Friday also gave their first tours of pieces as a team to fellow teens from the Whitney Museum of Art and the Bronx Museum. Having been in the program for two years, yesterday was an important day for them; a graduation of sorts. They are starting to take over the program that my supervisor has worked so hard to create and are becoming young leaders and professionals. They inspire me every time I work with them and they will continue to do so.

On the classes front, this semester has not been that great. I am not that interested in two of my classes and the other two are quite difficult. Actually, they are all pretty difficult. Chinese and Japanese Art is extremely tough because the time periods and context for the art is presented in a very confusing and disorganized manner. My other course I am not crazy about is an honors course where the readings do not interest me. My grades will be pretty good for all of them hopefully; nothing below A- is what I'm pulling for. I have four final papers to write and a cumulative final exam so I will have to work hard in the next three weeks. I am really looking forward to next semester because I think the classes will be better and I will be much more focused.

Sociology Club has not really gotten off the ground since I am the only one working on it and have not heard back about a meeting I wanted to arrange to reinstitute it. I am currently looking over paperwork and praying we can maintain its club status and have some event before the holidays or at least over January. By this upcoming May, I hope everything will come together so that in my senior year the club can be much more active. I also am looking forward to getting back into volunteering. I have been too busy lately and also suffered from several bouts of the cold or flu. This semester has been blegh so far... But I am not giving up! Hopefully, I can turn it around by next month! =)

~ Amanda

it's nice to have someone else for a change.

something that was very clearly wrong with my high school was the lack of people who wanted to take any responsibility for anything. that is, unless it was the musical or a sports team. the lit mag, the yearbook, debate, model UN mock trial, newspaper, etc. kind of all fell to the sidelines with an invested teacher and one single, solitary invested student. it got to be a pain in the ass. so, it's really nice to be curating the snapshot exhibit (for dec. 12, so soonsies!) with other people who care, who are involved, who want to make it great. that's something that I never really got at high school. it's wonderful to have people to thinktank with and, consequently, have awesome ideas that a single person couldn't have had alone. that's just something that I couldn't have gotten at high school.

and now, let me just say how excited I am for thanksgiving: so much food. so much family. so much pie backing & delicious-dish cooking. so much love.

With the Sound of Music

No Rodgers and Hammerstein here, as my seminar seems to have been putting a strong focus on traditional orchestral productions. I've decided that I like the concept and history of classical music much more than I do its actual performance.

Ironically, I left my primary source of contemporary music/I-Pod Touch in the Honors Lounge Friday afternoon. No one stole it or made me feel guilty for misplacing something valuable. I really love my classmates and the staff here!

That evening, after independently seeing a Hunter sponsored presentation by performance artist/architect Vito Acconci, I met up with my classmates to go to Carnegie Hall. We saw a sold out New York Philharmonic Performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major and John Adams' Harmonielehre. The pre-show lecture with Juilliard's Thomas Cabaniss provided a rare opportunity to sit in the front row and helped to explain why these two pieces of work were selected and paired together. Minimalism and parody fascinate me, but I lack the ear and the focus that would allow me to hear this in action. I spent much of my hour and forty minutes daydreaming.

Thus I really had to study for this morning's seminar quiz, which was announced yesterday afternoon via email. I think I did well, but am not 100% sure on everything. I did not want to give my all into the subject, especially when other things, like CUNY Foodfest, were so much fresher and more exciting in my mind.

After we took our quiz, we returned to Carnegie Hall. I found my second trip there to be more exciting than the first one. Carnegie Hall Archivist Gino Francesconi took us on a tour of the numerous theaters and told us stories involving music and his job. I found it interesting that a classically trained and well educated conductor would find his passion as a historian. This passion was obvious when he showed us around the site. I was most envious of his encounters with the rich and famous, and the creativity that in 30 years has built the massive Carnegie Hall Archives from almost nothing. I would not mind immersing myself more in this kind of music-world.

Perhaps the Macaulay Honors College's attempts to foster live music appreciation is not failing completely. I look forward to shows that are more lyric and visual oriented, such as the Sound of Music or American Idiot-- the latter of which I'm seeing next Monday.

-Danielle

So, A couple of Thursdays ago...

A few weeks ago - October 20th, in fact - I got the call to appear as a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. (For those of you who don't remember the show, here you go.) I was called to show up two Thursdays ago, November 8th.

I woke up at 5:30 to prepare for my 7:30 arrival to the ABC studios on the West Side (across the street from the Macaulay Building. I had set up multiple reminders to wake me up - my usual clock radio, my cell phone (which I gave a full charge the night before, so the battery wouldn't die while I was sleeping), and a call from my mother, all within about 15 minutes. I walked to the R train, changed to the 1, and went to Starbucks for breakfast (My thought process for that was, if I'm going to play for a million bucks, I might as well eat well.)

The morning portion of the day moved very quickly and covered quite a bit - discussions with the producers and assistant producers (including a delightful discussion with the assistant producer assigned to me, Shane, in which we discussed unicorns), a walk-through on the set (which is actually really small), a taking of my picture for the show, and pep talks and information from the executive producer of the show, along with the publicist and the lawyer.

After that's getting to game play, right? Wrong. We all had makeup done (the first time I've ever worn makeup) and had lunch (they had some great roast beef sandwiches - I think I had four).

And then came the holdover contestants from the day before! Six in all, to go along with the seven people, including myself. They being holdovers, they had priority in terms of getting to play first, so I had to wait, and wait, and wait...

...And then the day was over. Seriously, all I did on Thursday was wait to play, and I didn't get to play. I didn't get to do much while waiting - just eat, and talk, and pace the floor. Couldn't do reading because it was trivia. Crosswords? Ditto. We couldn't have anything in our pockets because it could contain facts.

So I ended Thursday annoyed and exhausted, but also sort of ready to come back on Monday. (You can read about Monday on my blog on Friday.)

I should note, by the way, that Betsy and her husband were in the audience on Thursday, which was cool, because they got to meet my aunt and grandmother, who were in from San Diego the last couple of weeks.
-----

The last couple of weeks have gone pretty well, too. On Thursday, I went to a Meet the Artist event, a poetry reading, which was quite interesting. There were four different poets who read some of their works, which provided a lot of really great styles of writing and performance to the table. Probably the best of the night, in my opinion, was Latasha Nevada-Diggs, who had a series of performances which were supplemented by multimedia presentations beside her. On Friday, I got my second Take-Home essay back for Expository Writing, and got an A-. (So far it's been, A, A-, A- - not bad at all.) My draft for my paper for the Dreyfus Affair class (a comparison of Edouard Drumont to Glenn Beck) went over well with my partner on Friday, as well.

On Saturday evening I went to the Quidditch World Cup, seeing four games, a scrimmage, a break-dancing performance, and a scrimmage that sort of devolved into a dodgeball game. Yesterday, fellow MacBlogger Danielle Gold and I went to CUNY FoodFest, a day-long discussion of food justice and sustainability. I learned quite a bit from the panel discussions, cooking lesson, film screenings and even the opening puppet show, and Danielle and I ate pretty well that day, too (the butternut squash soup my group made was pretty great, I must say).

Tonight was and is mainly grocery shopping and homework. Tomorrow after class I'm going to Cold Stone Creamery for their sampling of eight-layer ice cream cake. On Wednesday I get to go to the Metropolitan Opera for Arts in New York to see Cosi Fan Tutti; Friday, I'm heading back to Townsend Harris to judge the first night of SING!, and Saturday I'm going to a BargeMusic concert in Brooklyn and to the Brookdale trip to see the seventh Harry Potter movie! It should be a really great week in store for me!

Oh, and here's my first entry in the Macaulay Vlog.

Another long week

So the week of testing and essays are finally done. My weekend was alright. I went home this weekend to help take care of my baby sis. She has been sick and had an ear infection. She is better now, as a matter of fact when my family went out to eat this weekend, she ate a small bowl's worth of food and she is only 2.
It is also past early decisions for a lot of colleges and I been talking to some friends from class of '11 at Stuy and checking up on how they are doing. I was reminded of the argument that being this close to home isn't the best idea during that period of your life when you should be venturing out and exploring. I really think it is striking a balance. Though it is true I been living in the city for close to ten years (as a matter of fact November of 2000 was when I moved here from China), and I would love to see what other people are doing and what else the world has to offer, but I actually never heard anyone here complaining they are too close to home.
It is a stressful time for the class of '15 and I hope that they will find that balance between what they want and what is demanded of them by reality.

Besides that heavy stuff, a friend's bday is coming up soon! We were thinking about taking the "family" out to dinner. I like calling my friends here my "other family" cause everyone knows each other and will always chill together.
Wow it is late now and I got bio at 8 tomorrow. Gotta go sleep!

so long sweet weekend.

since my aunt was driving up to cornell this weekend I figured I might as well hitch a ride and enjoy ithaca one last time until, well, a really long time. I expected the cold...nope. it was a gorgeous weekend in ithaca (as, I'm assuming, it was in the city too). with thanksgiving around the corner -- literally only 2 weeks away I cannot wait -- and not much work to be done this weekend I was more than happy to kick out of town despite friends' complaints. visiting cornell always reminds me of how different it is to go to macaulay. #1., we really have a lot less work (or maybe that's just me?) than cornellians. I'm not complaining. #2., not having a campus seriously changes things #3., it's weird that if there isn't a frat party going on or another organized event, there isn't much going on in ithaca, ny, and #4., the social life starts so EARLY there. I guess they all need to get to bed early to wake up and study? seriously, not very much like macaulay.

being there definitely makes me appreciate having the city & betsy's weekly list of freebies. we don't have frat parties, silly (but that doesn't mean that other colleges don't!) so we make our own fun. much better. real college is nice for a visit, but not for actual attendance. and if I had as much work as the cornellians, I would not be a happy camper.

and now coming home to real life -- studying on the bus for my psych test tomorrow, reading some anthro, working on somethin' small for the snapshot exhibit, maybe writing a review for mhc and napping. I definitely just took a mini nap and drooled a little bit in public. embarrassing.

really really excited for thanksgiving (if you didn't quite catch that from earlier)...not quite sure why we have class the day before thanksgiving but whatever (might be skippin' out, I don't think I'll miss too much or be the only one missing) and now, to find the perfect pie to bake...

It is Gorgeous Outside

You would expect that by the time fall/winter came along, studying indoors would be just a tad bit easier, because you wouldn't feel guilty about missing out on the awesome weather. But noooooo, mother nature/ climate change had to have an amazing and unseasonably warm Saturday ( geez, my dashboard on my Macaulay provided Macbook [woo hoo] says its SIXETY FIVE DEGREES OUTSIDE. !@#$%), making studying indoors almost a sin- how can I let pass a wonderful day that might not come back until spring? Either way, I am battling the temptation of just bumming in nearby Madison Park or any patch of green with a study buddy ( definitely need one if you don't have one yet!) in the almost equally gorgeous Baruch Library. Maybe, and just maybe if we stick to our study plans, we can enjoy the day at around 5pm ( which kind of sucks, because it gets dark pretty fast).

Anyways, I realized last week that I didn't post, which is quite uncharacteristic of me because I have always posted a post once a week :( my apologies to would be readers. But what to update you on, other than the usual midterms?

Well, this Monday was the last "Meet the Scientist" Event, where we were honored to have Dr. Monique Scott, an anthropologist from AMNH at the Macaulay Building. It's been a while since I went to the building, and it reminded me of how gorgeous the architecture and location is. Hopefully next term I'll be taking a class there, orin the area more in general, so that I can use the reading room ( which looks like it came right out of a chic IKEA catalogue picture) to study for whatever comes my way. Suggestion: Take at least one MHC or one honors course at the brownstone, so this way not only do you experience the building on a daily basis, but also get to meet awesome Macaulay kids from other campuses.

I came into the "Meet the Scientist" event with the misconception that it would be long and boring. It was anything but long and boring- instead of it stretching from 6-8, we got out at 7, armed with a greater sense of appreciation and knowledge on how visitors to museums react and interact with displays in museums.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, it automatically brings to mind how registration for next term's classes is also nearing. What sucks with the honors catalogue is the lack of options, especially for a pre-med/pre-dental student who would like to take honors classes in Biology, Chemistry ( solutions chemistry is sort of unnecessary as its an extra class in addition to our hell of a load organic chem and gen chem classes), physics or environmental sciences. And what about those MHC( I still call them CHC, has a nicer ring) classes? Only about 4 options leaves one with barely any movement or choice for possible spring semester schedules.

But with that aside, yesterday night was a departure from the usual, with a nice walk on the Brooklyn Bridge at night ( my first time ever!) and the best pizza EVER from Grimaldi's. My friend and I had also wanted to see that "hidden" subway station near the Brooklyn Bridge (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_newsroom/20101109/od_yblog_newsroom/a-secret-subway-stop). I was extremely excited to see the gleaming and well lit architecture of the station from the past, but instead, we only saw random train traffic lights underground, despite us both craning our necks and having our eyes peeled for the station ( if anyone else has done this, can you tell me how and when you saw it ? We went at around 9pm- maybe the lights of the underground hidden station were off, so it was hard to differentiate that between the 6 train tunnel and the hidden station tunnel).

After such an awesome Friday night, here we are back to the Saturday stuck inside a library rather than free outside. Hopefully the clouds I'm seeing on my dashboard for Sunday are inaccurate, because I would love to be able to frolic and enjoy the great green expanses of a city park tomorrow under a bright and warm sun.

Weekend

Ahhh... relaxation. I had anticipated this being a killer weekend full of homework and studying, but then two particularly large math homework assignments got pushed back all the way to next Thursday! I'm very fond of my math professor at the moment. This gives me a great opportunity to actually get ahead in my work, rather than just getting by, and now that we've entered the nearly unnavigable zone between midterms and finals, that extra time will be a huge help. And the chance to sit back and breath is great; I took our two dogs for a nice walk this morning (the dogs are one of my main incentives for living at home rather than the dorm), and actually read for fun last night. For my birthday my boyfriend gave me a beautiful gold-edged, leather bound, autographed copy of Catch-22, my all time favorite book, so I have a lot of re-reading to do!

- Celine

monday, monday.

it seems like every monday there's so much to get done and so little time in which to do it. I guess if I was at home still I could sit in my room and just do it and be done but friends are coming over right & left and we all had such a nice dinner cooking session after hannah & I went to the grocery store! we made such a healthy dinner it was wonderful. it's so nice to know what's going into your mouth (no "that's what she said"s please) and to know that it's healthy and tasty and wonderful.

so now that I've finished the political theory reading (is that really all I've gotten done over the past 4 hours tonight? 20 pages of reading?), it's on to half of chapter 10 in psych, test on monday. not that this one counts -- she counts 2 of the first 3 tests (the ones you do best on) and I have a 93 & a 98 so even if I bomb this one I'm still looking at a pretty solid A in the class (especially with homeworks and quizzes).

tomorrow is going to be the busiest day ever. political theory 9:45-11, gym, work 1-4, do some studying in starbucks, snapshot curator meeting 6-8, opera for mhc 8:30-11:30. remind me when I'm going to eat? and do that hundred pages of reading for political theory due on friday? (lucky for me I'm skippin' out to head up to cornell...god bless notes from friends. seriously.)

and now time to quit procrastinating and do work like a real college student...

Getting ahead (what blasphemy!)

I've just finished my Economics homework, and now have the rare opportunity to spend the rest of my evening pushing forward so that, for once, I'm not scrambling on Tuesday or Wednesday night. Having classes 3 times a week is a life saver in some ways, though being at a desk in the windowless intern room at W.W. Norton & Company at 9:00 AM isn't too easy either. But tomorrow I get to go to the biannual (I think?) Norton Sales Conference, where the editors pitch their books to sales people, who will in turn pitch the books to booksellers. It should be really neat, and I get free lunch out of it!

In other news, a mere 6 days until I turn 20! I'm looking forward to a great birthday weekend with my family. AND I get to do laundry for free in my house. And possibly knit. !!!

My schedule of the Spring is pretty set - the only thing I'm not exactly pleased about is a 9:00 AM class on Wednesdays, but it's an intensive Religion course on Islam, so it's bound to be very interesting. I've never been to Hunter so early though. Na ja...

- Katharine

Never Again

It seems strange that even though I've mastered the art of getting out of bed at 7:20, leaving my dorm at 7:42, and arriving to my 8:10 statistics class just before the professor begins the lecture (aka a 28 minute commute, I dare someone to break that record), I have vowed to never again take a class this early. Though I seem to be able to handle a 9:45 start just fine, apparently, 8:10 is just too early.

It's a good thing to keep in mind as I work on figuring out my Spring schedule. I remember how easy and fun picking my schedule for fall of last year was - as an undecided major and minor, a freshman with a seemingly infinite amount of courses to take, finding a schedule I liked was easy.

Those days are no more...now planning my schedule and preparing for registration is nerve-wracking and stressful. For example, no less than THREE classes that I want and/or need to take are being offered at the same time. And of course, there is only one section of each of them being offered in the Spring. There's also the little problem of my science requirement, the only major requirement I have left out of my GERs (General Education Requirements) besides the P/D (Pluralism and Diversity) requirements...which I will almost definitely be putting off until junior year. I have a week until my meeting with my wonderful adviser Fran, who I'm sure will help me wade through the muck of course scheduling, for now, I have plenty of studying to do for my second (!) midterms in History of the Middle East until 1500 and Statistics, not to mention projects for the Macaulay Scholars Council (though we had a wonderful and productive meeting yesterday). But more on those later.

Let's hope by the next time I post, I have a tentative course plan for you, my readers (although more importantly, for myself).

Week of success?

So one of the dangers of a busy busy week is that your immune system seems to think it's just about had enough of you not eating and eating well. Somehow, last week, although packed with tests, papers, group projects that actually weren't due until later which we had to do anyways because we weren't given an alternative, and odd job offers, came to a successful close until I found myself suffering from a intense migraine, slight fever, body pains, and general exhaustion that a weekend of oversleeping couldn't alleviate.

Only about two weeks until the next time every class decides to have a deadline. Enough time to recover. Yay!

What to do now...

So a week of tests have past. Attended an eight hour orientation for volunteers at Cornell Medical Center on Saturday and went to the Dean's Lunch today. And now another week of tests and projects and essays coming up. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty tired. Thankfully, the lounge is quiet and I'm sitting here with a couple of friends studying and of course writing this blog. I love cold weekend nights like this. So relaxing and easy. Of course there are all those responsibilities breathing down my back, but the room is comfortable enough to wear shorts and it is simply so relaxing to sit down and help each other study.

Late night TV? Yes!

College is all about balancing things. So I've figured out 6 days are for work while I set aside one day just for myself with TV, buying groceries, cleaning my room, and laundry. Granted some of those things are not traditionally fun, but it gives me some time away from the hectic workload of pre-med. But after this, it's back to studying for Bio!

goodbye new york rain, hello ithaca snow!

naturally when the chill set into new york, I headed up northwest to ithaca for some worse chill (because I love feeling like my fingers are going to fall off). goodbye macaulay, hello cornell! lucky for me, I convinced mom to pitch in half the bus fare because I'm going to help out with grandma when she's in madrid with dad...the cornell bus is ever so pricey (but so worth it). lucky for me, class ends at 4pm on thursdays and the campus to campus bus leaves at 5:40pm from 71st & york, giving me all of an hour and forty minutes to shimmy shake down to the mid-manhattan library to pick up a book and boogie back up to 71st & york with 3 large bags on my back & 2 elbows. could I do it?

well, one nasty librarian, one near-arm-loss-in-subway-door, multiple jaywalks, one dinner pickup, two subway rides, one misaddressed building and six flights of stairs later...I am on the bus in the seat that I wanted. my nice little single sear where I don't have to sit next to anyone, move when they have to pee, request them to move when I have to pee, constantly worry about kneeing them when I sit indian style or let them overhear my eclectic taste in music. I am a happy camper.

just saying, some people really do not know how to be polite on a bus. guidelines to being a polite bus-rider:
1. do not talk on your cell phone! no one wants to hear you!
2. keep your music down.
3. keep your damn socks on.
4. don't be larger than the seat allows. otherwise, book 2 seats. (seriously, airplanes make you do it!)
5. if you fall asleep...
a. do not fall asleep on the passenger next to you.
b. do not freaking snore. seriously.
6. don't bring your animal on the bus. snakes/dogs/cats/birds/rabbits...leave 'em home.


all that being said, there is a huge violation of numbers 1 & 6 going on right now. I wish I could upload a picture of the puppy laying on the floor of the back of the bus. what if I have to pee? I have to wake the sleeping pup? bad news, bears! also, seriously half the bus was in major violation of #1 earlier. as soon as we got on the bus, every had these thirty minute conversations that were clearly life or death matters. yeah, I think not. text it out. or e-mail -- you're all talking on blackberries anyway!

so that's my bus-rider analysis. I've been procrastinating this anthropology paper since 5:40pm when I got on the bus. le sigh. I guess it's time to start. happy weekending all, I'll be busy seeing kid cudi on saturday night. don't be too jealous please!

Party!

I went to a party a few nights ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my friend Kanushree, which was really fun. The Met has these great parties about once or twice a year, usually when a new exhibit opens, where any college students is invited, and they're really cool. The food is good and a nice crowd shows up, plus it's really really nice to get to see some art without crowds of tourists everywhere! Here are a few pictures:

me looking a bit like a tour guide

cool projected palm tree in the entrance hall

and college students enjoying free food and drinks (it got a lot more crowded later)

As Kunwal mentioned a few days ago, Hunter parties tend to be a bit boring, at least in my experience. But the Met parties are always great, and the museum is so close to Hunter! Definitely something to keep in mind.

Break day!

Hey guys! Obviously I've been terrible at posting regularly but I promise I'll say hi every week. I've gotten too caught up in my own life to pull my head out of the mundane.

I am sooooo glad that tomorrow is one of those days that all classes are canceled before 4PM (in order to even out with a day earlier in the year when all classes after 4PM were canceled supposedly for some Jewish holiday but I forget the details) because this week is hectic. So, of course all my professors who until now have been super lax with work decide to pile on the paper, group presentation, and test into this week. It wouldn't even be worth complaining about if it wasn't for the fact that we had two weeks to do it and for about half of one she isn't even available for questions.

Oh well, es la vida del estudiante (pardon the bad Spanish but if I could fit a Spanish language course into my schedule, I would!). Halloween weekend was pretty homey for me; we tried going to a Hunter party Friday and after experiencing how dull it was, decided staying in was a better option.

back to the mondays.

after a nice long weekend of revelry, camaraderie, dancing and fun (also known as halloweekend) the mondays have set in. I did student admissions for all 4 years of high school and was asked a while back to come in and help out in a panel for parents of prospective 8th graders. the e-mail said, "can you come in at 8:30?" so naturally I'm thinking "8:30pm because all open houses are at night." nope. I got a follow up e-mail this week going "sounds great! see you at 8:30am on Nov. 1st, the panel will begin at 9am & will be done by 9:25am." hold up. 8:30am? that means leaving by, like, 7:35am. I was not a happy camper. I haven't been up that early for anything since college started. bad news bears. naturally I overslept and was surprisingly on schedule until I didn't take the m31 because I thought it would take me the wrong place. eh, wrong. it would have taken me to very much the right place. rats. so I stumbled into my high school at 8:57am and bolted for the elevators to the library. luckily, I made it just in time and all was well. panel went very well (I miss student admissions!) and I saw all my teacher friends that I miss all the time. I even saw my little brother for a few minutes just to say hi.

then, presentation in anthro. went very well! I like presentations -- they're easy to steer and people usually participate if there are interesting questions posed. after a lot of really bad presentations this year (it mainly felt like people were talking with the professor one-on-one in front of the class. awkward.) this one went well and the professor told others to use our discussion as a model for the rest of the presentations. nice.

lunch date with the crew which was nice because eric wasn't around for the parties this weekend. then bought bus tickets to cornell for this weekend to visit the boy and the brother (uh, it's snowing at cornell, hello winter coat.) and psych until 4. hit the gym for a little bit afterwards and now home in my nice toasty warm bed wearing all flannel clothing. the only thing better would be a little heat. goodbye october (which really felt like it never happened), hello november (month of thanksgiving and cold). it is time for a new chunky knit winter hat and scarf. I can't wait.