Excited for spring break!

Hey y’all, I’m VERY ready for spring break. I also don’t know what to talk about.

Well, to start, we went back to O’Bryant after their week of break. I cannot get used to waking up so early to get to O’Bryant by 8AM. I know that I sound really annoying because Tuesday is the only day that I have to wake up early. I purposely planned all my classes this semester so that my classes start at 11:45AM everyday. I did this because I sleep late, no matter what. I just can’t sleep early. Even if I wake up at 6AM in the morning, I go to sleep at 2AM. It’s been like this since high school. Unless I pull an all nighter, I sleep late. Also, I have not pulled an all nighter since high school. I imagined college to be full of all nighters but it really isn’t like that. Anyways, my last class end at like 4:30PM on Mondays and Wednesdays, so my schedule is really as good as it gets. I think. Yeah, so I wake up at 10:30AM every day except Tuesdays. I feel like dying on Tuesdays. Seriously. I don’t understand how people can physically function with 8AM classes. If you have consistent 8AM classes, props to you. You are superhuman.

I took 2 naps on Tuesday. After O’Bryant, I took a nap and I was planning to wake up in time to eat something before my 11:45AM recitation. But I slept through my alarm until 2PM. Oops. So I just ate in my room while watching a drama. Then I took a nap from 4-7PM. I woke up to get dinner and then I studied chem. I took my chem midterm today! I think it was okay but we’ll see after I get my grade back.

I’ve been planning my spring break. I’ve been planning on eating and sleeping. There is a severe lack of good Korean food here. Korean food was never my favorite food until like junior year of high school. After that, Korean food was the only thing I ate until coming here. There’s some around here and in Allston but it’s just not the same. I’m from New Jersey and there is a town that is literally only inhabited by Korean people and I spend a lot of time eating there. I can also cook at home so that’s already better than here. My best friend goes to UMich and they have the same break schedule as us! Exciting. We’re gonna be hanging out a lot. My sister lives in Brooklyn so I’m probably gonna spend a day or two there.

Okay I’m done!

Sincerely,
Crystal

3 Weeks of Freedom

     This summer is going to be awful, and by awful, I mean great, but also awful. I'm staying here for the first half of it to take classes, which won't be that bad. Part of me is actually looking forward to it. I'm assuming Boston in the summer is nice, and I'm especially excited to have an air conditioner in our room. Taking summer classes was sort of an impulse decision. I felt like I was falling behind after declaring a dual major, so I wanted to take classes to get ahead and to catch up. I'd be getting ahead in computer science courses and catching up on my business courses. So, I got an email one day informing me of important dates for the summer, like the day time tickets were released, or when the course catalog came out. Being the good person I am, I shared this information with my desired roommates for the summer, in case they hadn't seen the email.

     Everything was going pretty well, until yesterday happened. Out of nowhere, I realized that I forgot when my registration time started, because the summer completely slipped my mind altogether. I opened up my laptop, and saw that I missed the beginning of my registration period by four days. Sad face. One of the classes I was planning on taking was full, and my second option was also full. Double sad face. I got into my other class, though, which I guess is alright. After I checked, I asked my roommates if they remembered to register at the beginning of their time slots, and they said yes. One of them had the same time slot as I did, and we had a conversation about it, and he didn't even bother to remind me. What a dick. This is me putting blame on other people, because I can't face the consequences of my actions.

     Anyways, that's what the first of my summer looks like. I'll be taking classes, working out, and exploring the city. What's awful about that part is the fact that I won't be home until July, so I potentially won't see any of my friends until then unless they want to come up and visit, but I know they won't because they're lazy. The other awful, but great, but awful part of summer is the second half. After my summer classes, I'll be home for a total of maybe two weeks before my family leaves for Egypt. This is great because I haven't seen my extended family for almost 6 years, but awful because again, I won't be home for very long. We're staying in Egypt for supposedly a month, which means I'll be getting home with one week to spare before moving in for my fall semester. I'm excited to go to Egypt, but it is a huge chunk of time, but it's worth it because I miss my family and my home country.

     Basically, this summer is going to be awful and great. It's going to be an awfully great and greatly awful summer. I'll make it work. I'll force my friends to come visit me, and I'll force them to communicate with me while I'm in Egypt. Everything will be fine.

Sick

This week was a mediocre week. I went to service learning again this week. This week was a lot better than the other weeks and I can safely say that this was the best week I’ve had at O’Bryant. This week, we were asked to check on the kids’ hooks and topic sentences. Most of the students didn’t have that great of hooks, but it was fine. They mostly all used questions as hooks. It got kind of boring because the hooks weren’t very intriguing. I tried to help them the best I could, but some of them couldn’t be fixed. If I changed it, it would require the student to change the entire introduction, which was going to be a hassle. But what really intrigued me was the topic sentences. It was good to see what the students have developed since the first week. I finally got something to read. I got to see if they took my ideas or came up with their own. Not all of these topic sentences were good, but there was a fair amount. Some of the students finally showed me that they knew what they were going to write about, yet some of them are still confused and don’t really have anything written. Other than service learning, my weekend was pretty boring. Nothing interesting really happened. On Saturday, I woke up pretty sick. I had a headache, coughing, runny rose, and a sore throat. I don’t really know how I got sick, but I think it was because I drank someone’s drink who was already sick. I’m not sure, but that’s just a possibility. Another possibility is that I got sick through not wearing enough clothes, especially when sleeping. I don’t know why, but I get so vulnerable when I sleep at night. My roommate opens the window and turns on a fan when are sleeping. It really pisses me off, but I can’t really say anything about it.  It gets so cold in my room, a blanket is not enough. I really don’t understand why he has to turn on a fan when he sleeps. But because I fell asleep pretty early on Friday, it carried on to Saturday and I was unaware that I wasn’t wearing enough clothes. I fell asleep watching a video on my phone and I was unaware that I went to sleep. That’s probably why I got sick. Anyways, it was a pretty bad and boring weekend. I basically layed in bed and tried to rest up for the weekend and my midterm on Monday for Biology. I thought the Biology midterm was pretty good. I obviously studied a lot over the weekend, and it showed on the test. I feel like even though I studied so much, it was still kind of tricky and some questions still tripped me up. After not doing so well on the first biology midterm, I knew that I needed to study so much and put in all my effort on the next midterm.

Justin Yu

3 days, 5 hours

I'm sure everyone can relate with this, I need a break.
I know there are people with more work than me and a part of this feeling is coming from my laziness but I am in desperate need to not do work for an entire week and be in another country with my friends, where the only I'd worry about is the weather.

As the title says, there are 3 days and 5 hours for my bus to depart from South Station. I have this countdown on my laptop since over a month. My spring break technically starts right after class on Friday at 1:30 pm because that's the last bit of work I will do. I do not only say this because I am trying to earn any points but this is my most chill class so it's the best one to have as my only class on Friday. A great way to end the week because having supply chain management after Wednesday would horrify me now. Speaking of which, that exam is in about 13 hours, so that's great. I am doing what I do best and writing a blog when I am supposed to be studying for something else. It's because this is my chill homework (this is a compliment, not a cry for more work, Sebastian).

I feel like I'm praising this class a lot so I will not so subtly mention that the walk to and from service learning is not fun. Lazy me took an Uber from Speare Hall to O'Bryant on Monday because it was too windy and I was sure I'd fly away; however, I walked back and did almost fly away. 1:20 pm on Monday was probably the strongest wind I had experienced in my life (don't fact check me on this, I do not remember anything worse at the moment). For those who read some previous blog post of mine where I said that I never get students to tutor (thankfully), I was now told that they have made it their mission for me to have that opportunity, cannot wait for Thursday :).

I will go back to studying for my exam, and hopefully succeed. See you guys soon and I hope everyone is doing well. Have a great spring break, and to quote the syllabus "be careful out there" but also have an excellent time.

Love,
Kash

Response to Cam's Post on masks...

I could 100% relate to what Cam said about masks, and feeling as if he has to put on a front in the public eye. I often feel as if I am stuck in that same limbo of having to appease everyone. I spent a large majority of my life caring so much about the opinions of others, that I started to belittle my own. As I entered high school, that struggle started to ease as I made the conscious decision to stop giving a poop. In my senior year of high school, right before prom, I cut off all my hair. It was the first time in my life where I felt truly free. I took something, that I allowed to largely define me and stripped myself of it. It forced me faced the discomfort of vulnerability and to reveal the parts of myself (not just physically but symbolically) that I often felt my hair hid.

Coming into college, I notice that I have fallen back into that cycle. Especially being at a PWI, I have noticed myself being far too conscious of the opinions that others have of me. I have tried to be quieter and less opinionated to avoid being stereotyped. I felt my presence in a room more and more because of the absence of people that looked like me, and it has led me to be more aware and somewhat cautious of my behaviors and the way I speak and interact with those around me. I am currently going through my second phase of "I no longer give a stinky poop." I am planning on cutting my hair off again. Honestly, being a black girl in a PWI makes it hard to not be noticed. Being a black girl with short hair in a PWI is certainly going to force me to stand my ground and accept myself and my presence where ever I am.

Also, I am so ready for spring weather. The winter is evil. The way the cold abuses me every time I walk out of my dorm should be a hate crime. But oh man, when the spring weather comes, I am so ready to strip off the winter coat and show some epidermis.

Lastly, Calvin is annoying. I needed his help a few minutes ago with an ongoing investigation lmao, and he tried to accuse me of planning a murder. I am a lover, not a fighter. A promoter of peace nor war. I just simply needed some information on a particular person for another particular person. I feel like that was not much to ask for. Alright guys now I am not even saying anything of substance so I'm going to shut my fingertips up. Goodnight.

In Bruges

I think I’m probably just going to write my blog posts about movies now. In Bruges is a dark comedy starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. I recently saw this movie, and I was astonished by the fact that I had never seen it before. It pretty much had all of my favorite elements that can make up a movie. Obviously this is just my opinion, but ya’ll should give it a try.

The movie starts, believe it or not, in Bruges, as two hitmen get off of a train. One of the main characters, Ray (Farrell), had just completed his first job, but it had gone awry. Ray had killed the man that he was supposed to kill, but one of the bullets went through the target and killed a young boy. He was obviously shaken by this, but he tried to keep it from consuming him. Ray and the other hitman, Ken (Gleeson), were instructed to hide out in Bruges until their boss contacted them with more information. Ken was happy about the trip to Bruges, since he would be able to take in and experience all of the medieval culture that Bruges has to offer. Ray, needless to say, is not as impressed. He thought Bruges was a dump, and he got bored extremely quickly. I think it’s very interesting that both of their reactions were actually based on the director’s experience when he visited Bruges. He said there was so much interesting culture, but he was bored after a day. The story was originally based on two people who had different views of the same city. The fact that they were hitmen was added afterwards.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I’ll just say that it gets really good. While there are jokes throughout the movie and it might seem like a comedy in retrospect, there is an incredibly somber tone that is set by the fact that Ray accidentally killed a kid on his first job. Farrell did a fantastic job of portraying Ray, since his mannerisms were similar to those of someone who is anxious, but it wasn’t blatantly obvious. Throughout the movie, it could be seen that he was trying to distract himself from the fact that he killed a kid. He was able to distract himself with a Danish actress and an American actor who was a midget, but he was only distracted for a short while.

Most of the comedy comes from the fact that all of the characters are brutally honest. Discovering how Ray thinks is often funny, and it is mainly achieved by observing his interactions with people. At other times, however, his mental state is incredibly saddening.

The boss, Harry Waters, was played by Ralph Fiennes, and he did an impeccable job. He is condescending to the point that it’s almost tangible. In the same way that some people want their lives to be narrated by Morgan Freemen, I want to be criticized by Ralph Fiennes’s Harry Waters.

Until next time,

Adrian Fedorko

MY OLD FRIEND

Continuing my story about the bio exam, the result came out and our average score turns out to be around 77%. I’m not going to tell you my score, but I can say that the exam was super detailed. Some of the questions were really unexpected in terms of making us decide how many numbers of deaths occurred and where did the event happen. Not only that but the scope of the exam was overall too broad. For the first time in university, I have studied for an exam for a week every day, and I expected to receive a score that was a lot higher than the one I received just now. 

So, I have lost the trust of whenever the professor says in some slides, “You don’t have to memorize these.” I feel like I do need to memorize everything. 

Other than the biology, I will talk about a friend I have met the past weekend. He was my roommate during the first day of my middle school life, and I have been friends with him until now; I just never saw him for more than 5 years. And I met this guy at the night party. We had so much to talk about when we met, starting with our past jokes and troubles during dorm life. It was a great meeting with his friends too, who were all very nice and kind. Back to our troubles, I remember eating ramen at night with him and other friends at different rooms every time. I remember fighting with him for the interruption of Tetris by pressing the spacebar continuously. I remember going out at midnight around 3:a.m. with him secretly to see the full moon. I admit that my life back in middle school was very fun. At the same time, I regret not having much fun with my friends during high school life. 

Today, I skipped my Spanish morning class that was supposed to start at 9:50 a.m. As usual, I could not wake up right away after my alarm clock rang, but this time I slept after that for a long time. I woke up at 10 a.m., and I knew that it would be useless to start packing up and arrive after 30 minutes of class time had passed. I went back to sleep happily until 11: 30 a.m., waking up as fresh as ever. And I had my bio lab after my lovely sushi. I almost threw up my sushi since I came back right after eating it and met an atmosphere with a smell of rotten sea animals. They were dead squid, worms, clams, and crayfish. My lab partner and I dissected them to see the inner organs which were pretty cool. I didn’t know that their organ systems were as much complicated as ours until today, working hard to memorize each of them and their functions. And it brought me the memory of myself sitting on a chair for several hours trying to squish all the bio terms in my head before the exam day. 

The cow goes moo, the fish says YEET (actually titled "The Importance of Emotion")

The title is entirely unrelated to anything I am saying in this blog post, it's just what came to mind when I thought to myself "what should I title my blog post?" Shenanigans aside, I really don't have anything to write about this week. I had a pretty chill week aside from the work I had to do, and a nice weekend spending time with various friends. Actually, that gives me an idea of what to write about. This weekend was my first time having an in depth, emotional, cry-worthy conversation with a friend I met here. And frankly, it was amazing. My high school was full of a bunch of people who were open to sharing their emotions, or more than willing to listen to you, but nobody really did BOTH. I had the occasional person in my life capable of it, but it was definitely uncommon. So, on to my point. My first semester at Northeastern was rather devoid of emotional conversation. I was just getting over a break up of my 2 year relationship, but we were still really close friends and relied heavily on each other. So I never really took to time to look for friendships like that here, I had what I "needed" already. I wish I had looked for that sooner though, as my quality of life has risen instantly upon finding something of the sort. While I love my friends and they're some of my absolute favorite people I have ever met, I found myself missing deep conversation. Sadly this weekend, my friend's girlfriend of just over a year broke up with him due to the stress that long distance put on their relationship. So instead of letting him wallow in his sadness, I did what any good friend would do. I took him out to spend time with other people that cared for him. We spent time at our friend's apartment and I instantly saw his demeanor improve. Once we had overstayed our welcome there, we went and walked around the streets of Boston for a few hours and just talked. Talking, crying, talking some more, and crying some more. May not sound like the optimal way to spend your Saturday night, but for me it was perfect. Not only did it help him feel better, but it helped me too. We were in very similar situations and discussing the similarities ended up providing closure to us both. So, moral of the story: Don't allow yourself to bottle up. If you have anything bothering you, please don't hesitate to reach out. My phone is always next to me to some extent, and more often than not, I will respond. And as a quick little ending to this, a notice to all of the gamer boys and girls in this class. Apex Legends is a dope game and if you wanna play some time let me know! I hope that everyone takes my advice to heart, it's hella important! See you all in class tomorrow!

Blog #7

I never played well with the kids younger than me. It wasn’t that I was mean to them, I just preferred hanging out with kids my age or older. I think it is because of this that I have reservations about O’Bryant. I have a younger sister who is in high school, a sophomore, but I still find it nerve-wracking to go fulfill the service-learning requirement. So far, I have only been once and have my next time this upcoming Thursday. I have only been out of high school for one year and yet the thought of talking to or interacting with high schoolers gives me anxiety. I think it has something to do with the interactions taking place inside a school because I have done some volunteering here with middle and high schoolers and have been fine but going to O’Bryant pretty much terrifies me. It could also be because English is not my strongest subject and writing or giving writing assistance makes me nervous as well.
My first time doing the volunteer hours at O’Bryant was a pleasant experience. I had no issues communicating with the kids and I think I may have helped them brainstorm ideas or work on their phrasing but I’m not sure how effective I was. There are no measures to check to see that I did what I was supposed to and that I helped- only a feeling. My experience there was good in that there were no major issues, but I would not say it was great either. I felt quite out of place in a high school environment despite having been in a similar one a matter of months ago. It might be because I don’t know the culture at O’Bryant yet, but I felt the same way when I went to my high school reunion over winter break. Besides this, I have certain goals for my time at O’Bryant.
I hope to become a sponsor of literacy for some of the kids at O’Bryant, I hope to help and encourage them to find their passions and pursue them. I think that I can do this by initiating conversation on topics other than the assigned prompt and giving them a chance to get to know me, and me them so that we’ll be able to work together better in the classroom in the future. I know that I do not have much time left at O’Bryant and with this particular service-learning assignment but I hope to continue volunteering in the Boston community because I think that it is a good way to connect with the community and have the community become a sponsor to my literacy of what it means to be an adult. It will teach me a bit about who I am and how I can be the best person I can be. 

Volunteering Experience

Hey everyone,

Today I just wanted to talk about how my volunteering at the after school program has been going thus far. I've noticed that the quality of my experience is fully based on the students that you are assigned to tutoring that week. My first week I had an incredibly enjoyable time, now although I don't fully remember the kid's names I remember that I had a fun time with them. The first set of kids were willing to listen to me and had a fun time listening to what I had to say and I hope they learned from it. The second set of kids I had that week were a blast to have, one of the boys was struggling with his math homework. He showed me this fantasy game they play at school that help them with their math skills. The game was a blast, we had a great time playing together and it really made learning math seem more enjoyable. The other boy that was with us had forgotten his homework so I asked him to write me a story that included his favorite things and his least favorite things. He wrote about how much he loved basketball but about how the kids bullied him for being short. It was hard to hear that he was bullied because he seemed like such a happy fun loving kid. I talked with him about it, and my own personal experiences with it and he seemed appreciative with the knowledge. The second week was not nearly as enjoyable for me. The first girl I got just seemed in general uninterested in my help, she slipped her headphones through her jacket sleeve, thinking that I hadn't noticed, and did her work without my help. Although I asked multiple times if she needed any help she refused every time so we just sat there in silence. The second girl that I tutored that night was where my problems really began. She was most likely in first grade and we were working on her spelling and basic math skills. When she would get an answer she would ask me if it was write or not and I would say, "great job you got it right" or I would say, "maybe you should rethink this one". After I would say that she would accuse me of being the reason she had gotten it wrong, even though I hadn't said anything yet, or she would accuse me of calling her stupid. Not even once did I call her anything close to stupid but she would not stop saying it. Towards the end of the evening she screamed that I had hit her, I had not. I honestly was so lost and had absolutely no clue what to do, so I just said it's not nice to say that I did something I didn't and she stopped. So all in all, looking forward to this upcoming week for new kids to tutor I guess.

Love you all,

Cam

Blog 7: We have been cheated out of the album experience

I feel like Generation Z kids were cheated out of the experience of buying an album and listening to it all the way through. I didn't even know what an album was growing up, because I always got music as singles on the radio, or on my iPod. The way I got my music when I was young was typically radio, and then Spotify and Apple Music later on. But music was not offered to me in the form of an album, it was always singles. So I just went along my life listening to singles, and when I figured out entire albums existed I would rarely listen to the whole album because I had already listened to all the singles off that album, which were usually the better songs, so I didn't want to have to take the time to listen to songs that may or may not be as good as the singles. I know that sounds silly but I suppose that's how my music listening habits developed due to my childhood. Only recently I have been listening to entire albums and I really like that form of listening better. It is so fun to wait up until your favorite artist drops the album and sit down and listen to it the whole way through. You get to see how the album flows and it is like a story, almost. I gain a better understanding and appreciation for the artist and for each individual song.

I know you can still listen to albums all the way through, but with streaming bases like Spotify and Soundcloud and Apple Music, it kind of feels like there are all these distractions around you. We are a much more playlist oriented generation, making playlists of all the best singles and compiling them together. I feel like the way that Spotify is set up makes it less likely for mew to listen to entire albums. It is a very playlist-heavy platform. I COULD get a record player and do the whole record thing but that a) costs money and b) seems kind of phony now because you're spending all this money to be retro. However, my roommate has a record player and collects records, and if you get a good speaker system, the album sounds way better. It's more of an experience with a record player rather than just pressing play on a song. So anyway, all of this is bringing me to my last point. I have all of these artists who I love, but growing up I never listened to their albums because I was just listening to their radio singles. So now I have to go back and listen to literally every artist ever and listen to all their albums. I feel like you can't really talk about or judge an artists if you don't listen to all of their music or at least a good portion of it. I am excited to find some hidden gems, but also this is going to be a long journey. I am making a list of all of these albums I need to listen to and I already have 20 albums on my list and those are just recent albums from a specific genre of music I like. I am going to be doing a lot of listening folks!

Another week in the writers' room

            Alright, so another week means another post. This will be my second reflection of my tutoring that I had earlier today.

            Today’s tutoring was awkward because the students were doing peer review of their research papers. The class I walked into first, since I start at 11:30 I have twenty minute overlap with the end of the class period before me, I did not really know how to incorporate myself and help any kids with their papers. The reason for this was simply that they all had a straight forward task of reading the checklist and seeing how their partner’s paper fulfilled the elements of that list. There was not much room for interpretation. I basically ended up just sitting awkwardly around, in the middle of a pack of the students; I told them I was there if they needed help with anything and they never came to me.

            Between that period and the next one, there were quiet hours. I conversed a little with Bryce and Annie, then Heather came in and asked me about how I converse with the kids. I explained my technique: I kneel next to them, say hi and introduce myself, usually wait for them to reply with their own name because they always do, ask them about their day and maybe a couple other casual conversation starters, then I begin asking them what they’re working on. She said that worked perfectly, then she handed me one student’s work and told me to use this as a practice paper and write it up as I would to a real student. Bryce also told me not only to give criticism but also to bring up the student’s most effective points because often the writer won’t know their own paper’s strengths. I read a paper about how The Awakening by (I forgot her first name) Cohen demonstrates women and their status in society and how it is changing. The strength of this paper was her thesis and topic sentences; they were very clear, organized, specific, and argumentative. The paper’s weaknesses though were when she brought up evidence, because she was not making a clear connection between the quotations and her points; she needed to clearly walk through how this evidence helps prove her thesis.

            Then the next class came in, but this time, Heather asked their teacher if any of the students needed actual one on one help, and I was put to work with Stephen. Stephen was having trouble with putting his ideas into words. I taught him the exact thing I’ve always done in my writing, and that we’ve been emphasizing this semester in our English class, the idea of the shitty first draft. I did not actually call it that to him, I simply asked him to explain to me exactly what he was trying to say. Then I wrote down his exact words and told him that this would be where to build off of; now, when he edits his paper, that is when he makes it sound all fancy and polished.

Life right now - part 9 - survival

Most people in our day and age don't really know what the ACTUAL concept of survival means. The survival which has no "civilization," no supermarkets and no guns. Many people might be able to relate to the sense of protecting your body which we have talked about before but the raw, in the wild type of survival skills I'm talking about, very few people know of and have for that matter. But many of us still like to have some of the skills that early man had. Like learning how to hunt, with or without guns, or learning how to build a viable fort in the woods. The latter I hope that almost every kid has tried at some point. But also some sports are fun because they induce a sort of survival instinct in us. Such as when you go surfing in really big waves and your paddling for your life to get through the break zone, or when you go horseback riding in the woods to do solid jumps, or when you run or swim really fast for a race. All of these things cause high adrenaline, which is a chemical in us that protects us because it induces energy for fight and flight, a survival instinct in us. Some people enjoy having skills in axe and knife handling.

I enjoy being out in the woods and camping because it makes me feel less like a robot living in the industrial world. I'm just a human trying to survive. Getting back to the basics.

Caroline

A Hell of a Weekend

I actually had a really good weekend. I think a lot of my positive thoughts about this weekend come from me neglecting literally everything that was expected of me besides waking up, bathing, and going to work. I did no homework until Sunday night when I really had to, which is actually really unlike me, but my excuse was that my friend was in town all weekend.

My friend from high school, Elizabeth, goes to school at Syracuse. She and I have known each other since we were in like seventh grade or something like that, but didn’t really get close until junior year of high school. I knew from the beginning that she would struggle a little with going to school in such a small and cold place, but she chose Syracuse because of their tremendous program for her major -- film. So, since last semester, she said that she was determined to make the trek from upstate New York to the bustling city of Boston this year.

A few weeks ago, we were looking at dates and trying to find a weekend that worked for both of us. Luckily, we were both available this past weekend, and for some reason, the flights were super cheap -- just under $88 round trip. The flight times were slightly less than ideal, but still not too bad, with her arriving in Boston at around 6:30am on Friday and departing from Boston around 10:30pm on Sunday. I had work everyday of the weekend, so during those times, she had to find ways of entertaining herself, which she did by going to a SoulCycle class, getting her eyebrows done, doing homework, etc. We had a ton of fun and everything was going as planned. But, at about 6:30pm on Sunday, she got a text from Expedia saying that her flight back to Syracuse had been canceled.

She and I got back to my dorm as quickly as possible so that she could use her laptop and try to fix this issue. She called JetBlue, the airline she was going to fly, and they said all flights were canceled because of an upcoming windstorm, and the earliest they could get her out is Tuesday or Wednesday. Naturally, she wasn’t happy, because she had already missed her classes last Thursday and Friday. After much deliberation and stress, she decided to take a bus from Boston to NYC, and then fly from LaGuardia to Syracuse. I had to go to the library to meet with my group for a project, but while I was gone, she frantically packed up and left because it was like 8:15 and she was trying to make an 8:30 bus. So, I didn’t get to say bye to her, and then she missed her bus. She waited at the station and then got on a 10pm bus which put her in NYC at 2:30am. She then went to LaGuardia to wait for her 7:30am flight, which got canceled, then was scheduled for another flight which got canceled as well. So, she ended up heading back to the bus station and taking a bus from NYC to Syracuse. To compensate, JetBlue gave her $40 back for her canceled flight, and all the buses together cost over $200. She actually just made it back to school in time for her afternoon classes and her morning classes were canceled. It was a fun weekend, but definitely ended pretty poorly for Elizabeth. I’m excited to see her when we’re home for the summer!

Rushing as a lifestyle.

Haven’t you noticed that in this day and age we are always rushing somewhere? Someone tries to catch an early train, or someone tries to get to class on time. It seems to me that everyone got used to this recently developed trend of running around, and actually started liking it. Even though almost everyone would not miss an opportunity to complain about how packed their schedule is and how hard it is for them to keep up with it. However, at the same time, that person would probably emphasize that it is an import for him or her to get somewhere on time and that is why they are in a rush.                 

                I shall admit that I also became a victim of this lifestyle. I have discovered for myself that I do indeed complain how packed my day might be and that I barely have any free time on my hands. Nevertheless, I do not even try to avoid it or create more free time for myself. After taking a look from a different perspective, my behavior appears to be contradicting my claims and stories. So, I decided to try and slow down my day intentionally. I was doing it for a week, and so far I have not yet made any significant progress. However, the main message of this blog post is not my findings but the suggestion to slow down and try to enjoy our life a bit more than we usually do. The happier we are, the simpler life gets, isn’t it true?

                

                Slow down and try to enjoy your life. I would bet that almost everyone heard this phrase at least once in their lifetime but did not actually do anything about that. One might call it naive or even foolish but in reality, it seems to be some sort of impossible task, taking in consideration commonly accepted lifestyle. In my opinion, this task is extremely simple, but it is not easy. It is not easy to give up our old habits and our accepted world view without external interference or a sheer determination to change something. Thus, this observation leads me to a logical conclusion that simple tasks are the hardest ones to accomplish, but it does not mean that they are impossible. That is why slowing down and enjoying life can be so hard that people would do their best to find an excuse not to give it a try. This lifestyle of rushing became our comfort zone, and as one might already know, people tend to stay within their comfort zones. But what would happen if one would decide to step out of it?

In this everyday routine, one might forget about the simple beauties of our everyday life. Those small elements, which are very easily overlooked or taken for granted, have a power of making our life a little less stressful and monotonous. Something like the first cup of hot coffee or a nice meal, or even good weather, especially in New England, can make our day a bit better. Let us give it a try and do our best to escape our cocoons and enjoy those little things, which make our lives a bit brighter and not as gloomy as one might picture it. 😊

A.G.)

another sunday at pavement

Greetings --

It’s Sunday afternoon so I’m back at my usual spot trying to figure out what to write.

I’m mostly just tired. The past two weeks have been crazy for me and then next week is going to be crazy as well. 2 more midterms and a paper!! But spring break should be fun. For the first weekend I’m going up to Burlington, VT to visit my best friend at the University of Vermont. I haven’t seen her in a couple months and I’m so psyched to be up there with her, even if it’s just for a weekend. My other friend from home who goes to school here in Boston is coming up with me and for some reason, we decided to take a 2:25am bus back down to Boston on Sunday morning. That’s right, 2:25 in the MORNING. But it was the cheapest option by far and we both have very little money to our names right now so it seemed like a logical choice. Pray for me.

I’m still not really sure what I’ll be doing during the weekdays of break. My parents recently informed me that they’ll be in India during my break so I’m just supposed to go home and hang out there alone I guess? None of my friends will be on their spring break so I’m sure it will be a very boring week. Since I live so close to school and some of my friends are staying in their dorms over break I might just go back and forth or even stay at school for some of the nights. Better than being stuck in the suburbs all alone, right?

The last weekend of break I decided to go down to New York City to visit my other friends at Columbia because I haven’t been down there in a few years. I’m excited to get out of Mass for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I love this state with all my heart, but sometimes it’s just nice to go somewhere different, even if it’s only for a few days.

In other news, my friend at BU has this brand kind of thing that he’s trying to develop and get out there and he was recently asked to come up with 7-10 looks for a fashion show that someone is putting on in April. He’s more into designing and saw that I had recently learned embroidery and asked me to help him out with the clothes. I’m super psyched about this project because I 1) love embroidery and need a side project to distract me from school and 2) wanted to be a designer when I was little but never tried my hand at actually making clothes. Neither of us has experience making clothes from scratch but it should be a really cool experience. I have pretty rudimentary sewing skills so who’s to say how it will turn out but we’ve decided that DIY is the new wave so the pieces don’t necessarily have to be super polished.

Stay gold,

Maya

Life Right Now - part 8 - I hope you understand

Between the world and me really touched me, because I never realized the extent to which a black man, or maybe even more a black woman, has to protect his/her body and how much certain parts of American culture condones the past. But personally the story resonated with me because of the theme of losing your body. I realized that the things that I fear as a woman about having my body taken from me are similar to those things African Americans also fear. The way you guard yourself, change yourself in terms of appearance and the emotions you show, in order to appear the least scared and vulnerable. The measures you take every day to make sure you don't end up in an alley or a dark parking garage. Oppression of all kinds entail someone at risk of losing their body, and someone with the power to take the body. This scared me. Just one small wrong step and the body has been taken from you. It was way too familiar and it have me quite a hard time reading the book because of how real it was. I'm aware that this was probably not the point of the novel, but nevertheless it was what it evoked in me, as well as a better understanding of how it is to be black in America. Everyone reads a book differently. I would like my interpretation to be as acceptable as any other, for this is just one of the way which I understand this book...

Caroline

What to do this week

Hi guys,

Fortunately, my left ankle is getting a lot better. Although the top of my foot is still a bit swollen, now I can almost walk as usual without feeling hurt. So that's great news for me.

The sad news is that I have an upcoming Biology exam next Monday, and unlike other previous exam days I am quite nervous since this exam includes a lot of memorization; yes, biology is all about memorizing. However, I feel like this one's going to destroy my grade with all the strangest words and phrases that I have never heard of and that I have to memorize each of them every slide. Anxious about it, I began studying yesterday, which unexpectedly made me nervous when I figured out my knowledge about what I have learned in previous lectures. What made me more frightening was learning how much others used their time on solely Biology comparing to myself. One of my friends seems to study for the Bio exam before a week and spend at least 4 hours each day, which sounds absurd to me until now. I feel like I am more relaxed, and I disregard studying a lot more than my high school days.

Anyways, I am doomed with my Biology exam but still feel great about playing soccer again tomorrow...or should I not play tomorrow since I'm not sure when I will be fully rehabilitated.

Jussie Smollet SMH

I would like to start off by welcoming myself to Blogger. It is an honor and a privilege to finally be on here. It has been hard for me emotionally to be secluded from you amazing kids so I am so glad to be part of the squad!

But anyways,
Jussie Smollet. If you do not know the story (you would have to be living under a rock...sorry if you did not know the story and I just roasted you), Jussie Smollet, actor on the show Empire, expressed a couple of weeks ago that he was the victim of a hate crime.Two men, who I believe he initially said were white and wearing MAGA hats, tied a nose around his neck and called him a n****r and a f*g. I am not sure about everything that he said occurred, but marks were evident around his neck and on other parts of his body. Media and especially celebrities took to social media to support the traumatized actor, expressing their disgust toward the actions of these two "white, MAGA hat wearing, racist boys."

Fast forward to this week, incriminating evidence CAME OUT THE CUT tying Jussie Smollet to his own attack. The two "hateful, MAGA hat wearing white boys," ending up actually being Nigerian brothers (grown men), who supposedly worked on the set of Empire with Jussie. Suspicious?? Yeah maybe a tad bit. Then when they were investigated, they spilled the tea, claiming that Jussie paid them to stage this hate crime. Later, tapes were discovered of the two (brolic = super buff ) brothers buying ski masks and red hats the night of the attack. Just today, Jussie got charged with a felony for basically lying out his buttcrack.

I'm not gonna lie, when I heard that this was staged I was not entirely surprised, but I was incredibly disappointed and confused. First and foremost, it is still Black History Month, he could have kept this idiocy out of this celebratory month of black excellence. Secondly, there are people who were victims of actual hate crimes, and this is almost like mockery of their legitimate pain and trauma. I do not understand what was going through his head, or what obviously was not (brain cells) to be able to stage his own attack. Think about it, this man planned to have someone tie a ROPE around his neck. Lynching and hangings are things that black people (his ancestors) actually went through and to think that he could self inflict this, completely neglecting the scars of those before him, is sad to me.

I do not know if this was a quest for more media attention and fame. I do not know if he is actually mentally ill. I do not know what his reasoning or justification could possibly be for this, but I know that this was pathetic. As a black person I have permission to say, Jussie you are officially CANCELLED.


JUST IN: it is alleged that he did this because he was dissatisfied with his salary on Empire. LMAO WHAT...GOODBYE.

Blog Post #idk Edit: I wrote about stand up comedy before reading Cam's post. now I'm shook

I've hit a point in the school year where I feel absolutely no motivation for anything anymore, and it's awful because the courses I'm taking this semester have been substantially harder and come with a lot more work. I really began this semester thinking I was going to get a 4.0 for sure until I decided to switch my major which led to a rearrangement of my entire schedule. I ended up with good and bad professors, and the bad ones happen to be in the courses I struggle more with, so that's unfortunate. If only I could withdraw out of chemistry but it is a required course for my major so we're powering through it. This is making me question if I even want to stay on the pre-med track anymore because I know it is such a long road ahead. This time last year my biggest problem was figuring out which college to go to and now it's deciding the career I want to have for the rest of my life and I'm still the same age as I was last year. I turn 19 in less than 2 weeks but I feel like I've been 18 for so long. What was the big deal in turning 18 anyways? It just means that I can leave the parent signature line empty on forms and I guess that just makes everything more convenient. Also, tomorrow I have to sign up for summer classes and my advisor has been absolutely no help to me at all. So, I'm deciding on signing up for this course called "Apocalypticism in Film." What could that possibly be about? It sounds super interesting though, and also I heard you get to watch movies in that class, although the only downside is that the class ends at 9pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Yesterday I watched Ken Jeong's Netflix comedy special and it made me think about stand-up comedy a lot. Over winter break I watched this Amazon prime series called "The Marvelous Ms. Maisel," and it peaked my interest in the art of stand-up comedy. It fascinates me how the comics are able to start on a topic and end up on something completely unrelated yet it seemed to flow so seamlessly. I've also noticed that there is a fine line between what is considered humor and what is offensive. The ability of these comics to come up with content that is both relatable and relevant yet also can appease to sensitive audiences is beyond me. I realize that something that most comics have in common is that they usually tie in a lot of their content to experiences in their life and most of them are pretty self-deprecating and quite sad but I guess you can't really offend yourself if you're the on saying it? Can you? I feel like stand-up comedy much like working in Pixar animation is another one of those blind dreams I have. But honestly, what's stopping me from pursuing those things? I mean Pixar animation, I guess I would need to learn how to draw first but comedy? I think anyone could make it work somehow.

Sincerely,
Megan