Saturday Night Updates

Hi, everyone!

This post is coming to you on a Saturday night because yesterday got too busy, and I spent much of this morning editing articles for the upcoming edition of The Macaulay Messenger and fulfilling my other editor-in-chief duties. haha. I really love that I had the chance to write and edit for the last four years both for The MacBlog and for The Macaulay Messenger. It's kept my writing sharp and allowed me to explore my feelings and ideas in a positive and fulfilling way.

Monday night was Senior Night for Macaulay seniors from all of the campuses. It was held at the CUNY Graduate Center and a good amount of students came by. There was free food, performances by The Macaulay Triplets and The Macaulay Dancers, awards, and a fantastic speech given by Jerilyn Perine (City '75). I got to see my Macaulay friends that I don't get to see too often. I even saw this guy that I know since my first day of first grade! He goes to Macaulay Baruch so we don't get to see each other that often. It was so great to see him, and catch up. I can't believe we've known each other for almost 16 years!! Ahh. After ending the night with cake, I headed to the train and had to fight sleep. I was awake since 5:45 AM that day so I was super tired.

I also had an interview for a scholarship that same day. Thankfully, the day turned out great, and everything went as planned. :)

It also helped that I wore an awesome blue dress for the whole day! It's easy to fight the tiredness when you look fancy. haha.

Yesterday, I met with my advisor to figure out what I'll be doing during my year off from school next year. Hopefully, something that will give me great skills and be fun at the same time.

In Justin's latest post, he writes about the increasing amount of responsibility that he feels in his second semester of college and asks how others have dealt with their increasing responsibilities. It's a transition that every college student faces. As much as incoming Macaulay students are advanced level high school students who are used to hard work, college is different. There is the expected increase in difficulty in academics, less "hand-holding" by instructors, more free time between classes that the student has to properly manage on his/her own, extracurricular activities, family obligations, and time used for fun. Managing it all requires the realization that you need to step up your game in how your organize your time.

For me, that realization happened during sophomore year. That semester, I was taking 18.5 credits and quickly realized that I had taken on too much. I was taking Orgo I that semester, and that class requires a ton of time outside of the classroom in order to really comprehend the material. Because I had so many things going on, I couldn't dedicate enough time to that class to do as well as I could. I never took that many credits again, and I learned to better manage my time. Also, that class made me realize that I had to rework my study habits. I learned to go over my notes after every class and start studying well in advance of the exam. That second semester of sophomore year went so much better because I allowed myself to change and take on new responsibilities without burdening myself.

S.

For this last semester, I've decided that I'll share one cool/interesting/thought-provoking thing that I happen to run across during the week:

Italian food. Yum.

Florence Study Abroad Part III: Weekend Trips; Rome

So I know this is about a month after returning from Italy, but I got caught up in the beginning of the semester and forgot to finish this post.

So! One of the best parts of my trip to Italy were the weekends; we had them completely to ourselves and with the amazing railway system, nothing was really too far away. Rome was an hour and a half, Venice just two hours, Bologna a mere 35 minutes. We only had three weekends there so we made the most out of it and took a trip on each one. Each of these trips ended with lots of pictures, so I plan to write a post for each one.

The first weekend, we went to Rome. My group of nine friends stayed in an Airbnb apartment just outside of Vatican City. The first night we relaxed and planned our weekend. A huge part of studying abroad is planning, especially if you're on a short trip like mine, and especially for weekend trips. Rome is a huge city with tons of things to do and see. We basically had to do the Rome 101: Vatican, Coliseum, and (my personal favorite) Villa and Galleria Borghese. Since Sunday is a crazy day to go to the Vatican, we decided to get up early on Saturday and spend the whole day there. Vatican City is actually a small country within Italy, in fact the smallest country in the world. It has its own postal offices, but not its own jails. We started in the morning with the Vatican Museum, which is filled with priceless artworks.

You get the picture. We decided to wait on line to see the Sistine Chapel and then St. Peter's Basilica. Walking through the Vatican just to get to the Sistine Chapel, I kept thinking we had gotten there based on how beautiful the ceilings were. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the Sistine Chapel, as they were very strict about cameras (and speaking). But suffice it to say it was breathtaking. St. Peter's Basilica was immense and impressive. It was about the size of 8 churches put together. I didn't know this, but apparently a lot of churches are actually shaped like a cross, with two chapels on the side of the main church to form the cross. Again, St. Peter's had a collection of priceless art, including the original Pietà by Michelangelo. 

(It's much more impressive in person, since there's a wall of glass that makes pictures terrible)

You really start to get a sense of how much money the church had, huh. St. Peter's Square was equally impressive and beautiful.

On Sunday, we went to Galleria Borghese and the Coliseum. In the morning, we made our way over the neighborhood of the museum, right next to the park, and had some breakfast. One of my friends ordered a hot chocolate and we couldn't believe what came out: an entire cup of melted chocolate with a spoon. Apparently that's a common breakfast drink in Italy. How do these people stay so skinny and pretty??

Galleria Borghese is an art gallery located on the grounds of Villa Borghese grounds and gardens. It's filled with (you guessed it) Priceless Artworks. This is where some of the best Bernini sculptures are housed including Rape of Proserpine and Apollo and Daphne.

Rape of Prosepine

This sculpture refers to the myth of when Pluto, the god of the underworld, abducted Persephone, a vegetation goddess, from the earth and made her his queen of the underworld. Demeter, her mother, searched in grief to find her daughter for months, her despair driving the earth to keep from reproducing. Ultimately Zeus couldn't stand it anymore and told Pluto he had to give Persephone back, and Pluto agreed but he was tricky. He made Persephone eat some food from the underworld, some pomegranate seeds, which forced her to return there for a couple months each year, a time which we now call winter. 

This sculpture is beautiful from every angle; you can actually see where his fingers indent the skin on her thigh. Her marble thigh that is. She's even crying tears. Bernini was a genius.

Apollo and Daphne

Again, you can see the amazing craftsmanship that went into making this sculpture. We actually studied this myth in my class. Apollo, the god of the sun, is struck by Cupid with the arrow of love, while Daphne, a nymph, is struck with the arrow of hatred. Apollo pursues Daphne until she turns into a laurel tree to escape his affections. This myth was a huge inspiration to Petrach's (inventor of the Petrarchan sonnet, and kind of the sonnet in general) tortured love poems about his unrequited lover Laura. But here's where it gets great: he talks about the air (l'aura in Italian) and her hair being like gold (l'oro) and her name itself being Laura. So lots of in-jokes and rhyming (creepy much?). But most importantly, poets are crowned with laurel once they achieve fame: Nobel Laureates. So Petrach was basically comparing himself and Laura to Apollo and Daphne, and in this way using the unrequited love to achieve fame as a poet. And it worked. The original nice guy, friendzoned into the eternal history of poetry.

We ended the weekend with a quick tour of the Coliseum, then we caught the train back to Florence.

But not before some gnocchi, of course.

Astoria, the MCAT, and Tablets

Hi, everyone.

Today marks the end of another great week! Woo.

There was a medical school fair at Columbia today so I took a trip up there (it was my first time). The campus is absolutely gorgeous so I didn't mind neither the trip from Brooklyn nor the cold. A good number of medical schools that I'm interested in applying to were there so I was able to get some good information. And a ton of informational pamphlets too! haha

Speaking of med school stuff, on Wednesday, I got my score back for the MCAT that I took in January, and I was sooo relieved. Months of tension have finally come to an end. Now for the applications...

Earlier that same day, I found myself in Astoria again after more than a year. The last time that I was there I was visiting the Noguchi with my dad. My friend and I had tacos at this Mexican place, which were yummy. He's been going there for years, and he says that it's one of the best in the area. We then headed to Socrates Sculpture Park and tried to walk around without slipping on the ice and snow. haha. There were only a couple of other people there so it was quiet, and we just enjoyed the view of the river.

View from the last time that I was there (Dec 2013)

This past Sunday, my fellow co-editor-in-chief at The Macaulay Messenger and I held a meeting with our section editors. We ended up having the meeting at a Starbucks instead of the Macaulay building because unbeknownst to us, the building was closed that day. So we had to email everyone last minute to meet us at Starbucks. It was so cold that day too so it was not fun to run around in the biting wind but such is life. Always an adventure...

Both of us will be graduating by the end of the semester so we talked about how we will go about choosing next year's editor-in-chiefs. We also listened to any ideas that the section editors had about how to make the site better. I've loved running The Messenger this year because I'm learning what it means to run something with all of the perks and difficulties that comes with that responsibility. Something important that I've learned is that it is equally as important to be assertive as it is to listen to the opinions of others. That's what ultimately makes a great leader.

Something that I forgot to mention in my last post is that I recently bought a tablet for myself. Besides getting yourself a good laptop (Macaulay gives you one for free. Another reason to choose us for college! haha), getting a tablet is also a must. It doesn't have to be an expensive one. Just something that you know has proven to work well over time. I wish I had bought myself one earlier in college because it saves so much time, money, and space. I no longer have to rush to student computer labs to print PDFs. I can just download the file on the tablet, and read it whenever I have free time. Since I don't have a smartphone (Yes, I know. I'm probably one of the only millenials who doesn't. haha), I can use the tablet to quickly look things up like when an NYPL branch opens. Plus, it's great for the environment! So much paper was wasted on printing things out over the last 4 years. It's also a great way to save money on buying textbooks since there are ebook versions of many books these days.

Stay warm, everyone!

S.

For this last semester, I've decided that I'll share one cool/interesting/thought-provoking thing that I happen to run across during the week:

(This one is an oldie but a goodie!)

Oprah interviews Thich Nhat Hanh.  

Responsibility: The Hidden Requirement of Passing College

               Recently, when people asked me how my classes were going, I would just look at them for a few seconds and say, "I completely underestimated the workload in college." Compared to last semester, my workload has become much larger. In addition, I was unable to keep up with the pace of my classes. Just today, I found out that there was an assignment due that I have no idea about.
              So here I am, writing to you guys about what I realized within the period of disappointment I felt about missing the due date of an assignment for the first time: I need to become more responsible for my own education. Had I taken it into my own hands to read through every one of my syllabi carefully and write down all the important dates, I wouldn't have missed this assignment. If I wanted to graduate college with a degree in hand, then I needed to learn to manage my own time better.
              It might sound cliché since everyone that we ask about college would tell us that college teaches us how to be responsible and manage time. But let's be honest here. Even if a million of people told us that we will learn to be responsible in college, we wouldn't really understand it until we experience college for ourselves. All it took for me to recognize that I was on my own is for my college teacher to hand me a syllabus without explaining it and expecting me to understand it.
               But I know that I would eventually have to grow up. I also know that understanding instructions on my own is what it takes to be a responsible adult. Nevertheless, this is hard for me to accept because it only took 8 months for me to go from a high school student who depended on his teacher to a college student that had to learn the rules of the classroom on his own.
               At the same time, I am excited to see how I might change within these next three and a half years. I hope to become an independent student who my teachers and peers could depend on to get everything done on time or even better, early.
              I am also wondering how you guys feel about this transition, especially since I know that I am not the only one who noticed a considerable increase of difficulty between my first semester in college and my second semester. Feel free to post comments about the changes you are going through right now or how you changed if you already experienced this kind of transition in college.

~Justin Chen

"The price of greatness is responsibility." -Winston Churchill

V-Day and Growing Up

Hey, everyone!

Late night Friday post. It's been a week full of surprises for me that I'm still processing. haha I may be graduating soon, but college still has a few things to show me before we part ways...

You know, ever since I turned 18, I've told myself "You're an adult now." But I haven't fully stepped into those shoes until recently. I'm not sure what's changed. I think it's just new experiences that have shown me new perspectives. I feel like I'm finally coming into my adult self. Feeling more like a woman than a girl. It makes me realize that we can't snap our fingers and suddenly become something. Most of the time, it happens slowly and without us noticing until the transformation has already happened.

On Sunday, I went to the first Macaulay Scholars Council meeting of the semester. Macaulay fed us pizza because they're awesome. :) There were some good ideas thrown around so I'm excited to see some new developments this semester.

Tomorrow's Valentine's Day. Ooh la la. haha If you have a SO, enjoy some time together however you want to. Dinner, movies, cuddling on the couch, whatever you like.

If you're single, don't fret, spend the day doing whatever you like. And don't worry so much about being single. Life always has surprises for us....

Here are some dating tips that I wrote up last year. Enjoy. I'm no relationship expert but I think all college students see dating done so wrong so many times and we end up figuring out how it should be done.

May you all love and be loved the way that you want to. <3

S.

For this last semester, I've decided that I'll share one cool/interesting/thought-provoking thing that I happen to run across during the week:

A man writes a letter to his wife every day for nearly 40 years. 

Sunny Side Up

Hi, everyone!

This post comes to you guys on a Saturday afternoon because I had this bad headache yesterday and only had the energy to write an essay for my WGS class. But now I feel better, thankfully. :)

Yesterday marked the end of our first full week of the semester. These first couple of weeks are always the best because there isn't too much work yet so things are a bit more relaxed. But this is also the time that we get a feel for the impending workload of the class and how to approach each class in such a way that there's enough time to do all the reading, writing, and thinking without becoming a ball of anxiety.

Last semester, I wrote two articles about student life that you should check out if you want some suggestions on how to organize yourself as a student and how to deal with tough days. Here and here.

In my last post, I mentioned that this semester, I want to be aware of my breath and be as present as I can in every moment. Part of that is learning how to eat with presence of mind. For us college students, it's easy to eat bad food or to rush through lunch or even to forget to eat at all. Eating is one of our most basic needs, and if we don't take the time to eat well, then everything else will suffer as well. So one of my other goals this semester is to be more aware of what kind of food I'm eating and to enjoy every bite of it instead of having my mind on an essay I have to write later. I also want to continue to learn how to cook from my mom, the Internet, TV, and wherever else I can. I find cooking to be relaxing and just a lot of fun. It's such a joy to know that I can make something on my own.

Actually, my mom and I are going to make some bread today, which I'm excited about. We haven't done it since the summer.

I've also been really in love with making eggs sunny side up the last few weeks. So yummy in a sandwich with cheese or salsa or whatever else your GI tract desires. haha

Another goal of mine is to continue to dress well and to pick great pieces that really add to my wardrobe. I've been great at doing that the last couple of years and I want to continue because it pushes me to be creative and makes me feel more confident as I take on the day ahead.

What else to tell you all?

Hmm...if you're looking for a new show to watch, definitely check out Empire. It's about a family in the hip hop music business, and it is fabulous. It's no wonder the ratings have broken records. It just started in January so there's plenty of time to catch up here.

S.

For this last semester, I've decided that I'll share one cool/interesting/thought-provoking thing that I happen to run across during the week:

Ophelia Dahl talks about her father, children's literature icon, Roald Dahl and his advocacy of vaccines for children.