I hope everyone had a great Christmas/Hanukkah! My break has been relaxing so far - I've been spending a lot of time with family of friends, with a bit of reading and prepping for winter quarter thrown in there. I made the mistake of discovering that you can play Pokemon Crystal version online, so when I got home last Sunday I played it almost non-stop the first few days. I'd forgotten how much I had missed it... that was the one game I had growing up (after I bought it off my brother Adam) and I played it until the game was so worn it could no longer save.
My Christmas was really nice - my family went to three different church services within the span of 16 hours and we had our extended family over for brunch and gifts. A few of my favorite presents:
- Web cam
- Christopher Nolan DVDs (The Prestige, Batman Begins, Dark Knight) and Deathly Hallows 7 Pt.2
- Arabic-English dictionary and a book of Arabic short stories
- A fair trade scarf
- Magnet Balls - playing around with these is strangely addictive...
My official grades are out and I did better than I had originally thought! I was correct about my grades in Bio and International Law, but I ended up getting an A+ instead of an A in Arabic and Cognitive Psych! While Davis doesn't factor an A+ into your GPA (unlike other +/- grades), it counts as 4.33 for law school so my law school GPA is looking pretty nice right now. Maybe Harvard/Yale/Stanford aren't out of the question...
I have probably ten books out from the library right now, with three of those being LSAT prep books. My plan is to prepare for the LSAT this coming summer and then take it next February after I get back from my quarter in Washington, D.C. (speaking of which, I need to start on that application soon!). In theory, I'm going to do a few practice sections this break like I did back last summer... although it always seems like I have other things I need to do instead. Shopping being up there, of course. Yes, I did go shopping yesterday for the post-Christmas sales, although of course the store I ended up getting things at did not have any amazing Christmas sales. Three sweaters, two adorable scarves, and there went all my Christmas money plus half of my (small) paycheck from the first two weeks of December. Ooops. At least A) it was stuff I really needed and had to buy regardless and B) it's all REALLY cute. Plus I get paid again next Wednesday, this time for all of the Mondavi shows I worked two weeks back when I stayed in Davis an extra week.
I'm ready for winter quarter to start - almost. I still have a few things to get ready for: pre-printing bulletin boards for the RA job, writing out flashcards with Arabic vocab for the next few chapters, completing applications for scholarships/the D.C. program/orientation leader position for summer, and buying a binder that will actually make it through the quarter. I tried using a binder back in fall quarter so that I could have all my notes and papers for each class together in one place, and it worked great... minus the binder falling apart in the last few weeks of the quarter. Probably a sign I was taking too many classes. Now that I have 3 more units than I did in fall, I'll need a sturdier binder. Possibly some duct tape.
It'll also be nice to get back to Davis since I'll be warm again! I'm staying in the sun room, which is great in summer but freezing in winter. Literally freezing - I woke up yesterday morning and it was below 30 in my room. Thank goodness for heated mattress pads and wool blankets! It's not completely terrible, but it makes getting out of bed in the morning nearly impossible. In Davis I can be assured that my room will be slightly warmer than that.
I hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve and stays warm over winter break! Again, happy holidays to you all!
Fall Quarter 2011 is over! I'm staying in Davis an extra week to work some Mondavi shows -which means that right now I'm sitting around and playing with my friend's kitten - but I'm done for the year. 19 units, resident advisor job, pre-law fraternity, and a few tours/shows thrown in for good measure (and to pay for textbooks). My classes went well... except for Bio. But on the bright side I got As in Arabic and Cognitive Psych, probably an A- in International Law. My GPA went down a bit this quarter but it's still good enough for Georgetown Law (probably not Harvard or Yale yet though).
The RA job went great, even if it caused me to be sleep-deprived all quarter. With weekly programs to plan and publicize, nights on-call, meetings to attend and paperwork to fill out, I had no free time this quarter. At least I was still able to participate in my fraternity and work a bit more on the side.
Winter quarter is going to be fun... and by fun, I mean I'm taking 22 units. I'll be taking Arabic II, Symbolic Logic, U.S. Foreign Policy, Theories of International Relations, Legal Writing, and a research seminar. I also have an aerobics/kickboxing class scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 am, but I'm planning to drop it after a few weeks (as soon as I'm back in shape or whenever I give up on waking up that early). The nice thing about my schedule, minus the aerobics class, is that I don't start until 10:00 am every day and I'm done by 2:00/3:00 in the afternoon most days. Also, no more Bio! All the International Relations classes will be nice for my GPA, although I'm a bit sad I'm not taking any Psych classes next quarter.
Another nice thing about next quarter? I finally have rainboots to handle the Davis winter! I also bought several pairs of adorable boots on Black Friday so my feet will be looking amazing all quarter long. And yes, I can give tours in cute boots... tried it out and didn't have any problems!
Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! (Since knowing me, I won't be posting again until January.) Enjoy your last few weeks of 2011!
Wow, I haven't posted in forever. Ooops. I'm done with the fifth week of the quarter, which means I'm done with my first cycle of midterms. Surprisingly, Arabic is turning out to be my "easy A" class. Don't get me wrong, it's a very difficult language and I'm not having an easy time of it, but my professor has very clear expectations plus a lot of extra credit, which means that I'm positive I will be getting an A. Definitely going to look great on my law school apps. However, Bio isn't go so well for me. My professor is teaching the class as if Chemistry were a pre-requisite (which it's not, FYI) and there were some random Chem topics on the midterm that were not covered in class. Nor did they relate to Biology at all... Oh well, hopefully things will pick up from here.
I'm really enjoying the RA job - my residents are great and I love getting to know everyone. It's definitely a very social community, which is great except when I'm trying to sleep or it's after quiet hours... I don't mind the administrative aspects at all and my fellow staff members are great. The only negative part is being on-call - I'm not a huge fan of rounds, especially those occasional 4-documentations-in-a-night (hooray for hours of paperwork at 3:00 in the morning). Last month when I was the RA on-call for a weekend I ended up getting really sick because of all the sleep I didn't get. Luckily I don't have any other full weekends on-call - just a few Fridays or Saturdays here and there, such as tonight - so I hopefully won't be getting sick like that again.
Everything is going great with my other activities, especially my fraternity. I picked up a little this quarter, which I'm excited about because she is AMAZING. My big picked up another little (bringing his count to four) so my family just keeps on growing! I've been having a lot of fun with activites - for example, last weekend I volunteered at a harvest festival and got to help little kids carve pumpkins. Tomorrow night after I'm done being on-call I get to go to a corn maze! Definitely a fun quarter.
On a final note, Happy (almost) Halloween! Halloween is one of my least-favorite holidays but I love autumn so I'm not minding what time of year it is. Also, I'm on-call on Halloween night... should be an interesting experience. Fingers are crossed for an easy night.
And yes, I will be dressing up as an RA for Halloween. I'm on-call, so why not?
I just finished my first full week of classes (not counting last Thursday and Friday)! Plus I'm about two weeks into my official resident advisor responsibilities. I finally know all my residents' names (although I'm iffy on a few), and it seems like no one hates me so far. Always a plus. ;)
Last week was Fall Welcome Week, with a bunch of events for the new freshmen to get them ready for classes (plus a ton of meetings for me). Classes started on Thursday, which was also the day I finally took my driving test! I passed, of course. Nice way to start off the year! My classes are going really well so far - I'm taking Arabic, Bio, Cognitive Psych, and International Law as well as a couple of 1-unit seminars (so 19 units) - except that I'm a bit behind on my reading already. I can tell that Arabic is going to be a challenge. The homework load is doable but we're speeding through the characters and vocab, so it's a struggle to keep on top of everything.
Schedule-wise I'm doing fine - it's definitely a challenge balancing the RA job, academics, and my other activities, but I'm used to it from last year so I can handle it. This week I've been running around - I'm either in class, a meeting, the lab, or tabling for my fraternity (since rush is next week). Not much time for sleeping or meals! Like I said, I'm managing though. I'm eating dinner with my residents as much as I can, since the more I talk to them the more I realize how awesome they are! (And how incredibly lucky I am.) I've been trying to squeeze a social life into my busy schedule - saw Thor with a friend last weekend and went to see a campus production of "Midsummer Night's Dream" as well - which is also tricky but helps me to stay sane.
This weekend things should be toned down a bit since I'm the RA on-call! This essentially means that I am confined to my living area for the duration of the weekend so that if students lock themselves out or have any kind of crisis, I can be there to assist them. Not exactly my favorite part of the job, but it's an excuse to stay in the residence hall and catch up on studying. Hopefully I can catch up on sleep too!
It's Move-In Day! But not for me - for freshmen! That's right, today (half of) my new residents are moving in! (The other half move in tomorrow.) But rather than awkwardly knocking on their doors as they and their parents are trying to move furniture around, I thought I'd wait for them to come to my room with questions. I even wrote a note on everyone's whiteboards to say hi. And as a result of this brilliant planning, I've officially met 4 of my new residents. 4 out of 38 (with 20 moving in today). Go me. Not the brightest plan ever.
So I've spent my day reading (finished both Enchanted Ivy and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian), talking to my fellow RAs, writing postcards, answering about 3 questions, practicing for tomorrow night's community meeting, and familiarizing myself with the new GEs the freshmen will have to deal with. Fun stuff. I really will have to start going around knocking on doors and meeting people just to keep from being bored...
Also, obviously, training is over (as of yesterday). It was completely insane, especially with our bulletin boards/door decorations/etc. due on Wednesday, but I had a great time as well. I met a lot of the other RAs and, hopefully, learned exactly what I need to do for the job... Another bonus, I got my on-call schedule and it seems like everything is going to work out for me this quarter, schedule-wise! Nothing's conflicting with fraternity events yet! So much win.
I'll blog again soon after I've - in theory - met more of my residents and gotten a better idea of what it means to be an RA!
I've finally moved back to Davis and am three days into my resident advisor fall training (which is a two-week long training session all the RAs go through - INTENSE but really fun).
I moved in on Saturday afternoon after a family brunch in the morning. My new room is huge - it's seriously the biggest room I have ever had to myself. It has an amazing view of the courtyard as well, plus my bed is a windowseat. I'll have to post pictures sometime. So essentially, life back in the residence halls is amazing.
I got to see a lot of friends over the weekend, plus I went to Borders to take advantage of their going-out-of-business sales. I bought three books (including a hardcover) and a DVD for $21. Definitely proud of myself. I also got four books from the library to read, so I'm going to have to find time to read over the next two weeks before classes start. It'll be hard since I don't have a ton of free time with my RA training.
So training started on Tuesday morning, bright and early at 8:00 and ending at 9:00 that night. OUCH. Luckily we've been finishing at 5:00 or 6:00 the past couple of days, so the 13-hour day was a one-time thing. We have various sessions on educational resources, programming, communities, diversity, etc. I absolutely love the staff members on my team (the two other RAs in my residence hall plus the ones in the two other buildings in our area). I'm struggling to get to know all the other RAs (about 100 total for the entire campus) but I'm still meeting a lot of people outside my staff. I'm both excited and nervous for when the freshmen move in next weekend! I can't wait to meet all of them, but I'm such a perfectionist that I want to make sure I get everything right and that I'm being the best RA possible for them. Definitely a lot of pressure to be placing on myself.
Not sure how much I'll be blogging over the next two weeks, but I'll try to post an update again sometime before classes start! This is the first free night I've had all week so we'll see how that goes...
I'm finally getting serious about packing. My list has been done since the weekend but I'm finally in the process of putting stuff in boxes. I'd forgotten how draining it was... Also, I officially have everything I need for school. Minus rainboots. Supposedly Target has really cute ones, but every time I go there I only see black polka dot boots. And polka dots aren't really my thing. I guess I'll have to wait until it actually starts raining to look for a pair. Or I could just suffer like last year and walk around all day with wet shoes, but I think I'll pass on that!
Besides packing and shopping, I've been doing more reading and Pretty-Little-Liars-watching (of course) and also saying goodbye to friends. Goodbyes can be kind of emotional when you have friends who insist on going to school all the way in Massachusetts rather than Davis with me. Sigh. And I have no clue how my youngest brother is going to handle saying farewell to me this year. Last year was kind of a mess - he wouldn't let anyone sit in my chair at the dinner table for months after I left - so hopefully this year he takes it better.
Only three more days until I move back! (But three more weeks until classes start. Dang it.)
I'm sitting at home, enjoying an evening to myself before things get crazy again. I have exactly six days to pack and see my friends before they/I leave. I additionally have a few library books to finish and eventually I need to finish learning the Arabic alphabet. I can already hear the little voice in my head saying, "Ha. Good luck with that."
I went to the movies today and saw Colombiana, which I actually really liked! Zoe Saldana is amazing and I have a thing for female assassins (ask about my middle school nickname, I dare you), so I might be biased... Just maybe.
I'm kind of sad since this is my last Sunday at my home church for a while. I managed to go all summer (even when my parents were at different services) so it'll be weird not to be there on Sundays anymore. I'm going to try to go to church in Davis, but that didn't happen as much as I would have liked last year so I'm going to try to be realistic about my expectations for this coming year.
I have a new blog! Clearly you've noticed that if you're here now, but stating the obvious never hurts. This will be a lot more convenient to update than Off in the Clouds, which hopefully means that I'll blog more! All my old content is still around on OITC, but now my posting will be done on here. (I've also taken the liberty of moving my most recent blog posts onto here - check out anything older using the archive link on the right!)
Also, you may have noticed that the name "Off in the Clouds" is gone, replaced by "Dreams and Ambition." I'm still a dreamer - how can you be goal-oriented and not be a bit of a dreamer? - but I feel that the new name better encompasses who I am. I'm ambitious and proud of it, and I'm happy to be going after my dreams of law school, diplomacy, and politics. Hence the new name.
So, a few updates on how I've been over the past week! I've been keeping busy, obviously. I only have a week until I move back to Davis so I've been trying to see friends, get all the things I need for school (seeing as I don't have a roommate and need to bring my own fridge this year!), and finish all the millions of books I checked out at the library at the beginning of summer. Okay, I only checked out about 22 items at a time, but it still took me all this time to get through some of them. I finally finished re-reading Jacqueline Carey's books! Her ninth in the Terre D'Ange series, Naamah's Blessing, just came out this summer so I've spent months trying to read all the old ones. Some are over 900 pages long so I'm not too embarrassed that it took me this long, plus I've been reading a lot of other books on the side, but normally I would have been done within a few weeks. Ooops!
Also, I've recently gotten into Pretty Little Liars. Before this summer, I had never watched it. (In fact, I pretty much never watch TV anymore since I don't have time.) But thanks to my amazingly horrible friends Kathryn and Hannah, I have now seen the first ten episodes. And I'm hooked. I'll have to be strong and try not to watch more episodes when I go to school, otherwise it'll be impossible to get anything done.
Comment and let me know what you think of the new blog! Again, here's to hoping that the new format encourages me to post more!
(Previously posted on Off in the Clouds)
Two weeks left until I move back to Davis! Time really seems to have sped up, although I wish it would go faster (since I'm dying to get back to school). Lately I've been baby-sitting and giving tours to earn some extra money - I also worked a show at the Mondavi Center last weekend. Textbooks and back-to-school clothes/supplies are expensive, so I'm glad I at least have some source of income. I was home alone for a week and a half while my family went to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I decided that was an excellent time to get a piercing so I got my cartilage pierced (left ear). I'm not exactly interested in a nose piercing so I figured that was rebellious enough. Sort of. Okay, not really, but it's still nice to pretend I went wild with my family gone! Mainly I just hung out with friends, worked, and took care of my (extremely lonely and needy) kitty.
My other "projects" for the summer have been watching seasons 4 and 5 of Gilmore Girls and re-reading Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series. I'm embarrassed that I'm still only on book 6 out of 9, which is still a big accomplishment considering that a few of them are over 900 pages long, but I've been reading quite a few other books on the side so I don't feel too bad about being slow. I'm also reading every "how to get into law school" book I can get my hands on, mixed in with some LSAT prep. I won't have time once school starts, so I might as well get as much done now as I can!
(Previously posted on Off in the Clouds)
It's hard to believe that summer is almost over. I still have a month until I move in for RA training (and classes don't even start until September 22nd) but I'm already in school-mode, so summer feels like it's almost over. The day camp that I run was last month - huge success, as always, although we didn't have as many campers as we normally do. It's nice to finally have that over with, however. And I really do mean OVER since this is my last year directing it.
Now that camp is done with (which was pretty much my only employment for the summer), I've been keeping busy anyway - going back up to Davis for tours, hanging out with friends, studying for the LSAT a year and a half in advance (you know me), trying to learn the Arabic alphabet to give myself a headstart for fall quarter, and ordering class sweatshirts for my pre-law fraternity. I'm trying to stay in shape as well, so I'm walking to the library almost every day (since I get three miles in that way).
I just found out where I'll be posted next year as a resident advisor - the dorm for my honors program!!! I'm unbelievably excited, since I loved Integrated Studies last year and I get to work with my old RA. Fall really can't come quickly enough!
(Previously posted on Off in the Clouds)
Long-overdue update! I've been home for summer the past few weeks, but I've been keeping busy (especially with day camp coming up in about a week). I can't believe my first year at Davis is finally over! Finals week was crazy. I did end up getting that A+ in Social Psych, and then A/A- for all my other classes. I moved out on the 10th - I'm now living in my brother's old room (the sunroom), since he moved into mine. Strange adjustment, but I like it. Minus the fact that three of the "walls" are windows, so I essentially live in a glass box. At least it's nice and cool at night.
At home I've mainly been reading, hanging out with friends, and working on stuff for day camp. Training starts on Wednesday and camp starts the following Monday. Scary how fast it's coming up. I'm trying not to stress - this is my third year planning it, after all, so I know things will work out. I've also been back up to Davis to give a tour and change my major. I'm officially an International Relations major!!!! (I came in declared Political Science, wanted to change to IR and Psych, but had to wait until I completed some pre-requisites first. I can officially declare the double-major in Psychology after winter quarter.)
I'm going to do my best to update at least once a week from now on this summer, but we'll see how that works out. Life has a way of ruining these kinds of plans sometimes... For now, Happy 4th of July weekend!
