Lucky Number 13: A Year in Review

As 2013 finally comes to a close I want to take some time to reflect on this crazy, crazy year. I was busier than ever with classes, jobs, law school prep, extracurricular activities (Phi Alpha Delta never fails to take over my life), research, boys, traveling, and my semblance of a social life.

The Highs:

1. Studying abroad in Cairo for two weeks and witnessing the revolution/coup
2. Being elected to Phi Beta Kappa
3. Participating in the Student Conference on U.S. Affairs at West Point
4. Serving as Public Relations Chair for my fraternity and coordinating our most successful fall rush in years
5. Managing to get straight As while taking 24 units
6. Welcoming two amazing new little siblings to my fraternity family (as well as new grandlittles, great-grandlittles, and my first great-great-grandlittle!)
7. My new position as the International Relations peer advisor and new duties as a house manager for Mondavi
8. Turning 21 and learning that yes, you can stay classy while drinking... 95% of the time

Probably the highlight of my life - camel ride by the Pyramids

Visiting the Sultan Hassan mosque in Cairo

Spring Banquet with my lovely pre-fall family

My third little, Nicole - she's the cutest!!!

My fourth little, Fredrick - he's the biggest disappointment and also my favorite (shhh)

But at least he can rock a bowtie!

The Lows:

1. My apartment burned down and I was not compensated for my lost items... can't really get much lower than this
2. Three disheartening LSAT scores
3. Getting the flu twice and at the worst possible moments (during February midterm season and just days before the LSAT, and right before I was supposed to go to Cabo with my then-boyfriend)
4. Not finishing either honors thesis by the end of fall quarter
5. Disappointing myself academically in spring and fall, after a surprisingly stellar winter quarter
6. Sinking into a downward spiral these past two months and realizing that I didn't really know who I was anymore

   

   Not a "low" photo... but look how happy I was in 2011!

The year is ending on a mostly positive note. I've spent the past two days working on my personal statement (finally, right?!) and I'm really happy with how it's turning out. I'll be ready to submit my first batch of applications tomorrow to Penn, Duke, Georgetown, and NYU. (More schools coming up later this week - I haven't forgotten about Berkeley, Stanford, and Michigan!) I'm turning applications in nearly two months later than I had intended, but I think I needed to take this time to lose myself, find myself, and affirm that I really do want to go to law school next fall instead of taking a year off.

Although my winter break to-do list hasn't gotten much shorter over the past few days, I'm feeling rested (if sick - I came down with a cold yesterday!) and empowered to take on winter quarter. We'll see how long that lasts, but for now... 2014, I'm ready for you!

Home for the Holidays

I'm writing this post instead of finishing up my law school personal statement. You can tell that I really have my priorities in order right now... not!
 
I've been using this break more to relax and de-stress than to catch up on the million things I'm behind on. At the very least, though, I feel like I'm a little bit better equipped to handle winter quarter - or at least I will be if I can get some law school apps submitted this week! (Literally the only thing I have left to do for my apps is finishing my personal statement, which has been a major roadblock for me the past five months.)
 
Some highlights from my winter break:
*Seeing my friends from home again, including going out for a 21st birthday and then heading up to Windsor for a wine country getaway a week later
*Lots of family time, especially getting to see everyone for Christmas
*A few lazy days in bed reading books - Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce, Autumn Bones by Jacqueline Carey, and Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews (all three are new releases by some of my favorite authors)
*Spending way too much time looking up possibilities for a post-grad Europe trip next summer
*Great gifts, ranging from pearl earrings from my parents (that match a necklace I inherited from my grandma) to an emergency phone case from my brother (since my year-old original case from last Christmas finally died on me this month - at least my phone is still in mint condition!)
  
I'm sad that winter break is almost over. I still have a week left until the new academic quarter starts, but the stress is starting to kick back in and I know that it's crunch time. I really need to tackle things on my to-do list so that I can start the quarter with a (mostly) clean slate, instead of letting the mess from fall quarter continue to follow me around. However, as much as I need the next week to slow down so that I can get everything done, I'm still ecstatic to have a fresh start in 2014, with amazing travel opportunities and my 1L year of law school ahead!

Survival and Self-Discovery

Nine months ago, I was proudly able to say that I took what life threw at me and I thrived. Right now, all I can honestly say is that I've survived.

I've survived a quarter filled with too many obstacles, too much to do, too much stress, too many breakdowns, too much heartache, and too much at stake! I really can't say that I thrived. My grades didn't tank (thank goodness) but it's definitely an A- kind of quarter instead of an A/A+ one. This is a quarter when I had to say, "I give up, I can't handle this," far too many times. Instead of tackling problems head on, my workload and stress level got to the point where I had to keep pushing things off, hoping that Future Christine would be able to handle them. (News flash: she couldn't either, a lot of the time.)

Looking back on the past couple of months, I can say that I've done plenty of things I'm not happy with and only a few that I can truly take pride in. Some of these things may come to define me, since that's something I've realized over the past two weeks: I am who I am, but that person keeps on changing. I halfheartedly told a friend this weekend that I always just kept pushing onwards towards my goals and ignored personal development, hoping that inner growth would just happen on its on. To some extent it has, and I'm happy with the person I became in my first three years of college, but all those years of ignoring my personal development finally caught up to me. I'm finally at a point in my life that is not just a crossroads academically (with my law school apps and theses), but a crossroads personally. Like it or not, I've realized that I don't know who I am anymore because I'm at one of those points in life where my decisions, actions, and beliefs every single day will shape who I become in the next stage of my life. It's terrifying trying to figure out who you are and shape your character at the same time. I know that I have to take the next few weeks to discover who I am right now and who I want to become... because to be honest, I really don't know. And of course, while I figure that out I'll be trying to finally finish and submit those law school applications and honors theses.

Other than that... happy holidays to all of my readers, Merry Christmas, and I hope you're enjoying the last bit of 2013! Here's to hoping that 2014 will be productive, inspirational, and not quite as life-changing as this past year has been!

All Fall Quarter Did Was Wreeeeeck Me!

I find it ironic that my last post was about how successful fall quarter of senior year was going! Let's just say that everything has changed now.

1. Honors theses: postponed until winter. I decided to take an incomplete on the International Relations one after a bad breakdown, and I'll use winter break and January to finish it up. My psychology study actually went very well, but I already knew that I wanted to use the beginning of winter quarter to write it up anyway.
2. Law school apps? Not submitted yet. After a shocking yet consistent LSAT score, I haven't felt motivated to work on applications in over a month. Part of me postponing my theses is to get my essays done this week!
3. Classes: better now, but not going great for a while. Thank goodness I'm taking Arabic pass/no pass... I spent last week throwing everything I had into my Cognitive Neuroscience course, so after a fantastic paper on the neural source for altruism and a decent midterm exam, I'm in good shape to get an A- or better in the class. I'm not doing as well in U.S. History as I would like, but I should still be able to get an A in the class.
4. My life in general = absolute roller coaster. I ended a long-term relationship at the end of October (which had been a long time in coming) and then spent November with a much-too-exciting love life that had way too much heartache for my taste. Plenty of ups, even more downs. I don't know how long it will be until I can tell what's come out of the past several weeks, but at the very least I can say that I have a new-found appreciation for Taylor Swift. "Red" is the anthem of the quarter for me, and this amazing cover of Miley's "Wrecking Ball" has been playing nonstop the past month for me as well.

There have been some amazing highlights to fall quarter. My trip to West Point was incredible and I loved being surrounded by other driven, like-minded students. Everyone on my roundtable group spoke Arabic, studied abroad in the Middle East, and had great insight for challenges that today's populations face over there! Another highlight is my fraternity - I have four new additions my line and I've loved getting to know all the new members this quarter. I've also been able to spend a lot of time with biological family lately, which I really appreciate considering that I might be on the East Coast for law school in just nine months.

However, despite the highlights, fall quarter really took a toll on me... Even with a more relaxed finals week than usual, it will take a lot of rest and relaxation over the next few weeks before I'm back to being my normal, overachieving self.