The year is almost over!!

Friday, April 24, 2009 at 7:45 PM
The past 2 weeks have been hectic; a preview of my years to come. Being on eboard is fantastic, and everything I wanted. Even though I now have even less free time than I did before (and that's saying something), it's so satisfying. I'm so glad that I love all the people on my eboard, or else those 10 hour meetings would be really frustrating. However, the budget report for next year is due soon, and it is driving me insane. So much work to do!! SIGH. On the bright side, this is the first chance I've gotten to breathe and not really worry about anything in 14 days, and IT FEELS GOOD TO NOT DO ANYTHING. On the not so bright side, I'm just blogging in between classes and I'm running on 4 hours of sleep, thanks to my social psych exam. Sweet.

There's been a heat wave at Boston recently...despite a couple days of pouring rain, it reached 92 on Tuesday, which is even hotter than Cupertino!! :O Damn all the stupid East coast people who lied to me and said it never got hot in Boston...I now have basically no cute summer clothes to wear...I feel like a scrub now that all the rich pretty girls are busting out with their sundresses and heels. However, my mood is indefinitely improved by the warming sun, and it's nice to not have to bring multiple jackets with me wherever i go...or to have to bring a jacket at all :)

So finals season is upon us...I have 3 finals scheduled for next Saturday, hoping to get one moved to the following Tuesday, and then home free!!! I'm staying for senior week and graduation, so I'll be landing in San Jose airport around midnight on the 19th :) While I'm excited to be going home soon, I'm definitely going to miss this place and the people for our 4 looong months of summer. However, I'm hoping that summer will turned out as planned, and if it does, I'll be working at Stanford for 6 weeks as a CTY summer camp counselor :) I need money!!! And I also need to be prodcutive. I can't handle it when I have nothing to do for long periods of time...I'm pretty excited though :) basically for life.

Okay, I thought I would have more to say after two weeks but I guess I fail :/ Will update soon!!! Hopefully.

Question.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 7:30 AM
Why do the worms come out to drown and die when it rains????

It's getting a little ridiculous...the walk to the cafeteria is really nerve-wracking and uncomfortable. I don't want to kill worms!! Even if it is by accident!

But We are Measly College Students!!!

Thursday, April 16, 2009 at 9:14 PM
I should be blogging in my social psychology blog, since the assignment is due very very soon, but whatevs. My life seems to be more important than the issues of blind conformity and what not right now....OR IS IT??? HMMM. But anyway, updates on last time...
  1. I love my new green ipod nano. I love music.
  2. I got the CSA Culture Show position...yay :) I'm extremely excited to be working with the new e-board, especially since I rather like all the other officers.
  3. I'm being pro-active!!
So first off, since BC is awesome and Jesuit, I didn't have school from Thursday to Monday :) So I took full advantage of our Easter break to visit D & M down at NYU, since I haven't seen either of them since winter break. It was a really fun and crazy trip, and I have to say I think if I went to NYU I would legit be an alcoholic lol. Drunk kids wandering the whole of NYC is super fun and ridiculous, but I don't know if I'd be able to handle that every weekend haha. Also, drinking 5/7 days last week is a bit too much...I feel bad for my liver. Thursday night was a complete shit show, so D and I took Friday off to recover. Saturday was more fun, karaoking and journeying to get my first taste of White Castle...hehe sorry New Yorkers, I still love In-n-Out more. I love the BoltBus and it's wireless internet :) It makes the 4 hour bus ride a lot better...but more dizzy. I was glad to be back at BC though...After wondering all of first semester and a bit of second whether I had picked the right school when I was pondering between BC and NYU, I'm pretty sure now that I made the right choice. And that decision makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)

So along the lines of being pro-active...I'm starting to be a lot more productive with my schoolwork, actually getting shit done. I'm also applying for summer jobs and looking for internships, even though the chances of the latter are slim :/. I also emailed a professor who is doing research here at BC regarding psych and the performing arts to ask if I could possibly interview for a research assistant position in her lab for next year...so hopefully that'll pan out :) Now if I could only get myself to go to class....hahhaha.

On a much bigger scale, there's been a huge issue recently at BC about the unnamed Asian American Scholarship, the way it's been for the past dozen years or so. Having the only unnamed scholarship on campus perpetuates the idea that there are no important Asian figures or heroes, and thus the culture clubs have been trying to get the scholarship named for the past couple of years. This year, we're trying to get it named after Aung San Suu Kyi, a political prisoner, activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner currently imprisoned in Burma. On a similar note, there is a complete lack of AHANA (Asian Hispanic African Native American-the term we use at BC for minorities) faculty and Asian American studies classes, to the point where Asian American Studies isn't even an option for a major. Basically, Boston College has constantly failed to recognize the worth and importance of Asian students on it's campus.

So April is APAHM (Asian Pacific American Heritage Month), so yesterday was the annual festival in our plaza. During one of the acts, we had a flash mob moment for silence. Wearing the shirts with Aung San Suu Kyi's face on it, holding up a sign that said "Without more Asian American Studies courses, we have no voice", gagging my mouth with a strip of baby teal cloth, seeing hundreds of students gathered in the plaza with their hands over their mouths to honor this moment of silence....It's so powerful, what we as college students can do. What we as people can do. It's so great, I wish I had pictures of it. I will post them up whenever I find them :)

Combined with the festival, there was also a rally for free speech at BC. Recently, an invitation for Bill Ayers to speak on our campus was rescinded, due to threats from the community after they learned of his scheduled appearance. Bill Ayers, now a professor at UIllinois of Chicago, was a part of the radical and sometimes violent anti-war organization, the Weather Underground, in th 1960s and 70s. There was a backlash after the cancellation, leading to said rally. Sitting there listening to the professors and the administration and a guest lawyer speak about our rights, and the importance of first amendmant values rather than rights, and the necessity of free thinking to become a leading intellectual center...It feels good to be a part of something more important than just my GPA for this semester or a beer pong tournament.

I think that it's so easy to lose sight of the big picture, especially as college students. We are not really living in the "real world", per se (I spelled it right this time Yasmine), and thus it's much too easy to just go to class, do our work, party on the weekends, and have that be the whole of our college experience. I want more!! I want to be intellectually challenged, I want to make a difference, and I want to make a difference. As I have heard often before, "If Boston College is the same when I left as when I entered, then I have failed"...based off of a more famous quote I think, but the message is the same. I hope that on CSA e-board, I will be able to start taking the steps that I need to do what I want to, and grow infinitely as a person.


College is so different from what I expected, but not in a bad way.

A Breath of Air

Monday, April 6, 2009 at 8:58 AM
So now that my (minor) hell week is over, I'm finally getting a chance to chill, not feel stressed, and just enjoy where I am and what I'm doing. The past two weeks have been pretty up and down, but no big :) This is going to be a giant two week recap, so bear with me haha. I will attempt to make it brief.

So during the last week of march, I had 3 midterms, caked a friend for her birthday, went to lots of culture club events (butter beef night, documentary showings, bbq, etc. :D), and went to a friend's art show. 2 of my midterms were on that Thursday, and due to the caking of my friend, I didn't get back to my room until 1 AM Wednesday night..or is that Thursday morning?? Once I got to my room, I proceeded to realize that I had spilled vitamin water all in my bag...and thus now my ipod is broken, making this the 3rd or 4th apple victim in my destruction of all things electronics. Some days, everything I touch just dies (:(). The prospect of another $200 down the drain is semi-disheartening, but the idea of a cute purple nano in my pocket is kind of exciting.

That friday was also the Ben Folds and Lupe Fiasco concert. A band called Jukebox the Ghost opened for the two of them, and they were so good!! We had gotten 3rd row seats because of our good friend who started waiting in line at 4:30 (the doors opened at 7...he's nuts.) so acoustics were great. All the acts were amazing live and were all so charismatic, and it was really a good show. The Jukebox the Ghost pianist/singer sounded so much like some other big name (the who escapes me at the moment...) and he had the funniest hand gestures and mannerisms. Ben Folds is also amazing at piano, and Lupe also sounded great. We baked brownies beforehand so that might've helped with the fun.

It's been pretty busy the past week because I was in another culture show for my friend's club, and I got put into the hardest dance, Thai Bamboo. Basically, it's the dance where they clap long bamboo sticks on the ground and the dancers have to dance through them...A hard task for males, in particular, especially those who have no sense of rhythm. It didn't help that our choreographer wasn't that familiar with the dance either, and we had to keep canceling practice for various reasons and we were always missing people when we finally had to practice. Lots of smashed fingers and bruised ankles and feet and loud noises equals a lot of stress. The show is finally over now, and all is said and done and the afterparty was fun, so oh well.

So I'm running for CSA culture chair next year, which basically means if I win I'd be in charge of the culture show and other cultural events. At first I wanted to run because I really like the performing arts and I wanted to get involved, but I'm kind of having second thoughts about it. Don't get me wrong, I definitely still want to be involved but there's been a lot of drama within eboards (executive boards, aka the officers) and between the culture clubs, and I'm just feeling a little apprehensive about elections, which are tomorrow. I also wanted to get involved with SEASA though, so I guess if I don't get culture chair it won't be too bad...Whatever happens happens! More on this later, and my thoughts on things I want to accomplish before I graduate.

I think one thing that I've learned (or had reiterated) in college is that it is so much easier to face your problems head on. Backstabbing, gossiping, all this beating around the bush just makes everything worse. Confront the problem, be honest, and things have a tendency to work out...for me at least haha. If that advice ruins anybody's life, I'm terribly sorry. We're all growing up, why shouldn't we be able to talk things out without getting offended?? I feel like the big picture is so much more important now...wasting your breath over petty things just isn't worth it.

Other things...Dancing is coming back into my life, and it feels great :) I'm getting my flexibility back after not stretching for a semester; I can do the splits again!! YAY hahaha. Now that I'm not sick, I can also start going to the practice rooms again to keep singing. I really miss organied dance and singing, but oh well :/ My life would be SO different if I'd made an acapella group...so weird to think about haha. College is time to take charge of your own life though I suppose, so that's what I'm going to do :) Education, extra-curriculars, and everything! (ALLITERATION YAY)

Feeling better, but more thoughts to come. There's so much to look forward to!

SIgh.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 5:01 PM
This is going to be (and has been) a bad week (so far). I actually have something to say, but will update later, when I feel like it.