Lively Movement Days

Although I've heard that it might not stay this way, the weather has been wonderful. Its given me new energy to do things that are likely to give the energy to do more energizing things. Spring has sprung!

I think the catalyst for this is my resolution to walk from Brookdale to the main campus more often. My good friend and fellow MacBlogger Daniel Pecoraro makes the walk regularly. His legs look great. I could use the exercise. So, now that spring break makes getting a monthly financially irresponsible and I no longer worry about being hail-stormed to death, I have changed my habits so that we can go to school together.

Today, we were walking in for a much promoted actually happening freshman meeting. They've been canceled pretty much all semester, after the first spring semester one revealed that many of us find them a waste of time. I think its better having them every two weeks or so. But we were too distracted by the nervous anticipation to realize the event was next Thursday. Today's program was for pre-meds, which doesn't affect me in the least, save for the fact that I was at school 4 hours before my first (and only) class. At least, we weren't alone in our error.

In front of Room 615, "D-pec" and I ran into some equally confused friends. We talked, and eventually decided to use some coupons Daniel found on the internet to get free ice cream sundaes at Häagen-Dazs. What a great deal! It was a short walk by comparison. I don't want to know how much sugar goes in to a Chocolate Peppermint Dazzler, but it was delicious. I felt very youthful, (as I should...I'm 19). The company and the thrill of the deal didn't hurt either.

After that, I studied, had a nice conversation about a paper-in-progress with my Religion Professor during her office hours and made some phone calls. The class itself was pretty good, but I wasn't expecting anything less from a look at the religious art of 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Hatsheput, Akenaten, King Tut?! Oh My!

After class, I took a walk thorough Central Park to get to the Macaulay Honors College's Common Ground event. Yay for cultural diversity! The Macaulay building was as gorgeous as ever and the caberet area was filled with delicious food and people in cultural dress. There was room for more students but it was nice to come in a little after everyone else and still have a ton to eat and a good place to watch the performances from. It made me miss my culture club events from high school. My classmates here are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo talented.

And after walking home with Daniel, I can dream of the day where I'm matching the dancers' quick, spirited pace.

joke week #2.

so I thought last week was relaxed...turns out this week is TOO. yesterday my internship was canceled (the new linesheets have come in so we have nothing to e-mail out to yoga companies we want to carry the brand) and I had psych was canceled, so I wrote a paper way in advance for psych during that time, went to trader joe's after class and went to yoga in the afternoon. finished reading way in advance for nutrition (we're a chapter and a half behind the syllabus...) and went to bed early.

today I overslept (woke up at 9:56am, class started at 10:10am) but FRET NOT. nutrition is in the dorms. since my professor wasn't there (this is why we're a chapter and a half behind...) we watched a documentary on dieting and food fads in america which was super interesting but not really anything new (I grew up in a house where mom was always on and off weight watchers, depending on the amount of stress in her life and am a huge health junkie). I went down to the nutrition computer lab and turns out that, because I live in the dorms, I can do the work needed on the computer at night because it's pretty empty from like 7pm to 9pm (close).

after class, since I got out an hour and a half early and am still on break from work (I miss my kids!) and mom was in the city, we met up for lunch and got a mani-pedi because she and my dad are going to florida on friday. afterwards, went to the gym (feel so good!!) and did my 3 mile run and some ab work and then home to do this alcohol training yadda yadda yadda.

no work due for the rest of the week though! life is so good for now....

So excited

This is definitely a bragging post, for which I apologize, but I'm so excited to have just found out that I won a Goldwater Scholarship!! The scholarship comes with a $7500 stipend and a nice chunk of prestige, and the whole thing is making me extremely giddy at the moment. What's more, my boyfriend also won, which means that Hunter had two winners in the same year for the first time (out of about 300 scholarships awarded across the country). And it means that I get to be doubly excited.

The very best part though was sitting down to write thank you letters to all the advisors, mentors, and such who helped me along the way - I suddenly was struck by the incredible amount of support I have and, though it may sound mushy, the number of people involved in my education and my undergraduate career in various ways who really care about me. The fellowship advisors from Macaulay, CUNY, and Hunter all helped with every step and flooded my inbox with congratulatory messages today, even though a huge part of the credit goes to them. there are so many great people who wrote me recommendations, helped me draft me essays, and more importantly help give me the experiences which shaped my, from my PI (principle investigator, which is like a boss in the research lab world) here at NYU and all my lab mates here who are sharing in my excitement, to my PI at Hopkins from last summer who by all accounts wrote me a beautiful recommendation (I haven't seen it myself of course but all the advisors were talking about it), to the postdoc at Hopkins who has been my closest mentor and took me under his wing from day 1. So many people to be grateful to!

Now I'm trying to calm myself enough that I can be trusted around lab equipment so that I can go back to actually being a useful member of society, at least for a few hours.

- Celine

where did the weekend go?

so this past week, as I mentioned earlier, was fantastic. seriously, it felt like I was on spring break with all of my friends who were home. having no exams, papers, quizzes, etc. and not teaching at rodeph this week was just unreal...a peek into the life I could have had if I hadn't taken on 5 courses, an internship and a job. but whatever, I'm not complaining.

this weekend was a great ending to a great week. Friday we watched a movie in my psych class and my second class of the day was canceled so I was out of hunter by 11:30am and got to go to the gym AND take a yoga class. after getting ahead on work, I went to my boyfriend's for shabbat dinner and chatted with his mom as we cooked, then headed downtown with friends to an nyu party. even though I lost my coat (and the new multicolored circle scarf my best friend from high school knit me...the only thing I actually cared about losing...) it wasn't a huge deal. after a long night dancing with the girls we were back by 3am, and the boy came over by 3:30am (he was doing fafsa things with his older brother). we slept super late, went out for a yummy brunch and I did some work and reading until it was time to do dinner for a friend's birthday.

today I went home for brunch to see the famjam (my older brother was home from cornell) and then went to an art expo with the boy...as today is our one year anniversary. very, very weird. we went separate ways to do some work/hang out with friends and met up for a delicious dinner at the brindle room (this awesome restaurant on 10th between 1st and a). even though it was expensive (I'm very into splitting the bill), it was worth it.

time for bed

Free at last!

I took my last official midterm today. That's right: today. Saturday. The day that's supposed to be for sleeping in and enjoying the week but I haphazardly signed up for a 9AM Psych class on Saturday. I do not recommend this. Anyways, I was really happy to complete the exam in less than an hour even though there were 100 multiple choice questions. Of course I had the chance to take advantage of the 3 hour class time to double and triple check my answers, but I'm the kind of person who gets paranoid and starts to over think every single question so I just mark the questions I'm unsure about, go back to them when I look through the entire exam, and then hand it in. Besides, I have my seminar paper to write! I guess that means I'm that free after all...

I'm really frustrated at the moment because I had a midterm last week that I know I did really badly on, and it's been bothering me ever since. It's particularly bothersome because I went into it feeling completely prepared, and in fact I did know the material pretty well, it just... didn't work out. Oh well.

Otherwise things have been moving along nicely. We're only a few weeks from spring break - this is one really annoying thing about CUNY, our spring break is so late that it's kind of a moot point by the time we finally reach it - and then it will be only a couple weeks until finals. I've been using most of my free time to [attempting to] narrow down my interests and grad school prospects, so that I have some idea of where I want to go and what I actually want to do when I get there before application season this fall. In the meantime, I've realized that there just isn't a good way to fit all the classes I want to take into the summer and next year, so I've started pursuing somethings, mostly more calculus, on my own, armed with my textbook and solutions guide from last semester and Academic Earth lectures (for anyone who has never checked out Academic Earth, it's a really cool website with tons of video lectures from top schools around the country).

A final note, to anyone thinking about pursuing a hard science track who may have heard the rumors of horror about organic chemistry, I just want to say: it's really not that hard. Maybe I'm crazy or, more likely, just happen to have a textbook and professor that work well with how I understand things, and I'm sure that second semester is a different story, but I'm now right in the middle of first year organic and it is definitely no more difficult than general chemistry or many other classes I've taken. Just putting that out there.

- Celine

I'm a bright neon highlighter

I hope my totally random title there reeled in a few readers. Today, I was indeed a bright yellow neon highlighter, along with others, wearing our bright yellow neon shirts ( mine was a large, so i was engulfed by all the yellow) welcoming in new and prospective Macaulay students. A lot hasn't changed in the last two yeas since I've been here ( tons of city kids coming into Macaulay- I even saw some Bronx Science alum, what what), and a lot has changed ( they're only guaranteed 2 years of housing).Even though it was only an hour talking to our new and future Macaulayites ( what do we even call ourselves? Macaulayees, Macaulayans, ?), I met a few great and interesting individuals, and I can't wait when the class of 2015 becomes a part of the Macaulay fabric.

I'm still sort of unsure as to what to do over the summer. I already have half of it planned out- I'm going to finish up all of my GERs ( finally!) with an Asian Americans class, and Classics 101. I'm pretty excited for the Classics Class ( not because I have to be at Hunter at 8am, but more because I love classics), and am hopeful that the Asians class will be and exciting and eye-opening course. But other than taking classes during the first session, while also interning at the research lab I currently intern at during the same session, I don't know how the rest of my summer will shape up to be. Maybe another internship, a volunteering stint, definitely some volleyball, and of course a week or 2 away from it all, with my family on a mini vacation. I hope my expectations and hopes turn into fruitful realities, but not into a huge pile of responsibilites that I won't be able to take care of and enjoy fully.

Sorry I haven't been posting here in a while. Anyway, just checking in - a lot has happened since I last posted a couple of months ago. I decided to withdraw from my America and the World in the 20th Century class, after much deliberation - handling a 300 level history course with a boatload of reading was too much for me to handle on top of my other, fairly high-level courses; kinda sucked, though, because I really enjoyed the class. Luckily, Prof. Rosenberg understood and was very cordial in getting back to the e-mail I sent him regarding the matter, which I greatly appreciated.

I also know that I'll be interning somewhere this summer, as I was accepted for the internship at the Museum of the American Finance, the Smithsonian associate museum in the Financial District. It's a pretty new, pretty cool museum that's still getting some stuff done in terms of cataloging their materials - it'll be cool to help out there among other things. Just as interviews are scheduled and the like, my Nixon in China internship is winding down. We had our last real assignment - an interview with Peter Gelb, the General Manager of the Met Opera (who was kind enough to give a whole half-hour to us for interviewing!) - two weeks ago; the footage will (at least theoretically) be packaged into a segment on SundayArts sometime in the coming months.

Oh, and speaking of television - my Millionaire episode aired.


I should be back to posting biweekly right about now, along with doing the Macaulay Vlog on YouTube.

the calm at the eye of the storm

since the past three weeks have been SO stressful, I am beyond thrilled to kind of just float this week. reading 1-2 chapters in textbooks has never been so delightful. do I wish we had break now like everyone else? naturally. but, we'll have pesach off so it evens out.

because I have class at 1 on mondays, this morning I trekked to the west side to visit my high school to catch up with old teachers. it's funny that I have the same feeling of calm I have when I step through the front door of my house that I have when I go back to high school. it was such a good place to be and all the teachers there are genuinely happy to see me (and my friends) when we get back to visit.

today was also climactic because....(drum roll please!) I bought my tickets to go to miami with the boyfriend at the end of the semester! thankfully he has family down there and they own a hotel so we won't need to pay for a room (which is amazing) and flights were super cheap ($209 round trip!) so it's just going to be a great, great, great end to the year. of course, my flight is at 4:35pm and my last final is at 12pm, but...it'll all be fine, I'm sure. as we say in my family, koom-bah-ya. hopefully I won't even have to TAKE my last final (nutrition) if I do well enough on the next two tests. I got a 92 on the first one which I'm completely satisfied with, so...fingers crossed!

and now on to writing more for the rough draft of my mhc150 final paper (my class has SO much more work than everyone else's, it's incredibly frustrating), a nap and a well-deserved trip to the gym because I haven't done cardio in weeks. yippee!

Lights, Camera, Action

Although I have three papers positioned rather close to one another on the horizon and I didn't neglect the books worth of reading I have to do to stay on track with my classes so I can write, I feel that this weekend was more hedonistic than most.

This might have been because it (and a good part of the week before it) was spent with my boyfriend. It's hard enough for me to be apart from my relatives while at college, but at this moment I couldn't be more content with my choice to stay with my high school love. I tried to give Richard as much of the New York flavor as I could. It may have seemed rather Irish in parts. I enjoyed celebrating Pi day as without taking a math course and I enjoyed celebrating St. Patricks Day as a non-Catholic, who is considers herself much more American than Irish. I did casually mention Purim in conversation and discussed it within Hillel, but bypassed the Shabbat Dinner/Purim Party held at the Brookdale Cafeteria in favor of a more private evening with my boyfriend.

After my sweetheart left, I continued to keep myself busy though the production of a movie for the Hunter College Campus Movie Fest. Campus Movie Fest is a program through which students are given equipment and help to produce a short 5 minute film. Thanks to the Honors College, my friend Daniel and I are already familiar with HD cameras and MacBook Computers, but it was still a nice learning experience and I had a lot of fun.

You can watch our movie at http://campusmoviefest.com/movies/8442-laundry-night and, if we're picked as a finalists, at the School Finale Event on April 8th.

I feel like my blog posts are becoming a broken record, but this semester is continuing to go really well. I still love my neurophysiology class, and it's become a very social class too, which makes it even more pleasant. We have our midterm next week which I'm a bit nervous about, but I know that with sufficient studying it should be OK. Organic chem has been disappointing; despite the dire predictions, it's really not that hard, or at least not yet and we're almost half way through. It's not easy either, but it's very average. That's not what I'm disappointed about though. I'm disappointed because it's been getting more and more boring instead of more interesting, and I really like chemistry so that was not my expectation. Oh well. M,y statistics lab TA position is still very fun and challenging; I spent most of last week grading lab reports which was really daunting at first - I have a whole new respect for my professors now. It was so hard to take points off someone's work though...

In addition to my classes, I'm in Macaulay's Goldsmith program, which meets every Sunday this month to work on writing personal statements for fellowship/scholarship applications. Somewhat to my surprise, one of the best things about that is that I'm meeting more students who I really get along with. Actually, the same is true for my tutoring and TA practicum - I'm meeting many more like-minded people than I did in my first couple years here.

Now I'm at my lab; work has been slow lately but when I got in today my boss, who isn't here today, had mysteriously left a journal paper on my desk, so I guess I'd better read it...

- Celine

I'm back

After a month without posting, I'm squeezing this entry in between American Literature and German homework. Sorry for my silence! It's with cause, I swear. I'm currently reading a novel and a novella in German for class - Storm's Immensee and Andersch's Sansibar, oder der letzte Grund, plus various readings for American Literature (a chapter in a New Historicism textbook this week), plus 2 or more philosophical texts every week for Lit Theory (It's Nietzche and Heidegger his weekend; yikes). I also have a new poem due every week, culminating in a midterm portfolio due next Tuesday. I'm also copyediting some work for the Macaulay Academic Journal.

So yeah, even after giving myself a less-crammed schedule this semester, I'm still feeling super busy. Part of it is that I'm finally taking all major classes, and advanced ones at that, so the level of work expected is quite high. I don't have any coasting classes this semester, which is rewarding, but rather stressful when Daylight Savings pushes everything an hour forward and you have just as much homework as you did before we jumped into the future.

I've also been reading up on women's rights issues in this country, of which there are for more than anyone would like to believe. That deserves an entire blog post. But at least Planned Parenthood gets to keep its funding, for now anyway. It's just terrifying to see some social legislation being proposed that would set American women back decades. Na ja...

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend! Beware the Ides of March, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

- Katharine

friday, thank the lordie.

seriously, I needed it to be friday. this week has been so stressful! tests, papers, gah. oh wait, and next week are midterms. I just need it to be next weekend. with 2 midterms, a paper and an exam...lots of studying will be had this weekend. I've realized, though, that I study really well outside of my dorm room. so, after yoga and brunch with the man, hannah and I will be hitting up some cute cafe that has yet to be found and if all else fails, thinkcoffee is always a good option.

I just feel like life has been consumed by work recently and it's frustrating. luckily I have my internship (at a yogawear company) and my job (teaching the babies how to speak hebrew) to keep me sane and give me a little relief. even though I think I'd be less stressed sometimes if I didn't devote 12-15 hours a week doing those things and I would have more "me" time, I would probably just have more time to reflect on things that are making me unhappy and bothering me (an unproductive use of time).

lucky for me I bounced home for shabbas dinner tonight, so as I sit here with a cup of tea, waiting to head back to the dorms for movie night with the man, I am content to be relaxing for the first night in a while and resting up for a big weekend of work. I would end this post with an exclamation mark...but that would be far too enthusiastic about a weekend that involves far too much work.

Another Central Park Experience

My Fridays are officially Good Food Day. That is how I will get through the tumultuous amounts of work and gain the proverbial freshman 15. Today I took a walk down to 60th ST and 5th Ave, home of the Wafels & Dinges cart. If you haven't heard of them, then you're in for a treat! They make these Belgian goodies called wafels that are topped with powdered sugar and toppings of your choice. The wafels are as buttery and sugary as waffles, but the great thing about wafels is that they're made with pearl sugar which makes it melt in your mouth delicious. There are two types of wafels: brussels and liege. Brussels wafels are crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, while liege wafels are soft and chewy throughout. I prefer liege wafels because I really like the doughy texture. So I got that with my favorite topping, spekuloos. Spekuloos is a spread made from gingerbread cookies that is similar to Nutella but its flavor is more subtle and less sweet. After getting my order of a liege wafel and a jar of spekuloos to take home, I made my way into Central Park and sat outside the Zoo. There were artists drawing people who had the patience to sit still, hot dog vendors, and people having lunch. It was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, squirrels were prancing, people were laughing...and then I ran out of liege wafels :( But it was all good, since I still had this!:

To somewhat redeem myself from this calorie extravagant snack, I made my way to the Union Square Farmer's Market as usual to get some produce. However, it seems that my main guy for vegetables wasn't there today so I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow, but I did manage to happen upon some fine looking apples.

Bon appetit!

Empire State of Mind

Sometimes, its easy to forget that I live and study in one of the world's greatest urban centers. It should not feel like this, but it is especially true when I spent time traveling outside the New York City. In the past month, I've spent a night sleeping in three different beds in three different towns, two of which are technically "urban." And when I return to this city it seems like there isn't much that is different.

Where ever I am, I study textbooks (that moves), in the most quiet places that I find, and write papers and procrastinate on my laptop (that moves). Although some of my classmates, like Ting, trek out to the farmers market, I generally buy the vast majority of my groceries from Trader Joe's. I eat in restaurants that are priced to suit a young adult's budget.

Traditional college work and little play makes Danielle a dull girl and the city of Manhattan not unlike the town of Bellmore where she came from. My conversation topics don't change when I change location...

...but sometimes they do. My perspectives on different cultures seem almost more authentic. I find that my conversations on vintage designer finds, quirky odd jobs from AgentAnything.com, and little film festivals and and museums competitions that I devote bits of free time to are unique, compared to my pre-Manhattanite days. I'm working with my adviser, Adrienne, to find internships here in the city. The big names that seek student labor, surprise me. The schoolwork can be the same-old, but the eventual outcomes are very, very different.

I've let lights inspire me everywhere, but as I turn 19 tomorrow in the Brookdale dorm....Let's hear it for New York........

Midterm Mayhem

Midterms are coming up! And if you're like me, then you're anxious and stressed out with the amount of work that continues to pile up and the exams that are approaching quickly. The one thing that keeps me sane? Good food.

One of my favorite things to do on a Friday night is go grocery shopping and then make dinner. I know. I'm a party animal. I make my way down to the Farmer's Market in Union Square where the fruits are fresh, vegetables are organic, and cheeses are delectable. They also sell ground beef and lamb, but I try to stay away from meat except for the occasional fish. The craziest thing I've seen there is ostrich eggs. Yes, you heard right. Ostrich eggs. They look like large rocks and I can't image eating one, but hopefully I will before I graduate!

After getting my usual bag of groceries (usually bunch of carrots, bag of red onions, mushrooms, some apples and whatever is in season or looks good), I head back to the dorms to make dinner. It's always so relaxing and comforting to just be alone for a while, make good food and enjoy it. At that moment, school and work and midterms seem far far away.

The main topics of conversation for me this week have been graduate school and honors theses, especially since many of my friends are also juniors. I'm not usually prone to getting freaked out about the future, but it's getting way too real for comfort; this week my boyfriend and I sat down and started mapping out which grad school's we'd both want to go to, and my research mentor has started referring to other researchers as my future PhD advisors! I feel like I'm so far behind too - many people have already taken or started preparing for the GRE, and they all seem to have such solid ideas of what fields they want to study and what schools they want to go to. I'm still doing my characteristic wavering - at least every couple months or so I feel like I have no idea where I'm going to various degrees. I'm increasingly sure that I do indeed want to go into neuroscience, which has been my plan all along, but it's a pretty big field and I just don't feel like I have enough knowledge in it to know what I'm interested in, which in turn makes it pretty hard to decide what grad schools would be a good fit. Plus, I just don't feel ready to go to grad school at all. Maybe I will in a year and some when I actually get there, but I feel like I want to go in with all guns blazing, not just sort of get by.

Very recently (as in, while my mind was wandering during class a couple days ago) I've started toying with the idea of taking the fall semester to return to the lab where I worked at Johns Hopkins and do my honors thesis work there, and in the process tagging an extra semester to my undergrad time and postponing grad school one year. In the past when I've considered taking a gap year I always thought of doing it the other way around - finish school, then take time to go do research somewhere. But I find this way much more appealing. For one thing, I won't feel as much like I'm just bumming around while all my friends are off at grad school, because I'll still be taking classes. And I won't just be adding an extra semester to make my courseload per semester lighter, but instead actually using some time in a productive way. And... I'm just really not good at doing things in traditional ways, so the idea of skipping out and going to work for a while instead of taking classes straight through is extremely appealing. There would be a lot to coordinate, but it might be exactly what I need... definitely food for thought.

- Celine

z'omg.

so much work and stress! funny how professors pile on work before midterms and finals, huh?

human sexuality test this week...and one next week...oh, and one the week after that. COOL. mhc midterm paper due next week. art history quiz tomorrow. art history paper due next week. nutrition test (THANK GOD) postponed from next week.

just lots going on and trying to find balance. I miss being balanced. I want to have time again. between teaching my babies (hebrew school kids, I love my first graders they're so cute!), interning with the yoga studio, FINISHING APPS (submitted two on the 1st -- only two more to finish!!!), 5 classes and catching up in one of those classes, the man being here, it just seems like everything is piling up and up and up and I can't see over the stacks anymore.

more work to do -- review for friday's test, begin to write my art history paper so (HOPEFULLY) I can go to this big gallery/artist event over the weekend and sleep in! do I remember what being well-rested feels like? NOPE!

...and only a little hyper from 16 handles. only my favorite thing ever.

Lunch in Central Park

I'm still amazed at what the city can offer. It was a little cold today, but at least it wasn't raining! So I decided to grab some lunch and bring it with me to Central Park. Walking into the park, I couldn't hear the noise of oncoming traffic anymore and was just surrounded by the calmness of nature. Although the grass was wet from yesterday's rain and the trees were bare, it was the perfect kind of weather to take a brisk walk.

I navigated my way up the hills and around the bends to this long walkway that led to the bandshell. The bandshell already had people sitting there so I ventured a bit further into the park. I could catch a faint melody playing on the violin and decided to follow the sound. It led me to a tunnel under a bridge. There were two musicians playing there and of course, there was an open violin case on the ground beside them littered with money. The classical tune sounded great but I didn't want to just sit there and watch them play, so I made my way to the fountain (which was dry, by the way) and decided to sit there and enjoy my lunch.

It was a good location considering the activities that were going on there. There were two couples having their wedding photos taken. It was funny to see the brides prattle around, and put on and take off their coats between takes. The grooms appeared stiff and did not seem to know how to behave in front of a camera. There were also other couples and families enjoying the park there. My favorite thing was having the sun shine on me and just taking everything in. I can't wait to eat at the park more once the weather gets nicer!

sp3, PCR, and stat, oh my!

I started writing this post on Tuesday of last week. But then full force of studying came pushing through my world, and hence, my post is only being completed and published today.

Last Tuesday ( to be more exact, March 1st) I busy hammering away at my orgo textbook and bio notes. I had both my orgo and bio tests on Thursday. Even with all the preparation I had put into studying for both the tests, I didn't feel 100% about my performance on both. I hate it when doubt creeps in like that. But whatever, I studied hard and I know it.

Huge sidetracked side note- I'm listening to Adele. And I'm in love. With her to be exact. :) And can you imagine she's only like what about 23 (Correct me if I'm wrong of course).

Last week, I went to take the Kaplan Practice DAT at Columbia. It was a long test, superduper long in comparison to the GRE, which is only about an hour for the quantitative and verbal sections, while I think about 2.5 hours for the DAT. I ended up taking the GRE earlier today ( or actually yesterday, because its early Monday morning now) and I realized yet again that I need to start studying for those tests. Although the practice tests seem like a waste of time when you take them, they have served to be a great wake up call and beginning to the studying that I have ahead of me for these tests. I still am not sure which one I'm going to take soon, but taking both has definitely helped me make a better decision when the time comes.

Along with having to had studied for my two tests, I had a lot of stat homework. I never really understood how long stat homework (for my stat 213 class) could take. The problems aren't necessarily hard to do or understand, but plug in a number of a set wrong wrong and the whole problem comes out wrong.

Anyways, for CHC, we have an assignment where we have to attend a community board meeting. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it ( it seriously cut into my studying time because it was all the way on the Upper West Side). But being able to see just how active individuals can be involved in politics at the community level is really interesting. What was really quite interesting to see was the owner of Shake Shack receiving the Neighbor of the Month Award. That was a huge surprise that reminded me of how hungry I was, and how I miss the Shake Shack ever so much. Before I had come to the meeting, I, along with my friends, seriously doubted whether or not there would be a major turnout at a community board meeting. We were hugely mistaken, and rightly so. Not only was there a sizable senior citizen group in attendance ( the meeting was held at a nursing home), but contrary to what we had initially thought, there were many younger people in their late 20s to early 30s listening, and sometimes even walking up to bring up important topics and news in the community. Hey, you learn something new everyday.

If you ever really get hungry near Hunter and if the cafeteria food doesn't particularly satisfy your craving, try the tomato basil mozzarella panini from Food Emporium. Not too far away, very healthy, very filling, and pretty yummy. :)

And again, since the opportunity funds deadline is soon approaching, go on a study abroad, or even a service trip abroad if you haven't done so. It's a life changer!