summer loving

I apologize for the lack of updates. Summer tends to do that to you, especially if you are working full-time.

I started a cooking habit, where meals are actually made in my kitchen. By being part of the food industry, I am more aware of how I impact the environment and how the decisions that I make in the supermarket are part of the food industry. The picture on the left is some tomato+mozzarella bruschetta that I made with a friend.

Orientation starts today! A lot of my people that I know are Orientation Leaders (OL) this year and I hope that they won't be too nervous for their first Orientation. Best of luck firsties!

Orientation Leaders

For those of you who are coming in the Fall, check out your Orientation Leaders!

http://www.virginia.edu/orientation/summer/orientationleaders.html

Apparently last year's OLs are already facebook stalking this year's new group of OLs. In the words of a wise friend: let it go, guys, let it go.

I was reading these with my friend and I was also just amazed at what a variety of organizations people were involved in. It makes you want to go "Huh, I didn't know we had that... I want to join!"

Anyways, a couple of my friends are being OLs so be nice! :]

THERE ARE LESS THAN 15 SCHOOL DAYS LEFT AHHHHHHHHH

Now that the title got your attention, FEEL MY PANIC. It's the breathe before the dive, people. Before deadlines hit. BAM BAM BAM! Before exams start. BAM BAM BAM! Before physical ailments spring up. BAM BAM BAM! Before people graduate. ....uh, I don't have a sound effect for that.

It's the glorious time of the year when the weather lightens up and even at 7am it is light outside. The UVA campus is glorious in its pink-flowered trees and fragrant azalea bushes. Even looking at The Week in Photos, you spy at least two photographs centered on flowers and trees, and a couple others with them peeking in the background. If you visit with Days on the Lawn or a random campus visit around this time, you'll be astounded by the beauty. I know I was when I first came.

Okay, I need to stop being so nostalgic now that I'm going to be a third year. Oh, you prospective students, enjoy life. Before I end my reminiscences, I want to point out that because this time of the year is about transitions, it also brings nostalgia and longing. Exhibit A is an email that one of my best friends sent me. The title was "and we thought they were so cool then...", and her body said "if your feeling anxious about the future, remember, change is good :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is6gtilerPk&feature=channel." Oh, Justin...

At 11am, I am going to go to the PURSUIT Conference. An 8-hour day affair, the Conference will take up my valuable time for studying. And I think it's absolutely worth it. On Thursday, a visiting Professor from University of Illinois commented that she was amazed when she realized that the time spent and knowledge learned from Professors is only a small fraction of the knowledge we learn in college. In fact, one could argue that the time in classrooms competes with time that could be spent in conferences, listening to guest speakers, and other ways of "learning." For those of you who have taken economics, think about opportunity cost. For those of you haven't, I recommend taking at least an intro economics class AND I will explain. :) For every activity that you do, there is a next best choice. For example, I am currently typing out this entry for half an hour now. That half an hour could have been spent searching for breakfast. Or it could have been spent starting on my ethnographic research paper. Instead, I choose typing this entry out, because I found more value in doing so than the others. (Or I am procrastinating... you decide.)

I applied for summer Resident Adviser and summer Senior Resident. Hopefully I receive one of the positions, because I will be here all summer long. Perhaps I am mellowing out, because this will be my second summer in Charlottesville.

On a random note, someone told me that people read my blog! Hello hello! Please post a comment!

musing of a girl with a knapsack

Coming from my favorite little coffee-tea shop, Para Coffee (shameless plug, I know... it's on Elliewood!!!), I bumped into a friend on the Corner. It's the typical UVa scene. Two college students, a boy with a cup of coffee and a girl with a knapsack, talking in front of the bus stop on the brick-paved streets of the Corner. It happens all the time.

I guess what's different about this scene is that I knew this guy for only a month. I took three summer classes over two months, and we had met through one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with UVa's summer classes, the entire summer is split up into three sessions (session I, session II, session III). The maximum number of classes that you can take per session is two. Yours truly, being the overzealous and overachieving student that I am, took three classes and had a job. Needless to say, there was a negative correlation between the number of classes and jobs that I had and my grade.

My friend and I had met during the second session, where I only had one class and was more relaxed. It was a great class, simply because it was an actual Professor who was teaching, he was amazing, and instead of the usual several hundreds of students that he taught, there was only 25 of us. It was definitely an advantage over taking it in the semester. Because of the small class size, I got to know a good number of my classmates pretty intimately, considering that it was only 6 weeks long. We met often for picnic lunches in the Gardens, trips to Downtown, cooking adventures in my apartment, and study groups that actually worked. I must say, I was really impressed with myself that session. I was being social, I excelled in that class, and I still had lots of sleep despite the fact that the class was 8am every morning.

But summer feels like a dream. It was rainy today, I was feeling miserable from sickness, and I'm sure my friend was busy thinking about the things he had to do today, because he was holding a lot of books. It was such a contrast from memories from the summer season, with balmy sunny days and open schedules. We talked a bit about our lives. I told him about my bout with the cold and he told me he was enjoying his classes. It was short, terse, and almost static. Then he said he needed to go to a meeting. I nodded and waved him off.

There's a point in second year where you realize that you're not a first year anymore. For me, it was when I realized that a lot of my friends from first year (and yes, I was still a first year over the summer...) were busy with their activities in which they were leaders. My friend was an Orientation leader, another friend is deeply involved in Student Entrepreneurs for Economic Development (SEED), and another wants to get involved in drama and work with children. I am not involved in any of these activities nor are they particularly important to me. Yet, with the activities that are important to me, I am deeply involved. As we progress and become third years and fourth years, I'm sure that we will all only increase our commitments to these activities, and be more involved in them. At what point will we be too busy for each other?

These were the thoughts that I was mulling over after my encounter with my friend. Typical encounter on the Corner? Oh yes. Typical College of Arts and Science student? Hell yea.

on a night like this...

It's perfect for taking out my instruments and playing through them. My current favorite is my ocarina -- Wikipedia it if you have no idea what I'm talking about. On a lazy summer night, it's perfect for hanging out with friends, or in this case, lilting notes from my ocarina.

I've been doing some reflection on this summer this weekend and have to conclude that overall, it's been a very satisfactory one. I do what I like at my jobs, have met a lot of great people, caught up with a lot of friends, and dived back into what I didn't have time for over the school year. Given the choice, I wouldn't have spent it any other way. And that, I personally feel, is the best way to spend life. Live it to the fullest and try to have no regrets. It's been my personal philosophy during my college years, and it's worked out quite well thus far.

There's about a month of summer left. some of you guys may be going to new colleges, some of you going back to school for the last year. Hope you're having a good time. =)