Less Than Common Sense: New Semester, Way too much to say

I have come to the conclusion that I come up with the most creative titles ever, especially with this newest one. Remarkably innovative, no?

Anyway, I wasn't kidding about there being a lot for me to talk about, so I'm going to start from my trip back to Hopkins and then travel through time til the present. Brace yourself.

I had possibly the best plane ride ever on the way back from CT. I usually get motion sickness on planes and have trouble sleeping, and I usually end up on the tiny planes next to the propellor, which doesn't help. But this time was completely different. There were 33 people on the flight, but for some reason they were using like, the biggest plane ever. And I ended up in row 2 because they had nobody to fill up the seats. And I mean the entire row 2, because every passenger got their own row. So I got to lay down all the way across, and I fell asleep a minute or so after takeoff, and then woke up as the plane was pulling into the gate. So awesome.

When I got back to campus, I got a call from my friend Alicia asking me to come upstairs so we could go to dinner together. SURPRISE! All my friends were in the room to throw me a completely unexpected birthday party (did I mention that I'm 18 now?). They had a GREAT cake too, chocolate with some sort of whipped strawberry something layer in the middle. Plus, sparkling apple cider. Great choice. Anyway, I didn't see it coming and it was really sweet, and I felt at home here for the first time (don't tell my mom I said that!).

Fast forward 2 days, classes started and, not sure what possessed me to take 19 credits, but I decided to take 19 credits with special permission. Since then I dropped a class (thanks to add/drop period, which saved my life), so I'm down to a pretty normal courseload. So I'm glad that's done with. So here's the final lineup:

Chem2, Bio2, Chem Lab 2, Bio Lab 2: well, I have to finish all 4 of those courses from last semester, so no change there. New professor for chem though, so that's different.

Calc2: well, AP credit only took me so far, so Calc 2 it is. The professor is quite amusing I must say. Florin Spinu. Find him if you can because he's great.

Cognitive Neuroscience: So this class is completely different than anything else I've taken before, and by the looks of things, it's going to be extremely interesting. On the first day we discussed a study where electrical stimulation on different parts of the brain were used on a test subject to hypothesize about the part of the brain that is responsible for multiplication. Really fascinating stuff to me, the reason I'm a neuro major :)

(We're getting closer to the present!)

Yesterday, I went and watched a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," which is about global warming. It's really interesting if you haven't seen it, and my friend Julia (different from the SAAB Julia) is in an organization called HEAT (Hopkins Energy Action Team), which is pushing the Hopkins administration to move towards energy efficiency on campus and fighting global warming in Maryland and Virginia. It's a really awesome organization, and I signed a petition yesterday for them. It's amazing to see students actually making a difference on campus.

On to other matters. Something exciting about being back on campus is going back to climbing, which was really great, and I put myself on a workout regimen during intercession, so I'm a lot stronger than I was before, and it definitely showed in my climbing. I was definitely happy about that. Plus, I made a deal with a friend of mine, part of which involves her forcing me to go to the gym semi-daily (which means probably 3-4 times a week), because it's hard for me to stay motivated on my own. So far she's been doing a good job with it, I've been going consistently (against my will).

So I got a flyer in my mailbox for NSP (National Student Partnerships), which is an organization that helps out people in the city of Baltimore who are having trouble finding jobs, etc. I emailed the head of the organization, and I am going to start going in to volunteer next week, so I'm really excited about it. I think it's a great opportunity to help people, and I've been feeling like a brat here on campus doing nothing that isn't selfish, so this is my chance to do something that I think is important. I really hope it goes well, and it's nice that things like this find their way to me. Thinking back on me, a lot of this sort of thing happened last semester, but I never really took the initiative to do anything about it. So that's something really important to keep in mind, opportunities are going to be dangling in front of your nose, but you have to grab them yourself. You can't expect anyone to put in the effort for you, but the services at Hopkins make it so easy to find opportunities that match exactly what you want to do, and it just takes a little bit on your part to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

One last thought: I finished 3 pictures fairly recently, so I'm excited about that, and I'm going to be selling prints of them soon. So enjoy for now :)