The Aftermath

Hello, everyone.

You've probably already had a million discussions about the election and read way too many articles and posts about it, but I'd like to provide my own input based on my personal feelings, things I gained insight on in class discussions, and various other sources.

Thank you to my MHC seminar professor and my Creative Writing professor, for allowing class time to process and discuss the week's events in a safe environment. (Woohoo for group therapy!)


Literally everyone has said this already, but WOW, what a crazy few days it's been. The election of 2016 is finally over, and half of the country is in shock (myself included). The other half is genuinely happy that the change they wanted will be coming to the country.

To those people: I have no right to say that my sadness and anxiety is more important than your happiness and excitement. My feelings are do not take precedence over yours because I believe I'm in the right. You're right to you, and I can't deny that from you. You have your own jobs, families, and lives to be worried about, and those vital influences told you that Trump was the right president for you. I accept that, and I'm sorry that there was so much tension between the two sides of this election.

However, I'd like to address the people who were more excited about the fact that they could now use Trump as an excuse to further encourage racist, sexist, homophobic, and other targeted rhetoric/actions. I am not naive enough to think that racism, sexism, homophobia, and other types of hate and prejudice did not exist here before, but the things I have seen and heard of are outright rage-inducing and heartbreaking. Humanity has disappointed me, and I feel for those of you who have also been crushed by this backwards progress.

On the other hand, humanity also reminded me to remain hopeful. We have broken records as 6 women were elected who are the first of their race/ethnicity/religion to be in Congress. Strangers have left encouraging words for others to read in the subway, reminding each other that the world keeps spinning as long as we have hope and are kind. Somewhere out there, the first woman president of the United States of America is making plans, and isn't that just amazing? Because it will happen; I have faith in that.

Keep your chins up, guys. Find comfort in those around you, and comfort them in return. If you see anyone getting harassed, simply ignore the hate, go up to them, and start a discussion about the weather. Speak out, whether it's on Facebook, Instagram or Tumblr, or with art and music instead of words--anything.

Don't lose your voice just because you think that hate will drown it out. Trust me: it won't, and it can't.

Have a hopeful week, guys.

I've Never Crammed So Hard in My Life

Hello, Macaulayans! (Macaulians? Macaulayeans? Let's make this a thing, guys)

How are midterms treating y'all? I just finished with my testing today, and guys, let me tell you: I've never crammed so hard in my life as I did yesterday for this test. I had my Classical Mythology (CLA 101) midterm today, and for those of you who don't know: there are a heck of a lot of names and stories to remember.

Who was this guy's parents? Why did this girl get turned into a tree? How did one goddess get revenge on the other? Where was this god born? Why did Hera stay with Zeus even though he cheated on her with literally every available (and not available) woman/maiden/man/youth out there? (Just kidding, that last one wasn't a question, but the answer: Hera = goddess of marriage, so it'd be against her nature to leave Zeus. Zeus, obviously, did not particularly care about this whatsoever.) 

If these questions sound particularly interesting to you in any way, definitely take some Classics courses! I just wanted to take this because, you know, percyjacksonandtheolympians.

Anyways...

Now that midterms are over, I've been stressing out about my schedule for next semester. According to literally all of the upperclassmen I've talked to, even if you have a perfect schedule in your shopping cart and you click enroll at exactly the time your registration opens, somehow your classes will already be filled and you'll have to stress out about finding new ways to keep it.

Thank you, upperclassmen, for your encouraging words of wisdom.

My plan for next semester: 2 English courses, the MHC 15000 seminar, a Political Science course, and a Religion course. I'm going to drown in reading and papers, aren't I? But hey, after next semester I'll be basically done with all of the Hunter requirements except for language (and the stuff that MHC 20000 will cover). Taking classes that have overlap in core requirements/major requirements/minor requirements makes everything seem so much more productive.

Sorry I don't have pictures for this post! I'd put one up of my relieved, "I'M DONE!!!" face after that midterm, but no one needs to see that. Ever.

If you guys still have midterms, good luck!

Woops...

Hi everyone!!

So sorry for the lack of posts (I can't believe it's been exactly a month since I first posted). It's been hard for me to function as a responsible, studious college student because all I want to do is curl up in bed and nap between watching Netflix and Youtube videos. But you know, life happens, so.

Besides my sad attempts at becoming a functioning adult, I've been caught up in midterm season, as I'm sure all of you are as well. Thankfully, I only have two tests--one was yesterday, while the last one is next week). That German Fairy Tales midterm was not as scary as I imagined it to be...

Quick plug for German Fairy Tales! The class is fun, there's nothing too stressful, and Professor Zimmerman is great, so anyone who has room for it in their schedule should take it! (I think it's only available in the fall, though.) Just one warning: prepare to have your childhoods ruined... 

But anyway, I just thought I'd share a couple of things I learned in the two months since I started college:

• Zabar Art Library is great for napping (and studying too, I guess)
• Elim's and Hale and Hearty are my favorite places to eat (and they're right next to each other too!)
• Never forget your headphones at home: you never know when class will end early, and you need some Netflix between classes
• If you don't take your hair out of the shower drain, IT WILL FLOOD and it will be gross. Don't do that.
• Planning out your schedule weeks before they even announce the enrollment dates makes you feel very accomplished (I also made an alternate one, just in case)
• Meeting up with friends for lunch / breaks is a great way to stay connected, especially if you don't have any classes together 

So yeah, I'm sure that list will get much longer as time goes on. I'll be posting more regularly from now on, I promise!

Good luck to everyone on their midterm tests/papers/projects!!

What's a Jellicle Cat?

Hello MacBlog readers!

Sabrina here, aka the newest MacBlog blogger! (MacBlogger? Is that a thing?) I hope everyone's been have a great first month so far! I just want to start out with a little bit about myself before I get into the reason for the title. I'm a freshman (woo, Class of '20!) at Macaulay @ Hunter, and I plan on majoring in English. I'm dorming at Brookdale, and my favorite thing about it so far is how there are only like three! working!! dryers!!! Just kidding. But really, dorming's great, because I've gotten to meet and know a lot of people that I probably wouldn't have run into otherwise.

Alright, onto the Jellicle Cats. So my friend had the luck of winning the Cats lottery yesterday...

Sidenote: my other friend also won the Wicked lottery a few weeks back. We're all in the same seminar class. To everyone in Neary '16: enter all the Broadway lotteries. 

Back to singing cats. We went up to the Neil Simon Theatre after braving all of the chaos that is New York City rush hour, but we didn't have time for dinner. I had to buy $7 trail mix at the theater so I wouldn't interrupt the music with the inevitable growling from my stomach.

I've got to say, there was absolutely no plot to it at all. Maybe just the tiniest hint of it. They just sang and danced and introduced more cats till the very end. I still don't really get what a Jellicle cat is, or why everyone hated Grizabella so much. But the music and the singing and the dancing: all amazing. I was literally singing Memory until I went to sleep.

The moral of this post: enter the Broadway lotteries! Go see Off-Broadway shows! Off-Broadway shows are 2-for-1 from September 26 to October 9; take advantage of that! And if anyone ever wins the Hamilton lottery, remember who was kind enough to convey this moral to you.

Quilling?

It’s been a rather boring month so far, so I thought I’d talk about a hobby near and dear to my heart – quilling! Quilling is an art form where you take pieces of paper strips and roll and shape them into various designs with a tool similar to a bident. People make all sorts of things through quilling, but I tend to stick to earrings! These are two of my more favorite designs, as they’re simple enough to make, but are aesthetically pleasing. 

 I was able to make the rainbow earring with some scrap pieces of paper I had around the room, but for the other earring I used quilling paper, which can be found in any craft store.

I first found out about quilling when I was in India two summers ago. Faced with one of the inevitable electric shorts when I was at my uncle’s house, my eyes started to wander, until I happened to take a closer look at my cousin’s earrings. Upon discussion, I found that my cousin had been making all earrings for the past year. With that, the rest of my afternoon was devoted to learning how to quill.

Over the past year, quilling has been my main tension reliever. Whenever I feel like I need a break from academics, but don’t want to give my mind over to my computer, I take out my handy quilling paper and tool and experiment to my hearts content. Before I set my mind to a design, I tend to sketch it out to get a feel for how it would look like on the ear. If I’m making an earring for a specific person, I do my best to take into account their earring size and color preference. Some people like large flamboyant jewelry pieces – others don't (I’ve learned the heard way OTL).

I found it interesting that quilling as an art form has been around for a long time. During the renaissance, nuns would use quilling to decorate various religious items.  It’s interesting to see such an art form become more accessible and widespread as time has passed – it's a easy and fun way to pass time. While the process of quilling has stayed very much the same, the tools and supplies have all modernized.  A great website that I use for the occasional quilling tip/ inspiration is http://www.honeysquilling.com, although there are plenty of good youtube channels that have similar content.

I’m working on a more complicated piece right now – hopefully it’ll be complete by my next blog post! Also, as I write this I remember that it's the fourth of July. I hope everyone gets to spend some time with family and have some fun!

The instant gratification monkey

With June already well underway, I thought I'd talk about some thing that I've been having a problem with for a while - procrastination.

Personally, I always seem to procrastinate the most when the stakes are the highest. 20 final paper - lets start the night before! Presentation thats worth 30% of my grade - lets get this done the day of! For all of my academic career, I had been pretty good about getting things done on time, but for some reason I couldn't get myself to work my second semester of junior year. One particular example was studying for my Japanese final. Even though it was the only thing that stood between me and my long-awaited summer, I couldn't bring myself to study for the test till the night before.


Now that school was finally over, I had pushed my woes about my struggle with procrastination to the back of my head until a couple of nights ago. On one of my usual spirals into the depths of Youtube, I stumbled upon this Ted Talk. In it, Tim Urban gives us a witty and insightful talk about his own experience with procrastination and how he understands the difference between a person who procrastinates, and one who doesn't. There were many great moments in this talk, but one of the things that stuck out to me the most was his ending - procrastinating on things without a deadline.

After watching this video, it hit me. I wasn't procrastinating for the sake of not wanting to study - no, it was something deeper than that. I was procrastinating in thinking about the future. By swamping myself with schoolwork, it left me no time to think about whats ahead. Hard as it was to admit, I didn't want to plan for the future because I was afraid nothing would go to plan. Essentially, it was a fear of failure and the unknown that was holding me back from doing anything, and it had camouflaged itself in the form of procrastination. Knowing that any decisions I made now could have repercussions in the future was holding me back from even starting

The first step of solving any problem is admitting there is a problem. Now that I've been able to do so, I know for certain I can conquer this bump in my path as I head into the future. I urge anyone whose been having problems with procrastination to look at themselves and try and understand why you procrastinate. Time is always ticking.

The Midterms from Hell

Hello wonderful people!

As you may have noticed, the blog template has changed! Yes, I've finally been able to setting on something I was at least moderately happy with. I'm still a bit iffy on color choices, and keep going back and forth on some aesthetic choices, but for now we're going with this. I've unfortunately never really coded or anything before, so it's a bit beyond my ability to make some of the really nice changes I want. Once midterms are over, I definitely intend on reading up on it. 

It's been a rough two weeks since the last time I've been here. From studying for midterms (which are quickly creeping closer) to MCAT prep to scrambling to get a summer plan on lockdown, I haven't had much time to do anything fun. If there's one thing college has taught me, it's how to effectively manage my time. Granted, it hasn't worked very well (curse the tempting pull of all five seasons of Scandal), but I'm sure I'll get the system down pat by the end of senior year. 

One of the more interesting things that happened today was when I was waiting for the 7 train this morning. Today being the Mets home opener game, the Nostalgia train ran past my station on its way to Queens. The nostalgia train, or "The Train of Many Colors", is made up of vintage subway cars painted different colors to represent different eras in subway history. It's not brought out too often by the MTA, so it was a real treat to catch a glimpse of it. Thinking about out subway always leads my thought back to Tokyo. I was lucky enough to use a portion of my Opportunities fund to take a short winter class in Tokyo (Film and Culture if anyone's interested!). Essentially, Tokyo's subways system is what we all wish NYCs would be like. The contrast in aesthetic, cleanliness, efficiency is almost laughable. 

This might be the limit to my ramblings for today. I will be posting updates, as well as continually editing the site for a more pleasing experience for everyone. 

Until next time !

An Introduction

Hi everyone!

My name is Malavika, and I will be the new coordinator for the MacBlog! I apologize for the lack of activity up till now – I’ve slowly been thinking of new ideas to implement so that this blog becomes an even better resource than it was in it’s heyday for potential and incoming students.

As always, I’ll start with an introduction. I’m currently a junior at Hunter College, with a major in Biology and a minor in Environmental Science and Religious Studies while on the pre-medical track. I’m currently taking Japanese, and hope to one day become fluent enough to pass the proficiency exam. I love listening to music (I’ve recently been hooked to Bach’s concertos), and trying new foods!

I hope to start getting more writers and make changes to the site in the coming days, so please look forward to them!