Adventures at Hopkins

Oh Berlin!

Oh Berlin! Study abroad was such a wonderful part of my college experience and I long to return to my favorite European city. I studied in Geneva but after three days in Berlin I knew where I wanted to live. Berlin was so perfect. It was gritty and real and just cool.

Why do I speak of Berlin six months after I walked amongst its graffitied walls? Because my life is conspiring to remind me of it. Coincidence after coincidence have piled up and it now feels like fate is trying to tell me something.

1. One of my summer jobs is working for a company that helps people find lost assets. I’m essentially working as a paralegal. I hunt through bankruptcy courts to see if people have forgotten money. If someone goes bankrupt they try to find all the people to distribute the money to but if the court cannot it goes and sits in an account until someone claims it. I help connect people with the money. I have been dealing a lot with interesting names and keep landing on web sites in foreign languages, including German. A bit of a stretch but  it’s the first in a long line of   coincidences. 
2. My other summer internship is working for a documentary film company (Providence Pictures). I spend my time getting rights for film footage, inputting and researching images to be used in the film, and helping to keep the script in order. The producer and head researcher just came back from a trip to Israel where they filmed historical recreations. I want their jobs! Anyway some of the footage I had to find was of the Ishtar Gates, the ancient gates to the city of Babylon. I happened to have walked through these gates when I visited the Pergamon Museum. Happen to know which city plays host to the Pergamon? Berlin.   I actually found this footage by using the travel channel’s Samantha Brown. I saw her show Passport to Europe      and then tracked down her production company in an effort to license footage of the gates.
3. This      is sort of a random coincidence. But the other day I turned on the television and up popped Anthony Bordain. Where was he? You guessed it! Berlin.
4. Now the cherry on top of this ice cream sundae of coincidence. Yesterday while driving back from a visit to my Grandmother’s we got lost. In an effort to avoid traffic in Connecticut we just took a wrong exit and ended up in the middle of nowhere. Guess what the name of the town in the middle of no where was? Berlin.

So my whole life is telling me to head back to Europe, head back to Germany, head back to Berlin. I checked plane fairs. I can’t afford to go. But maybe I could convince my friends to come with me for spring break. If not I can always go back to Berlin, Connecticut. It’s the low cost college student’s version of traveling to Europe. Just go to towns named after European cities.

End of the year

I decided to write my summarizing entry for this year with the help of a slide show. As the saying goes . . . Anyway I wanted to include links to my favorite blog entries from this year but the stupid comment function on the program I used wouldn't let me hyperlink the comments. So I've posted the links below. Sorry for the disjunction I just really wanted to do a slide show. Enjoy!

Hi from Switzerland

My walk to school

Bern, Bears and Paris

What I didn't do in Paris!

Study Abroad is about being lazy

The Pause in my Travels

I hate Air France and other stories

Off Campus CRIBS

Holla back Jews

Spring Fair 2008

Nothing, Nothing , Nothing ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

What have I done this past weekend? A whole lot of nothing. I seem to have managed to have all my exams in a group at the end of exam period and I finished all my papers long ago so I have nothing to do. I’ve been realizing, going to gym, sitting out on the beach, and basically doing the sort of stuff you do when you have nothing else to do. I procrastinated by planning my future (Peace Corps anyone?) and by playing with my cat (one of the greatest things about living off campus is you get to have pets). In between all of this glorious nothing doing I managed to go see two comedy performances, attend a semi-formal, and help my sister paint her new apartment.

The first comedy show I went to see was for the Buttered Niblets. They’re an improv group on campus. They were really good but it was the last show of the year so it was kind of sad to see all the seniors perform for the last time.

Directly after the Niblets was Throat Culture. They perform sketch comedy. The best way to describe them is a very minor league version of SNL. They perform stage and film comedy and have been putting on pretty good shows lately. My twin sister is in the group so if you have a chance when you come to Hopkins you should definitely stop in to see one of their shows.

After about three hours of comedy I was ready for a break. I stopped in at the after party but was felt the need to go see my sister at her apartment. After a rousing round of Apples to Apples, Zoe and my decorating urges took over. So we grabbed the cans of blue (I can’t remember the real paint color name) paint and got to work painting her bedroom. Her room has no overhead light and she hasn’t fully moved in yet so are no regular lamps. We painted her room by the light from the bathroom. Since we’re cheap college students we’re only doing one coat so it was important not to have too many touch ups. If you’re trying to avoid a second coat of paint you should probably try to paint when there is light. Oh well. Not my bedroom!

Saturday night I went to the Barnstormer’s semi-formal. Lots of people join sororities and fraternities for the formals but what they don’t know is that the theater kids throw formals too. Actually we have about one a year, almost no one goes with dates and true to theater/dramatic fashion there are awards. Oh the Barnies! These are the paper plate awards they involve such categories as best stage couple, best off stage couple, person least likely to get a Barney, and the cradle robber award (for the favorite senior/freshman couple). My favorite was the person who was awarded least likely to get a Barney because after cries of “Speech! Speech!” from the crowd he stood up on a table and announced that he had not prepared a speech and thus would give the speech from Independence Day. It was rousing (and surprising that he had it memorized)! Oh theater people. Also why theater formals are the best ones ever!

So I guess in my weekend of nothing I really meant that I did nothing that involved school work. I gotta say that doing no school work in kind of really amazing. I do have to start doing some things this next week but for now I’ll just continue watching mindless TV.

Spring Fair 2008

Spring Fair is the best weekend at Hopkins. There is no other weekend like it. I decided to study abroad in the fall because I wanted to be at Hopkins for Spring Fair weekend. Why is Spring Fair amazing? Here follows an abridged list (with pictures)

1.    Spring in Baltimore is amazing.

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2.    Fried Oreos!! 

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3.    Llamas (well it’s not actually a llama, it’s an alpaca. I got yelled at for calling it a llama). Second picture is of me giving the llama/alpaca (named Frank Sinatra) a shifty eye. Never trust a llama/alpaca.

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4.    The Beer Garden. A Hopkins tradition. I have no photos. I’m saving our future political careers.

5.    Other non-llama creatures. 

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6.    Random break dancers in the Mattin Center. No idea why they were there.
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7.    Rides. Even big people can ride the rides.
8.    Carnival games. My boyfriend won me the dolphin!
9.    People randomly performing musicals in the middle of the lower quad. The cast of Pippin decided to recreate the musical just because they had so much fun doing it the first time. It was kind of ridiculous to see them trying to do a dull musical without any band. It was also a little off-key. But very random and amusing.
10.    Greasy chicken on a stick. Very greasy chicken on a stick!
11.    Did I mention fried Oreos! Oh and llamas!

I love Spring Fair!!!

Holla back Jews!

Wow, I’m not nearly ghetto enough to have made that my title.

Jews at Hopkins. Some people think we don’t exist others think everyone is Jewish. What’s the real answer? Well about 10-15% of Hopkins students identify as Jewish. Hillel has a definite presence on campus, with events ranging from Latkee vs. Hamentashen debate, to Purim parties, and of course High Holiday services.

I’m lucky because I have Jewish cousins in the area who invite me over to their house for almost every major holiday but if you don’t have that there are a variety of options available to the wandering Jew.

1. For Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah: Hillel has a variety of services for everyone from Reform to Orthodox. I’m a Reform Jew but I found those services ways to liberal for me (turns out college is more liberal than I thought) so I ended up temporarily turning conservative. The services are free and open to the public. They also have a breaking of the fast with really good free orange juice. I thought it tasted like the nectar of the gods (I know I’m mixing religions there). I’ve also had some luck because one woman in Alumni relations keeps inviting me to her house for every holiday imaginable. She also invites all the Jewish professors. So if you ever want to see Professor David or Moss up close and not during office hours get connected to this woman.

2. Hanukah: Hillel does do a lighting and some years there’s been a giant white menorah right in front of the library which we gather around and “light” (flip the switch). I’ve generally been a fan of violating dorm rules and lighting a menorah in my room.

3. Purim: My favorite holiday (my name’s Esther. How could it not be?). Hillel has a party with Megillah readings and costumes. I recommend throwing your own Purim part with the gentiles because Purim is a holiday that everyone can enjoy!

4. Passover: Last night was the first night of Passover and I had a Seder at my apartment. It went rather well, though it may have bankrupted me. I’ve done the Hillel Seder. I went to the reform one and when they reached a spot with Hebrew they just gave up. I’m reform but not that reform. Last year we used the common kitchen in Charles Commons and our dining dollars to do a small Seder with matzah pizza as the main course. It was a great time though there may have been more non-Jews invited than Jews. 

So Hillel does a Seder and then there are always a few Jewish upperclassmen who do as well. So tap into the Jew line and dial up a friend because there’s sure to be someone willing to take you in!

Here follows a photo documentary of my Seder! The shank bone is missing from the Seder plate because we hadn't made it yet. Yes we drew a bone with pink marker and called it a shank bone. Yay for substitutions. Sorry the pictures are blurry, my camera is broken.
 

Umm... Random Thoughts

In high school I played a fairy in Midsummer Night's dream. I was the one who got to say "over hill over dale". Actually I got to say about half that speech because the director made my twin sister and I alternate words. Talk about twinspoitation. I was painted blue every night (i was blue for weeks after that as well) and then I donned a very blue costume. In addition to the blue there was a lot of glitter in that play and ever since then shiny things have been very distracting for me. Recently shiny things have made it very difficult for me to do my homework (which I have an obscene amount of).

This past week was pretty stressful for me because I have so many essays coming up. In one four day period I have 46 pages due. And a midterm!!

I’m actually in pretty good shape for most of it. I just have to stick to schedule that I made. I even figured in enough time to go to a concert tomorrow night with my boyfriend. He picked the band. The Moody Blues. My parents apparently know who they are. All I know about them is that they’re old and have white hair. Maybe my time would be better spent studying Game Theory but one can’t give up on life for school.

                                        ***UPDATED***

So turns out my boyfriend didn't know which day the concert was on. We made it all the way to the theater before we realized no one else was there. I look at it as our dry run. Next week when the concert actually happens we should have no problem getting there.

I had some other ideas for this blog post. Originally I intended to take a picture of all the swag I got this week. My Stagecraft professor gave us a good acronym for what swag stands for. I forgot it. That’s probably why I didn’t choose to write on this topic. But I did get some pretty cool stuff this week: a pen from security, a selection of gels to be used on theater lights (from Stagecraft), a nail file, and a rape whistle (also from security). Speaking of swag, may I recommend that all of you stop by Hopkins Undergraduate Admissions. Their free gifts are great! as many pamphlets and brochures as you could ever want, a pen with a retractable photo of Hopkins (you gotta see it to believe it!), free normal looking pens, and of course the infamous tote bag. There's also a hidden coffee machine. I recommend the mocha chino with French Roast.

I also could have written about my weekend. I went to a comedy festival on Friday which was a lot of fun. One of the comics sang a song he wrote about his new kitten, Street Magic(yes he's named after the David Blaine Special) . The song was called Lipstick Kitty. Then he wrote Lipstick Kitty 2, which was from the perspective of Street Magic. Street Magic likes to type so he wrote some of his own verses. mesmd ? mcaodjfmfmkp --/. Try singing that out loud. Maybe you had to be there.

On Saturday I baked brownies with my sister and worked on my essays. And tonight I’m writing this blog entry, though I did spend some time today striking the costumes for the spring musical. I helped design the costumes for the Spring Musical. It was a long process but in the end everyone had a complete set of clothing to wear, pants, a shirt, and shoes. Trust me there were moments when I thought I was going to send boys out in their boxers. For anyone who has seen the orgy scene in Pippin that would not have been good.

After sitting here rather patiently writing this blog entry I was just distracted by something shiny. Actually it’s a bar of chocolate. I think I might go eat that chocolate now.

Oh the Legacy

My family is a real Hopkins family. Both my parents went here and my twin sister and I do as well. Next year my little sister is applying. I'm hoping the quadruple legacy bit helps in the application process. I should state, for the record, that my family is very anti-establishment. It's really weird for us to be so connected to an institution. My parents were hippies (or as much of a hippie you could ever be at Hopkins). We don't give money to Hopkins, mostly because we've paid so much in tuition over the past few years. Twins really rack up the bills.

On a side note my mom's ex-boyfriend from Hopkins' daughter was just admitted. She won the Hodson trust scholarship as well. It's still bizarre for me how connected my family is to this place. I've had professors that my parents had when they were here!

Anyway, this past spring break I was sorting through my mom’s papers from when she was at Hopkins (yes she saved everything!). In addition to Organic Chemistry notes from 1976, I happened to find her acceptance letter to Johns Hopkins. For all you admitted students out there take your copy and compare it to the one here. See how the times have changed.

While searching through the same stack of crinkled papers from the 70s I found an old edition of the Hopkins alumni magazine. At the back they had a section on Hopkins Argot. Actually quite similar to the

Hopkins Speak we have today (though perhaps a little raunchier). I asked my mom about it and turns out the guy who wrote the piece was another of her ex-boyfriends.

He wrote the article as a term paper.

I really want to know what he got for a grade! Especially since this version was edited to make it more appropriate. Click on the images to get bigger versions.

Some of my favorites include:
E-Level- a fictitious fifth level of the Milton S. Eisenhower LIbrary, a term used to confuse innocent freshmen and to represent the bowels of the library. (E-level is now actually the term for a bar on campus. Not really a bar but they have beer sometimes, pool, and video games. It's in levering)

From the fraternity realm:
egg- v. to blackball n. an undesirable brother.
atomic egg- an extremely undesirable brother.
I've spoken with my friends in frats about this process and I even know a few kids who were black balled (today's term). Usually its understandable why they were.

The definition for the year book (The Hullabaloo) includes a chant I that is no longer used at sporting events. I think we should bring it back!
Hallabaloo - Canuk- Canuk
Hallabaloo - Canuk- Canuk
Hoorah! Hoorah! J-H-U

I've always been a fan of Hopkins slang and its nice to know that if I'm so connected to this institution at least we have our own language.

CRIBS: OFF-CAMPUS APARTMENT

Normally before I write a CRIBS entry I clean my room. You know make my bed, vacuum a little, neaten things up. But this time I did none of that. I’m so swamped with work that I have to save time in the details. So I’ve decided that I no longer have the luxury of enough time to make my bed. Thus my CRIBS entry should not be taken as how I really live but just how I really live for about two weeks a semester before all my papers are due.

If you’ve read my previous CRIBS entries (here and here) you might know that I lived in five on campus rooms. After I came back from Switzerland I took the room of my friend who left for Italy. I don’t really know my roommates too well and my best friend in the apartment is the cat. Don’t feel bad for me; she’s a really nice cat. I say all this because I don’t want to be judged on the decorating style of the apartment. Truth be told my apartment kind of depresses me. I don’t like it. Luckily I’m moving out in five weeks. Next year I’m living with my friend Paul (he’s in Paris right now). I’m so excited to finally have a living situation that I will enjoy!

Anyway here are the pictures from my current, unclean, depressing, only useful in that it has a bed for me, apartment. Enjoy!

My bedroom:

The common spaces (living room, dining room, bathroom, kitchen)
And of course the requisite shots of the fridge. I actually like my fridge because most of the time it's well stocked!

I realize that I've not given a very positive review of my apartment. This is not how people normally view their first off campus apartments. I just have the world's worst luck with housing!

My Saturday Night

JHU_Esther FAVORITES

This week, the students of Hopkins Interactive have decided to mix things up and all present a common blog. Actually, because of the fact that I blog on Sundays I’m one of the last bloggers to create the common blog. So if you want to read the other common blog entries read everyone else’s blog entry from last week. I realize that you are all riveted to every detail of the Hopkins Interactive blogger’s lives (yes that was sarcasm) but we actually do things not associated with Hopkins on occasion. To showcase our diverse and divergent interests we’re taking this week to answer a survey of “favorites” questions. You can also find our answers on the messages boards in the Off-Topic Discussion Forum.

Who is your favorite author?: I want to sound all pretentious here and come up with a really obscure 18th century female Russian author who wrote under a man’s name in order to avoid the stereotypes of the time, but instead I’m going to instead go with a childhood favorite, C.S. Lewis.

What is your favorite website?: I check the NYTimes.com compulsively.

What is your favorite item in your bedroom?: Tiny. She’s my stuffed Panda. I’ve had her since I was two years old. She inspired me to create a collection of stuffed pandas. 22 stuffed pandas to be exact. They all related and yes, I created a family tree. Tiny has children (twins!), grand children, a sister with a lesbian life partner, parents, and grandparents. I was a fun child.

What, in your opinion, has been the greatest invention of your time?: The internet

What is your favorite news source?: again NYTimes.com

What is your favorite movie series?: The Bourne series. I read the books (or at least the first one and half of the second) and I really like the movies. I’m a fan of spy movies/books. Maybe because I secretly want to be a spy.

What is your favorite time of day? Why?: Right now. That’s an optimist thinking.

What is your favorite one hit wonder?: I’m going to expose my cultural inadequacy when I reveal that I don’t really listen to music. Thus this question is extremely difficult for me to answer.

Which famous person, living or dead, would you like to have a cup of tea with?: I pick Queen Elizabeth II. I bet she makes a mean cup of tea.

What is your favorite quote?: “If we can’t change the world can we at least change the subject” –my grandfather.

Are you a dog person? Cat person? An other person? Why?: Cat. Why would I want to have unconditional love when I could have mild disdain?

What is your favorite game?: Bridge. Yes I’m an old lady.

Who is your favorite TV villain?: I don’t really watch that much TV and I was abroad for the past semester and thus watched no TV. So I’m going to abstain from this question.

Where is the one place in the world where you would want to visit?: I went to Berlin this past December and it was absolutely amazing. So I want to go back and get to explore it again.

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?: Nutella. I don’t feel guilty about eating Nutella, just the massive quantities that I consume when I do.

For the final questions we will be stealing the queries used at the end of every broadcast of Inside the Actor’s Studio. James Lipton, the host if the show, always finishes each interview with a questionnaire invented by the great Bernard Pebo:

What is your favorite word?
    Facetious

What is your least favorite word?
    Chump

What turn you on (creatively, spiritually, or emotionally)?
    My summer house in the Thousand Islands

What turns you off?
    Negativity

What sound or noise do you love?
    Water trickling

What sound or noise do you hate?
    Sirens

What profession would you like to attempt?
    Astronaut

What profession would you absolutely not like to attempt?
    Coal miner

Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
    “Good job.”

To comment or debate any of the answers, or just to share your views and continue the discussion with me, be sure to head over to my personal message board thread! I look forward to hearing from my readers. And please feel free to ask any Hopkins related questions there as well. Hope you enjoyed my common blog!