Julia's Journal

JHU_Julia: FAVORITES

This week, the students of Hopkins Interactive have decided to change things up a bit and all present a common blog topic.  Through the blogs and the message board, we really enjoy providing you with a glimpse of our lives at Hopkins while helping reveal to you what might lie in store for you in you decide to become a Hopkins student as well.  In addition to detailing life here at Hopkins, we also all enjoy getting to talk about totally random things that we love.  Just like we've done with the Off-Topic Discussion Forum of the message boards, we're taking a break from Hopkins talk and discussing our Favorite things!

So here we present out personal answers to a common survey of our favorite things about the worlds of books, movies, television, and much, much, more. 

Who is your favorite author?
I am going to have to say F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Or well, no.  Maybe Kurt Vonnegut.  Fitzgerald has just such a wonderful tone to his writing that is a mix of the glamor and idealism of the "Roaring '20s" era but still exposes the fragility of it all.  And Vonnegut is just great.  I've read Slaughterhouse Five twice because it's my favorite one.  I was so sad when he died.  So it goes...

What is your favorite website?
Oh geez.  There's so many.  Ok I (jokingly) love www.amigosdeobama.com.  I speak exactly zero words of Spanish which makes it even funnier for me...it has a reggaeton song about Obama in the background.  Ridiculous.

Obviously, nytimes.com is my life so that is probably an all time favorite.

Oh no ok, I figured out my all-time favorite: www.menupages.com!  Menu pages is brilliant.  There's versions for New York, D.C. and a bunch of other cities.  You can see every menu of every restaurant ever. I live on this site when I am home in New York. 

What is your favorite item in your bedroom?
MY BED.  I am sitting on it right now as I type this!  I have a queen size bed because I live off-campus and it is so nice and comfy and warm! Ok I am going to be really REALLY lame and admit that my favorite item of all time in my bedroom is Bunny.  I have a stuffed rabbit.  It's name is Bunny.  Obviously.  It was a really creative name when I was two years old! Now you all know about Bunny, so you should all feel really special.  Oh, and my Derek Jeter calendar.  That's definitely a favorite.

What, in your opinion, is the greatest invention of your time?
Not seriously: the hair straightener.   
Seriously: Gmail.  Not quite an invention but oh my goodness it is the best thing ever.

What is your favorite news source?
FOX NEWS, obviously.  JUST KIDDING.  I am a devout reader of the New York Times. 

What is your favorite movie series?
I have a non-answer for this one.  I do not have a favorite movie series...BUT here's why.  I have this rule for myself where I don't see sequels to movies I like.  I just feel like sequels ruin things.  The first one ended, just leave it!  Therefore, since I've never seen the sequels to movies I have liked, I don't have  favorite series of movies. 

What is your favorite time of day?
Right now, 2am.  I am a night person and always have been.  No one calls / emails / texts you or anything at 2am.  You get to do whatever you want, catch up on mindless things with no interruption!

Who is your favorite one-hit wonder?
I grew up in the 90s so the opportunities for this one are endless! Chumbawamba.  Tubthumping? Anyone else remember that from 5th grade?  Ok you were all probably in like 2nd grade but whatever. 

Which famous person living or dead would you like to have a cup of tea with?
Senator Chuck Hagel.  He is the Republican Senator from Nebraska and he recently announced his retirement.  He was among the first Republicans to break from the Bush administration and was vehemently opposed to the Iraq War having served in Vietnam.  He's so eloquent and a man who is really guided by his principles.  Anyways, I'm a politics nerd and I think he's cool. 

What is your favorite quote?
So so so many of these! I tend to watch movies that I like over and over and over again so I quote those all the time.  However, I also am a big music person so I have many song lyrics I love.  There's so many profound ones but I am going to say my favorite quote is a line from a Jimmy Eat World song called Futures that says

the past is told by those who win/ my darling, what matters is what hasn't been

Ok I guess that's not really a quote but whatever. I think it means that you have to understand that the past, regardless of your failures or successes, is in the past and there is so much more to come and that is really what is important. 

Are you a dog person, cat person, or other?
Definitely a dog person.  Dogs are just the best.  Also, I wouldn't mind being one.  I just want to sit all day on a cute little bean bag bed and chill out in the sunshine. 

What is your favorite game?
I am going to take this to mean sport....so my answer is BASEBALL.  My religion is baseball, in particular, the New York Yankees.  Baseball has such rich history and I just think it's an amazing American institution. 

Who is your favorite TV villain?
For the record, this question is REALLY hard when you watch shows like Gossip Girl, Brothers and Sisters, and the Gilmore Girls (back in the day).  Oh but you know what I just remembered?  Roger Klotz.  From Doug the cartoon.  No, not the ABC version!  The Nickelodeon version -- that was the real deal!  Roger was so mean and was always messing things up for Doug and trying to hit on Patty Mayonnaise.  He was the worst.  (also, I am officially a six year old child)

Where is the one place in the world you would want to visit?   
Definitely Italy.  I've never been and I want to go so badly!

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
Aside from perezhilton.com? Eating nutella right from the jar. 

To finish this survey, we will be stealing questions used at the end of eveyr broadcast of Inside the Actor's Studio.  James Lipton, the host of the show, always finishes each interview with a questionnaire invented by the great Bernard Pebo.  Here goes:

--What is your favorite word?   Aforementioned.   
--What is your least favorite word?   Discombobulated.
--What turns you on (creatively, spiritually, or emotionally)?  Traditions.  I love stupid, sappy traditions.
--What turns you off?  People who ask too many questions.  Oh and fanny packs.  The stylistic choices of New York tourists elude me. 
--What sound or noise to you love?  The sound of the M96 bus going down 96th Street in the middle of the night.  The city never sleeps.
--What sound or noise to you hate?  Ok.  That AWFUL noise that some stores have (especially in outlet malls) That two tone noise that goes off EVERY TIME someone walks in our out.  It is EXCRUCIATING.
--What profession would you like to attempt? Presidential speech writer. 
--What profession would you absolutely not like to attempt?  Doctor.
--If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?   "I agree, the Yankees should have won the World Series in 2001."

To comment on any of my answers or just to share your views and continue the discussion, be sure to head over to my thread on the message boards or comment below!

The good old days (?)

We have all heard our grandparents (and sometimes parents) wallow in nostalgia for "the good old days" when life was harder, opportunities scarcer, and those who managed to scramble to the top were more grateful than our own generation.  Over the summer, historian Rick Perlstein wrote an article for the New York Times called "What's the Matter with College" that lamented the declining radicalism of college culture. Whereas colleges used to be harbingers of social change that tore down old norms, Perlstein feels that todays colleges merely act as an extension of dominant cultural trends instead of questioning them.  He completely embodies the outmoded, essential Sixties point of view that life was not something that could be crafted by an institution but was an organic experience found in pseudo-intellectual arguments when you were supposed to be in class.  So maybe it isn't such a bad thing that Perlstein and his contemporaries have fallen so horribly out of style. 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Sixties as much as the next person.  There is enough Credence Clearwater Revival in my iTunes library to attest to that.  But I think one of the student essays that was a runner-up in the New York Times contest for best response essay to Perlstein put it best:

The vast majority of Perlstein’s complaints fit under the above rubric [of whining about the good old days]. Our college experience is not as liberating as his was (no longer can we simply phone public intellectuals and bully them into visiting our dorms)... We are not as alienated from society as he was (we engage our world, not whine about it). Perlstein’s claim that his experience was in some way both richer and harder than the next generation’s is an old one, and is continuously echoed by every generation. Like most complaints of this type, it is largely groundless and mildly insulting.

Even though it seems a little dramatic, it definitely is a little insulting to have an entire generation assume that our college experience is anything less than theirs.  At one point in the article, he calls our generation "organization kids" suggesting that we are "cogs" in the organization who (*gasp*) go out into the world and actually contribute to society instead of lamenting its supposed demise.  Perlstein and his generation don't stop for a second to think that maybe our generation is on to something.  That maybe channeling our intellect into organizations, school activities, and classes might actually serve us well one day.  And, moreover, that instead of tearing down institutions from the outside, we can build them up from the inside and leave the world a little bit better than we found it. 

One of the things that I have found at Hopkins is that few people leave here without having done something for Hopkins/Baltimore community.  There are so many opportunities to help Baltimore through the Center for Social Concern--Hopkins students tutor kids from the city, go give ballet lessons in schools, lead girl scout troops and a hundred more different things all around the city. But you don't even have to step off campus to help out.  Helping our community doesn't necessarily mean community service in the traditional sense.  By performing in a play, helping to organize campus events like the Milton Eisenhower Symposium or  being a resident advisor you can make Hopkins a more vibrant and exciting place to be.  Hopkins students spend their summers on programs abroad, taking classes, or completing internships all to help us be better lawyers, better doctors, better business people, better teachers, and better men and women. 

So while our college experience may not be as radical or overtly controversial, it is definitely unfair to have our involvement written off as fueling the organization.  Not only are we in the organization but we make it better every day.  I think right now is a really cool time to be our age--late high school and college aged.  I don't think people really know what it is yet, but there is definitely a big wave of change coming and what could be a better time to ride it than as a college student?--Someone who has not settled on a career or a path of life and who can see what opportunities lie ahead and can pick for themselves. 

Forgive my rambling, but I think now is a great time to help out and be an agent of change and what would be a better way to do that than to give yourself the best education you can?

And at the risk of turning my entire blog into shameless Obama propaganda, I'll take my chances and leave you with the new music video of Yes We Can which is all over YouTube now:

Watch it.  No, really, do it now. It's awesome.  (and all you Republicans out there can go find the McCain spoofs.)

Yes We Can!

Baltimore has a special guest in the city today: candidate Barack Obama is coming to the 1st Mariner Arena downtown for his Stand for Change Rally. And he'll be at the University of Maryland earlier today for another rally. I wish so much that I could go but I didn't hear about this until yesterday and sadly Mondays are my big class days (I have three). But I have a bunch of friends who are lucky enough to go.

With the Maryland primary tomorrow, hopefully these rallies can help him pick up votes here. Hopefully, his success over the weekend will continue into tomorrow's primaries (Virginia, Maryland, and D.C.--the "Chesapeake Primary").  I think this election has brought out the political side of a lot of Hopkins students which makes for some interesting debates with both Republicans and fellow Democrats.  My roommate from my Washington D.C. program and I got together for a Super Tuesday party last Tuesday -- I mean, we're both politics nerds so what did you expect?

Another special event last week was Bid Day on Thursday!  Bid Day is when all the girls still participating in greek recruitment are given a bid to one of the sororities on campus.  Alpha Phi gave out 42 bids and all 42 accepted!  So now we have 42 new baby-phis--there's so many of them!

The night of Bid Day is when we get all the new girls together so they can meet each other and start to get to know the older sisters -- there are a lot of name games throughout the night.  They also get to paint a big banner and sign their names to it which we will then hang in the Breezeway (the breezeway is located on the staircase in between upper and lower quads where student groups hang signs and banners to advertise upcoming events).  Among our 42 new girls are two people all you blog-readers should be very familiar with--Lauren (Wish You Were Here) and Stephanie (Hopkins Freshman Blog).

<---- Here is Lauren doing her dance move for our version of a name game!

It's so fun having a new class of girls, especially since my little sister will be getting a little of her own (which makes me a big-big sister. Yikes!) Other than Alpha Phi news, there is not much else going on for me--rush pretty much ate up my life for the past two weeks.  But now I'm (a little) less busy so I can catch up on some homework and relax!

Today I am currently avoiding going to class because it's just way to cold out (I think the wind chill is around 10 degrees. ughhh)

Until next week

...

**UPDATE**

Look! It's Barack Obama in Baltimore! (Sadly, I didn't make it to the rally, but thanks to my friends' facebook albums, I have the pictures!) And he has officially won the primaries in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland (yeah Balitmore city!) all with considerable margins.  YES. WE. CAN!!!

General Insanity (and other fun things that occur during the first week of the semester)

So like, here's the thing about college: sometimes your schedule resembles that of someone with bipolar disorder.  One week you have 1,000,000 things to do and the next week you have 3.  And the other thing about college is that every organization you are in will inevitably have their "yay it's a new semester, let's plan stuff" meeting within the same week.

As you can imagine from my mildly incoherent beginning, I have a lot going on this week and next.  OH! And the other thing about college (as you can see, there are a few) is that you still go to CLASS when all this goes on.  So yeah, hectic would probably be a good word for that. 

But seriously, don't mistake my yammering about meetings as discontent.  I would actually much rather be insanely busy than insanely bored.  Because the other thing about college (you had to see it coming that there would be one more) is that the busier you are with extra-curricular stuff, the better you get at managing your time.  Having less free time actually makes me manage what little time I have much more effectively.  And since I have pretty long breaks in between classes, I've developed the new habit of going to the library during that time to get work done.  Turns out, the more work you get done during the day, the less you have to do at night...if only I had discovered that freshman year.

Despite the craziness, this semester is going to be a great one--I can tell already.  I love my classes! I switched a few around so now I am in: History of the Global Economy in the 20th Century (AWESOME professor, he's really funny and engaging, Reimagining the Nation, International Conflict Resolution (I ended up in this class by accident and it's amazing!), Data Analysis, and Violence to End Violence: the Coming of the Civil War.  Check out all the books I'm reading now:

My two political science classes are actually seminars taught by doctoral fellows in their fifth or sixth years of dissertation work instead of professors.  I mean, I love professors but I actually really like having grad students as teachers.  They are obviously a lot younger and generally much more understanding, approachable, and accommodating than your average professor.  In fact, I have a Teaching Assistant for my economic history class who I had as a sophomore as well and I spent almost an hour after class today talking to her about her research and jobs and the real world vs. college.  It was awesome to get to talk to a grad student like that who is older and can give good perspective into the getting ready to leave college soon-ish mindset. 

Other than classes I have a few things to keep me busy.  We had our first admissions advisory board meeting of the year--it was so nice to be back this semester! Now I have finally met everyone on the board (shout out to the freshmen bloggers).  I also have a few meetings for the Hopkins Model UN Conference--it's at the end of the month so there is a lot to plan in between then and now.  And yesterday marked the beginning of the week long process of sorority recruitment which takes up quite a bit of time--but it's all worth it knowing that we will end up with a great new class of Alpha Phis!! I'm hoping one of the freshmen will blog about the recruitment process, but, if not, I will explain that all in my next post. 

I hate to cut this post short but I will be waking up in about 6 hours (at 7:30 am) to get ready to go set up for recruitment tomorrow so it's time for sleep!

Oh, that's the last thing about college: sleep is bliss.