This is it, the end of the my freshman year. I'm at Sekhar Mama's house right now, and I'm exhausted. It's been a very very long day. Lucky me, I had my last final exam today for my politics class at 9 in the morning. The exam went really well, but it was really frustrating to have an exam on the last day with all the packing you have to do at the end of the year. I hadn't really thought about much except my last exam, and now that it was over, I could finally move onto all the other things I had to get done. After the exam, I packed until I met up with Cristina, Olaf, and Dorian for lunch at Mehek. After a very yummy and fun lunch, I had to get back to packing. Packing really sucks. It really really sucks. Cristina came over later in the afternoon to help me, but she was really sleepy since she helped Gabe pack up the previous night, and fell asleep on the couch. Eventually we said our goodbyes (oh I will miss her!) and I continued to pack. I didn't finish until after 8 PM. Sekhar Mama then came to pick me up, and I'm now at their house.
It's been such an eventful year, and it's amazing how much I have changed. I can't believe how fast it has gone, but so much has happened at the same time. I'm ready to go back home though, I miss my family, especially my mom! But I'm sad to leave Princeton. But before I know, I'll be back.
As reading period comes to a close, everyone is going crazy to complete their dean's date assignments. I didn't actually have anything due today. I had a short paper for my writing seminar and a program for my computer science class due yesterday, but I turned both in early. Even more fortunately for me, my exams are very well spread out, so I can study for each exam one at a time. I've been spending a lot of time studying for my ORF final, although it's not until Friday. In fact last night, I stayed up really late studying with Abby and Olaf, who were working on their dean's date assignments, while I studied for my ORF exam. We studied in the East Asian Studies library until closing, and then moved our operations into the Forbes Dining Hall. I also discovered the Forbes Cafe for the first time; an endless supply of coffee all night long! I will definitely come back to Forbes for some late night studying. So I studied for ORF until maybe 3 in the morning, and left Olaf and Abby to continue their Dean's Date work.
So today, humanities majors are celebrating the end of their agony, while us science and engineering people are just embarking on our week and a half of hell called exams. I don't think I'll go out partying though; I think I'll head back to the library for studying later tonight.
Today was a very tiring extravaganza of musical performances known as spring lawnparties. Unfortunately, it was raining like crazy, but that still didn't stop everyone from enjoying the concerts. In the early afternoon, I headed over to Tower for Mates of State and Apples in Stereo. Fortunately they were performing under a tent, so I didn't get wet in the rain, but I did get mud on my dress. Both acts were really cute! I was a bit disappointed with Apples in Stereo; they played a lot from their old albums. I really loved Mates of State; so adorable! After Tower, I went to Quad for a little to see Gym Class Heroes; it wasn't very exciting, and I didn't stay very long. I then went to Terrace to eat lunch. It was Terrace food, so nothing great, just corn on the cob, baked beans, and some other food along those lines. But it was fun just chilling in Terrace in the afternoon. There was supposed to be a special Stones Throw feature with lasers at night at Terrace, but because of the rain, they had to perform inside. So later that afternoon, there were several DJ sets. After that, James Pants performed; it was really awesome! To end the set was VJ Peanutbutter Wolf; the way he mixed the videos was amazing, but the music itself was kind of lame. Overall it was a fun and exhausting day.
Today was Frist Fest. I guess I missed the day time festivities as I was working on my school work, but I went in the evening with Danny E. to stuff teddy bears. After we both made our bears, we went outside to play some of the carnival games. One game seemed like it almost defied the laws of physics; you had to push a bowling ball over a hump on a set of rails and you win if it doesn't roll back. But the way the rails are set up, because of energy conservation, it has to roll back, unless it loses enough energy from friction, which makes it possible, yet very difficult to win. I wasn't close to winning any game, but I think Danny almost won a couple, but not quite. It was still fun. After that we made a stuffed dalmatian; while stuffing the animals, you put in a little star and wish on the star. We wished for whoever gets the dalmatian to be happy and healthy. After that, I listened to my friends' band, the Plagiarists. It was lots of fun!
In order to raise money for the Susan G. Komen campaign against Breast Cancer, a group of students were holding a "Manicure for the Cure" fundraiser. Among some of the posters advertising this event were posters featuring the slogan "Save Second Base." The feminist community (which I am part of; check out the blog Equal Writes) reacted very negatively do this poster, as it objectifies women. So in response to this poster, an anonymous person (although I have a hunch I know who put those posters up) created parody posters for a fake event "Massage for the Cure." Just look at the picture carefully to see the hilarity of these posters. So the original group got very upset and has been sending many emails to various mailing list defending their campaign as the "Save Second Base" slogan was coined by a breast cancer victim (that does not make it any less hurtful to women and does not negate the fact that it does objectify women) and the group seems very offended by the parody posters. But I think the posters raise interesting dialogue and highlight the issue in just the way the perpetrator intended: this slogan is just as bad as the other offensive slogans and it should not be used on a poster to help raise money for breast cancer research nor any other poster as it supports the objectification of women.
Today I participated in the Interfaith Day of Service sponsored by the Religious Life Council. We planted a community garden in Trenton at an inner city elementary school. It was so much fun! It's been a while since I've planted any gardens; I haven't gardened since CA week! I guess in high school, I did so many tree plantings and community gardens that relatively, it seems like I just haven't done that much at Princeton. Back to the story, we started out with nothing but an empty lot. First we rolled up the sod and then tilled the areas. Then of course we added soil and then planted the flowers. It was so much fun to play in the dirt and plant the flowers; well, it's fun to play in clean, new soil. Had there been bugs in the soil, I probably would not have been sitting in dirt the way I was. In the end, it was so nice to see how much we accomplished! We had created a pretty garden from nothing, and I'm sure the children at the school will be so thrilled to have a garden!
Afterward, we had a small discussion on faith and service, as it was sponsored by the Religious Life Council. It was nice to hear what everyone had to say. It was also nice to spend time with really nice people. Lately, I've been spending more time with my friends involved with the RLC because they are so open-minded and tolerant and caring. My own view on religion are very fluid, and I don't have strict religious views as many of the RLC members do, but I still enjoy their company and engaging in discussion with them.
The same weekend, Princeton hosted a conference on Arab-Israeli relations called Visions and Revisions. Many college students from the Middle East were invited to the conference, and as part of the conference, they helped us plant the garden. It was so nice to meet all these new students!
Overall, it was a wonderful day of community service and I definitely enjoyed the time spent outside the Orange Bubble of Princeton.
So I found out I was awarded a grant from the PACE Center today! I'll be getting $3600 this summer to work for the Old South Baton Rouge Partnership at home in Baton Rouge on economic revitalization. I'm super excited to spend my summer doing a community service internship, especially at home! It'll be awesome to work out of the McKinley Alumni Center and help the community in its redevelopment process.
Yesterday, I went with the Princeton Microfinance Organization to the Penn Microfinance Conference. It was so much fun!! It took forever to get to Philly; it's so easy to get to NYC, but Philly requires going on so many slow trains! The UPenn campus is pretty cool; I like how it's integrated into the city. The Wharton building is gorgeous! There are escalators and there are platforms that lead to nowhere but let you look down on the floor below and see all the people buzzing about. They also have really cool study rooms with special computers and whiteboards for group projects.
The conference was set up as two speaker sessions and two panel discussions. The first speaker session was a lecture by NYU Professor Jonathan Morduch; he mostly lectured on the economic and policy implications of microfinance, showed some charts and graphs. It was interesting, but nothing I didn't already know. After that we went to a panel discussion on the financial crisis and microfinance. It was really interesting to see how the crisis had impacted microfinance; it was actually very different than I had imagined. There was another speaker from Citi Microfinance, the division of Citi group that works as an intermediary between the main bank and small local banks to help local communities; it was so interesting! I actually think I'd really like career-wise to be a banker or consultant and do similar work. The last panel discussion was on technology and microfinance and it was really cool to see the new types of technology being developed for small businesses in poor countries; there was this awesome phone to help shopkeepers keep inventory and manage their finances. There was also a networking session (why don't they just call it a reception? Oh Wharton tools) where we got to meet the speakers and other students involved. I really had fun and got to know the other students of PMO really well from that.
Today (or really yesterday) was my birthday. It was a blast. Only one class today (actually two, but I haven't gone to COS lecture in a while), which was my political theory precept. Most of the day was very quiet, but it's always nice to have people just smile and wish you happy birthday. Later, after dinner, my roommates surprised me with a sign on the door, a really cool card, a notebook, and some candy. After that, I went to Zach and Garland's room to watch The Office and 30 Rock, but no new episodes because there was the series finale of ER. Instead we watched FOTC videos on youtube. :) Still fun spending time with Colleen, Garland, and Zach. Zach also gave me a really awesome card which he got everyone to sign. Later that night, Jacquelyn called asking me to help open the room for her since she was locked out. I came to open the door and everyone yells surprise and happy birthday; I was so surprised! It was so nice to see everyone from the hall there. We had yummy House of Cupcakes cupcakes; mine had a cherry on it! It was lots of fun! We went to Terrace later that night, but I left early. Overall, I had a fun birthday!
Midterms are next week; it's hard to believe how fast this semester has flown by. It feels the semester just started. Classes are going fairly well this semester and I am continuing my exploration of the vast number of libraries on the Princeton campus. But that doesn't mean midterms week is any less stressful. Fortunately my microeconomics midterm was postponed until after the break, but I've got two papers to write and a computer science exam to study for. I just finished my ORF exam yesterday.
