Not-Quite-Daily Ramblings

Farewell - for Now!

Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for your loyal readership of my blog for the past couple years - I have really enjoyed writing for you and showing you a bit about my life at Hopkins.

Now that my life has moved (to DC!), I will have a bunch to write about - but less time to do it. Sooooo, to stay updated on my life as a JHU alum, be on the lookout for the JHU Alumni blog, which will get started on Hopkins Interactive some time soon. I'll be posting there every so often, as will a bunch of other alumni; we may have physically moved on to other things, but we left our hearts at Homewood, and we want you to stay plugged in to what we're up to now!

Have a FANTASTIC FALL!

On Hiatus: Be Back in Mid-September

To our loyal fans,

As we reach the end of the summer and the beginning of a new school year, the Hopkins Interactive student blogs will be taking a brief hiatus. There will be no new content posted until the middle of September, so check back then for new posts (and some new bloggers!) In the meantime, we encourage you to read through our blog archives to read about all the exciting things we did last year. Have a great return to the school year and we’ll chat with you in a few weeks.

~The
Hopkins
Bloggers

So Long, Summer

It seems like summer is just about over...my roommates that have been working at summer internships have wrapped up their projects and are taking a week off before grad school starts for them "in the fall."

I have to admit, it's a little weird to not being starting school in a week or two. No RA training this year, after two years of using that as a transition back to school. No freshman orientation, no sexcapades, no O-show (incoming freshmen, you'll see/hear what I'm talking about once you get to campus). I am still excited to be helping with my debate team's annual tournament the second weekend in September, but it's a big shock to not be at Homewood all day every day.

This summer has gone by incredibly quickly. After my trip to Europe, it was nice to take a break and settle in to my new house. We've slowly added the important pieces to the house - a grill, a slipcover for our old couch, two new couches...very exciting! In a couple weeks when all the boys are back in town (cue the music), I think it will really feel like we've settled into a new routine. Luckily, that routine involves lots of our friends who live in DC, and our front door seems to have a "vacancy" sign flashing, because we almost always have visitors and friends over for a day (or a week!). Like in college, there is always someone around to talk or hang out with.

I hope your summer is wrapping up well, too - I won't be blogging regularly in the fall since I won't be a Hopkins student anymore (tear!), but I promise that I will be doing semi-regular updates from the life of a Hopkins alum!

Cruel Summer

Wow...that heat/humidity is really something. For a bit part of last week, the mid Atlantic hovered near 100, with some of the big metro areas declaring heat emergencies and telling people to try their best to stay cool. It's really kind of sad when a 15 minute walk to the Metro leaves one feeling like you just spent an hour working out. Ick!

I'm now one full week into my life as a real adult with a real job and real responsibilities here in DC...I have to say, it's been a bit overwhelming in the least. For most of May & June, although I had moved into a new house in a new city, it hadn't really hit me that my life was about to change pretty radically with the addition of a real permanent benefits-providing job.

I'm still not really sure how I feel about that. Mostly, because I somehow feel as though my summer has been artificially shortened compared to in the past...at least, with internships & such you know that there is an end date in site. With school, semesters help you mark major accomplishments. Although there are surely similar measurements in the corporate world, I imagine it will take me a while to become adjusted.

Beyond that, life in DC has been pretty great - we've been exploring lots of restaurants in our neighborhood and beyond, and we've been spending a TON of time at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (aka the National Zoo), which is literally visible from our front porch and only a 5 minute walk away. My absolute favorite animals are the prairie dogs, but I'm also partial to the great apes, the sea lions, and the everyone-loves-them pandas.

DCA, YYZ, LHR, MEM, DSM, DTW

No, not alphabet soup...the airport codes of the cities I've traveled to/through the past few weeks. I spent two weeks in Europe (London to Paris back to London), by way of Toronto, and then visited two of Northwest Airlines' three hubs just days before their "It might be a great idea to hire too few pilots to fly all of our planes - instead let's cancel 13% of our flights" drama. Luckily, other than a few painful three hour delays, everyone involved made it safely to Dubuque, Iowa for my cousin's wedding last weekend.

Some photographic highlights of my journey to Europe (sorry, no Iowa pics yet - camera cord is MIA):

The inside of a temple ("the temple") in London which is apparently featured in The Da Vinci Code...who knew? I have never really been one to get in on big trendy books/movies (i.e. I have never read any of the Harry Potter books, and only went to one of the movies, under duress), but this temple was really quite cool - though it's only open for about an hour at a time, at random intervals throughout the week.

My trip involved lots of visits to different museums, including the British Museum, where we viewed lots of stolen artifacts that the British have, over time, accumulated from distant and ancient civilizations...and then held onto, even when other countries (Greece, most notably) have asked for them back.

One of my favorite things to do while traveling is go to parks...I'm not really one of the "let's go tour every major landmark and famous thing in the whole city" type of tourists.  So I went to this cool park in Paris for an afternoon, and found myself in the middle of a water fight! This park ranger (not pictured) had taken a ball away from these little boys, because they were being rowdy. To get their ball back, they taunted the park guy and started spraying him with water...trying to entice him away from his post long enough that their compatriots would be able to get the ball back. He chased them and chased them and pulled one down by his little ear! Soon, all mutiny had broken loose, with the little boys ganging up on him, the park-goers clapping for the boys. They got their ball back, but no without some collateral damage (like the guy pictured above, who got sprayed by some little boy).

Insert here some artsy type picture of a church (I forget the name), where we were somewhat mesmerized by a loooooong parade of people marking Pentecost.

When I was in high school debate, Foucault was one of my favorite philosophers, so I was pretty excited to see this pendulum with his moniker. The rest of the building was pretty great, too, including the tomb of Victor Hugo, one of my favorite writers.

I didn't feel the need to climb to the top of Notre Dame with my friend, but the famous rose windows inside I thought were very beautiful. The number of candles lit inside was pretty amazing, too.

Perhaps the oddest touristy but non-touristy place we went was the museum of the Parisian sewer system...we got to see these (fake) rats in their natural habitat! They let you climb down into the sewer and see how things work - pretty neat, and it didn't smell *that* bad.

And, of course, as a modern art fan I had to see the Pompidou and the Tate...my friend lives literally right behind the Tate (this picture was taken from the quad/lawn in front of his dorm). Pretty great place to take a nap (another of my favorite things to do in foreign countries - though apparently not really smiled upon when you do it in the middle of a Parisian traffic circle. Whoops!).

Looking Back on Senior Year

Now that I'm back stateside and have had some time to settle in (though today's task, all-day laundry & dry cleaning, doesn't seem like much "settling" fun), I thought I'd give you a recap of my last year at Hopkins, with some links back to previous entries in case you missed them (like a set of summer reruns!):

Back in September, I was really excited (and a little overwhelmed!) starting my last year at Hopkins - there was just SO much to do and so much to look forward to.  I had some fantastic classes in the fall semester, with professors that really challenged me and subjects that I found myself really truly enthralled by. There was still time for fun, though - a Hallobirthdayween party was a big highlight of the fall.

One of my Pre-O buddies, Liz, won a pancake eating contest at neighborhood favorite Pete's Grille, and got put on Baltimore TV for it! Over winter vacation, I ventured to Vancouver with a bunch of fellow debaters for the World championship. I also got some time in the beginning of the spring semester to enjoy the surroundings at Hopkins, including the BMA sculpture garden.

I also did some spring cleaning, and showed off my room in Bradford, one of the on-campus apartment buildings. My RA staff went snow-tubing in early March, taking advantage of some end-of-season winter weather.

This spring, I began a hunt for a house in Washington, DC. To get in the mood of living in a big city, I showed you how to get around Baltimore using different kinds of public transportation. I also got a bit nostalgic and showed you some of my absolute favorite places on the Hopkins Homewood campus, and updated you on what I was up to outside of the classroom.

Now, I've walked across the stage at graduation and moved into our new house in DC. We've started to explore all of the non-touristy places and choose all of our favorite local restaurants. There's still a lot to do in terms of getting the perfect furniture pieces and re-doing the back yard/garden, but we're really excited to settle into a routine and just enjoy the summer (with barbeques - we got a grill!). Eek - the laundry just buzzed, time to be off! Enjoy the beginning of your summer!   

Finally...It's Here

Since I wrote last, I've been pretty busy:
* I packed up my apartment in the Bradford
* I moved all of my stuff (and three of my now-roommates' stuff) from Baltimore to Maryland, in a 26-foot U-Haul
* I unpacked all of my stuff (though I have to admit, I haven't yet put much of it away)
* I visited IKEA to puchase a bed, desk, and dresser, then assembled them in my new room
* Oh, yeah...I graduated from Hopkins. :-)

In about 9 hours, I'll be on a plane to London to see my friend, Travis, for a few days. From there, we'll be going to Paris to visit our friend, Ivana. Then it's back to  London for a few more days, before finally settling in here in my new house in DC.

I can hardly believe that I'm moving so quickly from college into the "real world,"  but I am really excited for what's to come. When I get back at the end of May, I'll be writing an entry recapping my trip as well as my  whole senior year...a lot has happened, that's for sure. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the end of your own academic year!

And the Countdowns Begin...

Right about now, people start posting AIM away messages and Gmail & Facebook status reports detailing the number of finals/papers/class sessions/review sessions/pages to write they have left...some stick with "x days left" and stay pretty simple, and some get very intricate with details about their impending academic doom. :-)

Countdowns are always exciting (remember those daisy chain paper links that you made in elementary school counting down till 100 days/Christmas vacation/summer?!?), but this year my countdown suddenly has a little more weight because I'm graduating in...16 days (I have to admit, I have been so busy writing 30ish pages of this paper that I haven't had time to make a countdown of my own in any capacity - but I also kind of hate countdowns and prefer to just have a list of things to cross off instead; the finality is more fulfilling that way).

For those of you who are graduating from high school, you probably have similar countdowns...you might have had one counting down till today (May 1st) when your final college decision had to be postmarked. I hope that you ended up making a decision that you are comfortable with & that you are excited about the next four years to come...just another countdown yet to begin!

p.s. The weather in Baltimore is *BEAUTIFUL* right now - all week we've had abundant sunshine and warm weather, albeit with waaaay too much seasonal allergen infiltration. Achoo!

Sweeeet

Sorry I've been a bit negligent in posting this past week...I promise that I've thought about it many times, I just haven't had the time (or the camera) that I needed accessible to me. I'll admit, this week has been fairly brutal schoolwork-wise...I would have thought that my last few weeks as a senior would be a breeze, but apparently I was wrong. :-)

Anyway, the academic crunch hasn't really been aided by the end of the debate season, either. This weekend was the National tournament at Vassar. It was really bittersweet to see all of my friends for the last time this year...but it was still a great time, and some of my friends from Princeton were in the final round (you can listen to a recording of the round here). At least momentarily, being at the tournament helped me forget about all the work I had to do.

Then on Tuesday, the JHU chapter of the American Red Cross hosted a Cake-Bake-Off to End Global Poverty. People could sample cakes made by JHU students and submitted by professional bakeries. All proceeds from the event benefitted the Millennium Villages Project, which is a project created by economist Jeffrey Sachs to demonstrate that poor villages in developing countries can break free of the cycle of poverty if they are given enough capital investment to develop an infrastructure, learn better agricultural techniques, establish adequate health care, etc. One of my residents helped to organize the event, so my building decided to get together to bake & decorate some cakes to enter into the contest. One of the cakes was an interpretation of the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and the other was a "crab cake" (get it?!?!).

I hope those of you that are still in the final "OMG - what college am I going to go to?!?! My whole life depends on this ONE decision?!?" freak out week are maintaining your cool...in all reality, whatever school you choose will be the one that's right for you. Good luck! 

Technology?!?

My computer has suddenly decided it hates me...in other words, I can hear that dreadful "whirring" noise growing louder by the minute. So this update will have to be quick.

A few exciting things going on:

* Despite the torrential downpours that tend to plague Spring Fair, signs of life are spurting up all across campus. The grass is splendidly green, and flowers (yay!) are adding tons of color to the landscape.

* Lots of a capella groups are gearing up for their spring concerts. One of my friends who was in the Vocal Chords stayed overnight with me on Friday after their group & alumni sang the national anthem at Camden Yards for an Orioles game! They had sent in an audition tape over a year ago, and got the good news last week.

* This coming weekend is debate nationals - so lots of preparation (writing cases, having practice rounds, dropping off fancy clothes at the cleaners...) has to occur between now and then.

* My future roommates and I finally signed a lease on a house yesterday! Beginning May 12th, we'll be the proud occupants of our own 6BR/3.5BA house in Washington, D.C. We're already making plans for how to furnish the house/decorate the patio/plant the gardens. It's weird to think that in only two weeks, classes will be over...and just a week after that I'll be done with college forever. Then off to "the real world," but not without a two-week stopover in London & Paris along the way. :-)