The sage and debonair John F. Kennedy once spoke to the people of Berlin to offer his comfort and support, and somewhere in the midst of his speech, he said: “Ich bin ein Berliner.” His intent was to connect to the citizens in saying that he was a person from Berlin. However, the laws of semantics were not on his side that day, and what he really said there was, “I am a donut.” Just to clarify, jelly and cream donuts in Berlin are called Berliners. If you want to say you’re a citizen of Berlin, you gotta switch up the syntax a little bit. So, he literally said he was a donut. I know that most people would hear this story, maybe laugh once, and then forget about it for the rest of their lives, but for some reason this really tickles me to think about. I have so many questions. Did his press secretary raise his eyebrows, and just start shaking his head? Did the crowd laugh, or sympathize with him? Did his translator get fired that day? I like to picture what his own experience was like. I wonder if he was twiddling his thumbs beforehand and thinking don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up, and then proceeded to say, “Hello, everyone. I… am… a donut.” Guys, tell me this doesn’t make you smile. It got to me for a solid 48 hours.
Regarding my actual trip to Berlin this weekend, I’ll start at the very beginning. Three of my roommates (Stephanie, Juliann, and Amanda), and I got on our bus at 6am, and it was extremely empty except for a few single travelers who were already seated in the back. Because of this, we were able to snag both of the 4-person tables, and kick back for the ride. Within half an hour, Juliann had fallen asleep, and Amanda was head-banging to her music and deliriously laughing at memes with me as I caught up on my Twitter feed. By the second half of the ride, we’d switched places, and Steph and Juliann were laughing hysterically while Amanda and I were knocked out, limbs lolling off of our double-seats that we tried to lay in like beds. When we got to our place, we were a little out of it. We made a few cups of coffee in our room while we changed out of our comfy bus clothes and got ready for the day. I snapped out of my sleepy delusions after the second time I accidentally put instant coffee into my already made cup of Nespresso. We got going at that point, because we had an itinerary, and damn it if we weren’t going to see every single thing on that list and then some. Besides the JFK anecdote, there were so many things about Berlin that amazed me. For one thing, it’s really not that old. It’s still up and coming, so it’s quite trendy and chic. There’s a ton of stuff to do there, but of course, we began with a walking tour of the city, which never disappoints. Our tour guide was the quirkiest, coolest little man we’ve ever met. We saw some amazing and humbling sites, and stopped for some hot mulled wine in the middle. He told some strange anecdotes, and when the tour was over, he let my friends and I know that he played the saxophone at underground clubs at night. He then proceeded to give us his opinions on our itinerary, which were actually quite helpful. We went to an open air market afterwards for dinner, and the journey took quite a while, because the bus we were instructed to take only took us two stops before retiring for the rest of the evening and kicking everyone off. So, we found other means of transportation, and by the time we arrived at the market we were pretty starving. It looked exactly like the kind of indoor food market you’d find in downtown Los Angeles, or at the Anaheim Packing District— like I said, Berlin is way stylish. We found some curry worst, which is Berlin’s speciality, and a wine booth, and then settled down at the top deck of a wooden set of bleachers. We met some cutie British men, and hung out with them there for a few hours. One was an MD, one was a PhD, and the other one was like, some type of farm-to-fork pioneer. So basically, the whole package for a group, right? Make sure you can check these three things off your list next time you are making friends— otherwise, they don’t make the cut. After the market, we all made our way to a bar called Madame Claude that some friends from our program and our interesting tour guide had told us about. Apparently, the Brits had been on the same tour as us earlier, which I still don’t fully believe because I don’t remember seeing them, but their story totally checks out. So, the seven of us went to Madame Claude, and I definitely approved of the recommendation. For one thing, everything was upside down. There were tables, chairs, and the works of a bar, on the ceiling. I mean, they were on the ground as well— it wasn’t a pointless bar. But it was definitely cool to look up and have the floor mirror the ceiling. We stayed there for another few hours, telling our best stories and finding out increasingly too much about each other as the night went on, but that's what made it so hysterical and fun. The next morning, Stephanie rallied us all out of bed and out the door like a goddamn cattle wrangler, and we were back on track to complete our itinerary. We saw more of the Berlin Wall, walked through the Topography of Terror museum, and saw parts of museum island, which as it turns out, was not an island and did not have any German-history museums. But, we got some steps in for the day. We saw the East Side Gallery, which is a part of the Berlin Wall that artists were allowed to work on. They turned such an ugly concept into a beautiful canvas of art, which was one of the coolest parts of the city in my opinion. By the time we’d seen all the art, it was nearing dinner time, so we tried to go to the Turkish Markets. Tried. We took an uber to get there, but to our dismay, our driver dropped us off in front of a single tent with the words “Istanbul Supermarket” painted on it. There were some apples, bananas, and lettuce in the tent. It was not what we were looking for. So, we walked the rest of the way to the actual frickin’ Turkish Markets, which cover an entire street and look like a farmers market and flea market combined. It’s kind of a large attraction, so I’m still unclear as to why our driver thought we wanted to go to the little tent in an abandoned square, but we live and we learn! We had some more moments of delirium and confusion before we finally made it back to Prague. One of them was that we stood in front of the wrong bus for a good five minutes, ready to board, even though it’s last stop was Berlin. The bus driver actually got out, smiled a little as he lit his cigarette, and asked if he could help us. We said, “No, we’re just going to get on your bus when you’re ready.” He told us that we weren’t going to do that, and explained why. We laughed and backed away in embarrassment. We did eventually make it back to Prague— correct bus and everything. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to make little mistakes like that in different cities, but when they happen, you just have to remember that JFK once told the people of Berlin that he was a donut. This is a Berliner.
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I had the most incredible weekend. There is so much worth noting, it’s just completely overwhelming. First and most importantly, my mom beat cancer!!! I’ve reigned in the exclamation points, but I could fill the entire page with them and it still wouldn’t fully express my happiness. I will never forget receiving this news; it brightened up not only my weekend, but my entire world. I’ve got a family full of strong people, and my mom leads the way. She defines determination and poise, and my dad is by her side with unbreakable positivity and support. I wish I was sitting next to him right now, watching our queen walk laps around her bed as she gets stronger each day. I continue to send every ounce of my love!
Although nothing can compare to this news, I had a spectacular time in Munich once I received it, and racked up some great stories to share with them on the phone. I loved every aspect of the city, as well as the friends I traveled with. Two of them were roommates (Stephanie and Juliann) and one was a friend from Chapman (Jordan). I had yet to travel with her, but after seeing her rock a colonial pilgrim Dirndl, and sharing increasingly appalling and hysterical stories each night before we went to sleep, I hope it won’t be the last time. The four of us found some awesome sights and restaurants throughout the city, and although Siri led us through an expansive field for one of them, the walking did us good after our six hour bus ride. When we first made our way to the Airbnb, the leaves were falling off the trees with such consistency and ubiquity that it could have been snow. We walked down streets that looked like they came out of fairytales, and the house I pointed out to be the cutest ended up being our Airbnb! Later that day, we passed through the English Gardens and saw people surfing down a large rushing creek, and went on an amazing walking tour led by a fantastic guide. He encouraged us to grab a bottle of Bavaria’s favorite beer (Augustiner-Bräu) for the road, so we cracked a cold one as we learned the histories behind a few buildings— some of which were shocking, and others quite hilarious. To elaborate: There is a beautiful opera house near the city center, which caught fire shortly after it was built long ago. In response, the townspeople ran to the nearest beer hall, called the Hofbräuhaus, with intentions to grab as much beer as possible and use it to douse the building. Save your confusion about this questionable logic; they didn’t even get that far in their mission. They drank it all on the way back, and the opera house burned right to the ground. Furious at his people who literally had one job, the king heavily taxed the price of beer until a new opera house could be paid for. This was not a deterrent; fundraising for a new opera house just gave the people another reason to drink excessively. The next morning, we woke up and embraced the Bavarian lifestyle at Oktoberfest, and we had ourselves a fucking day there. Our first one-liter steins were in hand by 10am, and thanks to our favorite game, we were on stein #2 quicker than I’d honestly care to admit. We may or may not have seen some vikings at the table across from us— Steph saw a group of men with braided beards and was immediately convinced of their viking status, due to her apparent expertise on that particular culture. We sang a lot of German drinking chants, which we came to learn when they blared over the loudspeaker every so often, causing the entire tent to break into song. At one point, I had hiccups that I thought were actually going to end my life, which I completely predicted would happen at the beginning of the day, but they passed eventually. We continued to explore the festival, and found some great food; brats, giant pretzels, and apple strudel were the necessary clichés of the day. Our exhaustion peaked when we arrived home, and we unfortunately proceeded to nap straight through the closing-time of every restaurant in Munich. So, instead of sustenance, we had a few mini pretzel sticks and some tap water for dinner; nevertheless, we woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to go. On our last day, we climbed St. Peter’s Tower, which leads to a breathtaking view of the city, and even provides a hazy glimpse of the Alps in the far background. There were people all over the town square near the Glockenspiel, doing their Saturday shopping, and relaxing at the restaurant tables that clutter the streets. We found some top notch gelato, and sat at an outdoor cafe for a few hours, chatting and reflecting. It was an amazing weekend; a perfect mixture of chaos and bliss. And what’s not to love about that? “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, what would Berkeley say about whether or not it makes any noise?” I raise my hand to answer my philosophy professor’s question. “I think that the ground would still shake, and there would still be sound waves from the fall, but if no one is there to perceive them, then there would be no actual sound.” “Okay, but Berkeley says everything has to be based on perception, so that doesn’t work for him.” I shrug my shoulders as he moves on to another hand in the air. “It worked for me, I liked that a lot,” my roommate Amanda whispers from the seat next to me as she browses for Oktoberfest Dirndls on her laptop. What a great girl. So sweet. Much love. Except for when we hate each other. Based off what I just said, you might think that she doesn’t know about this blog, but she totally does, and she’s going to read it. Because I love her so much. How to explain my roommates? We love the shit out of each other, so much so that we constantly want to kill each other. Last week, Amanda was hyped and delirious from caffeine, and amidst both of our hysterics, she proceeded to trip slightly and drop her large coffee all over the sidewalk. I expressed how happy I was that it happened. She threatened to "accidentally" push me in front of a Tram. I told her she was psychotic. And then we started discussing where we wanted to go get dinner together. This is just the dynamic of our whole house. We all function well together though, because although we give each other no respect, we smother each other with love and affection. We really root for one another, except when we are threatening to put someone’s head through the wall. I tried to explain this to my parents on the phone, amidst my laughter. They were slightly confused at first. “Wait— you don’t mean you hate each other as in like, ‘fucker, get your hands off my lunch meat, right?” my mom asked. I told her I couldn’t have come up with a better example myself. She wanted a blog post about it, pronto. :) But that’s the best part. We don’t tip toe around each other like new roommates tend to do. We warmed up to each other extremely fast, but we didn’t overdo it and get trapped in a roommate complex of always questioning how to confront every new situation. If the housekeeper is coming and the place is a mess, we get on each other to clean. If someone’s being obnoxiously loud, we tell them to shut up. And if someone accomplishes something awesome, we bow and worship and adore. It’s not a hostile environment whatsoever, despite description. We’re almost always in fits of laughter that are actually too loud for our apartment complex. Usually we're all in one room, just catching up after classes, doing homework, getting ready to go out, or planning our next trip. And if we’re not doing any of those things, we’re probably sleeping or eating. Or, we’re betting each other with Odds. We make absolutely too many life decisions with Odds, and it’s almost unhealthy. In fact, some of them, by nature, are truly not good for one’s health, but the stories make up for it. I can’t really imagine this apartment any other way, or with any different girls. I love hearing Julia shout “Dobry den, bitches!” every time she walks through the front door. I love that Juliann tries to have pool parties in our bathtub. I hate that Amanda takes 12 years to get ready for anything at all in this world, but she’s STILL AN ANGEL. I love when Steph looks at me from her bed and whispers “I want chocolate,” knowing that I’ll drop what I’m doing and go with her to the mini mart. And I love when Maddie whips out Midwestern idioms that make us question if she's actually speaking English. I truly just love it all here in Prague. Back row, left to right: Maddie, me, Juliann, Amanda
Front row, left to right: Stephanie, Julia Getting accustomed to a new city is, in most ways, entertaining and easy, and in a few ways, a little challenging. For instance, I have the navigational instincts of a hibernating bear. I'd like to explain why I used this metaphor— I couldn't think of a single example of a living creature that has worse directional sense than me, so I chose one that is often unconscious. That being said, the scenery is a buffer to the fact that I can't find my way around, because at least I get to see amazing things as I zigzag or circle a block until I* can figure out which way I need to go. Not to be dramatic, but I sometimes think that if I walked down a straight street for a mile and then turned directly around to get back home, I’d end up in the river.
*Google Maps I literally thank god every day for my savvy roommates who seem to always know where we are, and how to get from point A to point B. I’m like a little duckling following the mother’s every turn, except I’m the only baby and I’m being led by five moms, rather than the other way around. I like to think that that’s adorable and endearing. But, in the name of bettering my travel skills, I really am working on it! I try so hard to remember my steps and to observe every detail of the journey, but this is not something I can do while multi-tasking yet. Like, even if the other task is telling a story, or just listening to the group conversation. One knee-slap laugh later and suddenly we’re on a hilltop overlooking the bridge I was literally just crossing. I will get better at this. I will. It’s been so nice to be able to acclimate with my roommates, and travel everywhere with them. It’s lucky that the six of us got matched together, because there’s always at least one other person to do something with, if not the whole squad. One night last week, after we all woke up from naps around 11pm and sleepily agreed to go to our favorite bar, ended up being the night that a French rugby player and his teammates invited me to go with them to an American ’90’s pop underground club around the corner. My roommates came with, and that’s where we all hung out for the rest of the night, and decided that they were possibly the coolest people we’d ever met. This was enthusiastically reciprocated. I tried to teach them an American betting game called What Are the Odds, which ended up being one of the funniest language barrier miscommunications I’ve ever witnessed. I still can't believe we almost napped through that whole night. Nothing about studying abroad is predictable, and I love that. This weekend, I was in the south of France, and everyone in Nice was exceptionally nice (heh) and eager to speak English with us, which I was not expecting based on my memories of Paris. On the second night, we befriended four Italian guys on our way back from dinner while my roommate was buying a lemon in a convenience store, and then all of a sudden, we’d been hanging out with them for three hours. Earlier that day, two of my roommates and I tried to go paddle boarding on the Mediterranean, and ended up tubing instead, at basically the speed of light, because our boat driver was fucking psychotic. In a good way, for sure, but we had absolutely no time to prepare. He just started the engine and booked it, and I guess it’s a good thing we happened to have already grabbed onto the handles, because this dude was the definition of zero to a hundred real quick. No instruction, whatsoever. Legitimately, our tube bounced on the waves so vigorously the entire time that I almost bit my tongue off. Like, my body was in the air more often than it was on the tube. I cannot stress enough that I was hanging on for my goddamn life. I fell off at one point, and it was during a hair pin turn. No, I flew off. I probably looked like a Chinese throwing star being skipped like a pebble on the water. To top it off, my friends and I were laughing or screaming uncontrollably the entire time, and our driver was blasting Eminem. I literally never know what’s going to happen next. And I really can’t wait to find out. Dobry den! That’s hello in Czech. Greetings go a long way for people here. But, maybe don’t smile when you greet them, and definitely don’t ask someone how they are. Rude. Why does she care how I am? She doesn’t even know me. Suspicious American. I haven’t been offending tons of people or anything, this is just what I’ve learned from program advisors and an elementary Czech professor. Well, I have offended a few people on accident— once when I tried to translate “french roast” into Czech at the grocery store (the woman became extremely stand-offish and told me to go to the meat section) and once when I tried to tip a bartender for waiving the charge of my order. Tipping is customary here, I checked! He pushed the money back and said, “You have now offended me.” It’s probably because I smiled at him when I put the coins down. Czechs are a very serious bunch. A few of my roommates and I ended up befriending him hours later, however, so redemption is possible. As for the grocery store mix-up, perhaps she thought I wanted a pot roast. Still unsure why she was irked by this.
Slavic language in general is just a whole new ball game. It's not like I can pick up any words based on cognates, as nothing is derived from Latin. I thought the word for “please” was the word for “thank you” for an entire day, and when I learned the real “thank you,” I mispronounced it for a few hours. I’m blaming this on the jet lag, but the truth is, these words were very hard to remember on the first day. My brain was fried, and I kept cracking under the pressure of simple interactions. Once the nerves about human contact subsided, I got a little more confident in my responses— except, my new problem was, I kept saying Gracias. I confidently thanked waiters in Spanish, in the Czech Republic— followed by me burying my forehead in my hands, wondering where my logic had wandered off to in that moment. Today, after being served a meal, I said danke schön, as if German has ever been a language that I’ve studied. Who even am I? Despite the slight embarrassment and confusion, (which I assume is only natural at first), experiencing this new culture has been exactly the exhilarating knowledge avalanche that I’ve been awaiting. Prague is fantastically gorgeous, and there is so much history engrained into the city that you can only truly immerse yourself in if you’re weaving your way through it all. Everything is colorful and absolutely ancient. Almost all of the city’s oldest architecture, in every district including Jewish Prague, was preserved during WWII, as it was meant to be a museum-like city of the “lost race” according to the Final Solution. Every turn of each cobblestone corner is bursting with statues, whether they’re of Kafka, or Charles IV, or patron saints of Prague, or two men peeing towards each other surrounded by an outline of the Czech Republic. There is a map on the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square, which excludes America, as it had yet to be charted or even discovered when the clock was established. My roommates and I have plans to go to the Estates theater to listen to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which is where the opera debuted. There’s so much in Prague alone, and there are so many other cities and countries to visit! The best part of all the traveling to come is the company. I have five amazing roommates, and the six of us are split up between four different bedrooms in the most adorably Czech apartment I’ve ever seen. First of all, there are pictures of former president (and hero, so it seems) Havel, everywhere. There are three in my bedroom, and so many strewn on the walls of the hallway and the other bedrooms that there are literally duplicates. I see his face everywhere I go, and I’m kind of into it. It’s like he’s watching over us and and making sure our stay in his country is hospitable. Besides the 12 Havels, my living breathing roommates and I are a mixture of all different, yet wildly fun personalities, and we have been absolutely living. Most of what happens in our group make for stories best told verbally, but it’s also only day 3, so more written ones to come :) I became friends with Katie Jung during my sophomore year of high school, when we were both stuck doing a ridiculous Christmas play for Laguna Creek’s less than impressive theater department. She and I bonded effortlessly in the midst of our offstage sulking, jokes, and stories that we shared. Then, at the beginning of our junior year, our lives were at an uncanny parallel, and we had the same lunch period— a recipe for instant partnership. We had the same dilemmas and endgames, and the paths we drew up to connect them was the foundation of our affinity. We served more roles than just “friend.” To each other, we were instigators, teachers, detectives, and the hype we each needed to go after what we wanted. We assumed all of those statuses because we were some low-key adrenaline junkies, and thrived off of marking as many days of high school into the books as possible.
Katie knows how to get shit done. She kind of put my go-getter tactics to shame when we were seventeen, and I had to advance my ways to keep up with the master. The fact that our lives were in similar places at the beginning of the year would have been just a coincidence, but the reality that we attuned them for as long as we did was not at all. We were making moves together like we were goddamn Thelma and Louise (the ride or die part, not the other stuff), and we had the nerve and commitment to match. We were daring, and a tad reckless, and each new adventure felt like we were in the middle of an unscripted sitcom (for better or for worse), and it was the best. We careened around each hairpin of high school in such synchrony because we were learning from each other’s mistakes and achievements, on top of our own. It put our lives into a better perspective; we were able to call each other out when we weren’t following our own advice. This is not to say that we weren’t the blind leading the blind, because that is absolutely what was happening. But at least we were blind together, ya know? Our high flying adventures led to some classic stories, some of which I’ll get to in later blogs* (the bottle incident, the drive-in fiasco, the senior ball date polyhedral), and forging those moments gave our high school existences quite the dramatic flare that we loved. But, thankfully, we have both gained enough insight from college that we can bestow much better wisdom unto each other nowadays. (I’m not sure yet if I’m being sarcastic, it’s too soon to tell). Regardless, our advice has definitely matured, as have we, and even though we have reigned in a little bit of our high school recklessness, we still push each other to go get what we want, and to realize what we've already got. *but probably not Any Grey's fans? I have a superpower. It’s called The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and if you’re reading this, there’s a high chance I’ve already preached to you about it. I recognize this book as a superpower because it has helped me understand life a little better, in undeniably countless moments since I first opened it. It’s a key that opens so many doors to the culture and knowledge encapsulating the world, to the things everyone should ideally know, or strive to learn in a lifetime. It’s a reference guide; an anthology, an encyclopedia, a glossary, a google search; all bound into a 700 page hardback. There are over twenty sections, all of which contain the words, events, historical figures, and stories, that you could ever possibly need to know about that broad subject. Some of my favorites to flip through are World History, Mythology and Folklore, Fine Arts, and Idioms. The whole book spans an even more expansive spectrum though, from The Bible, to Physics, to Medicine and Technology. (Those are the subjects where I used to crash and burn, but now I just crash and sustain only slight first-degrees, so… progress!)
Flipping through this book gives you almost an exponential craving for more information. After reading one blurb, you might see the bolded words in it, which means that they are also defined somewhere in the book, and then read each one on their respective pages, until you have mastered the history and significance of, let’s say Passover for example (ask me anything about it). It’s incredible how much you can piece together by doing this. One moment you can be reading the brief of an idiom, and then you find yourself wondering who the ancient ruler was that the idiom originated from, and what years he reigned, and wasn’t that during Jesus’ time? And how many different frickin' Caesar’s ruled the Roman Empire, and weren’t Cleopatra and Mark Antony’s deaths basically the final scene of Romeo and Juliet, so how did Shakespeare get away with writing two tragedies with the same ending? And suddenly, you’re knee deep in detailing a timeline of the greatest artists of the Renaissance era. It’s a powerful and mind boggling path, and I really recommend traversing it. I also recommend hitting up the mythology section after a few hits— it is wild. Either way, once you retain the names and stories, it feels as though allusions to them come hailing in from all sectors of your life. This goes for literature, and history, and all the others too, of course— and it’s exciting to catch and make sense of them. Cultural literacy is so important in understanding the past, recognizing the present, and preparing for the future, that each little nugget of information starts to feel like puzzle pieces to an enormous jigsaw board; there are parts fitting together in all different corners of the picture, and gradually, they're all making their way towards each other to reveal their unified entity. As more of each category of life is learned, they all begin to correlate and apply to each other more smoothly, and the picture becomes clearer. My favorite part of this book is exploring it with other people. I showed it to my roommates back at the beginning of the Spring semester, and the superpower expanded throughout the whole house and was practically ricocheting off the walls. It was beautiful— we quizzed each other, made games out of it, posed questions, kept score, and cultured ourselves together. If I was reading it and Kelsey came to join me on the couch, she would tell me to read it out loud as she ate dinner or watched TV, so that we could learn the stuff we found most interesting together. Over the course of the semester, I showed it to at least 25 people, and on God, 100 percent of them wanted to buy their own once they took a look at it. About 75 percent of them actually did, and now have their own copies. And then there’s my aunt, who ordered it on her phone literally as I was telling her about it for the first time. It has become quite the hot commodity, and I, its loyal prophet. So, to top things off, make sure you have one of these bad boys on your shelf at home, so we can all drum up a team for the next trivia bar night and absolutely dominate. One time, I e-mailed the Chapman Crew coach to see if I could come to a practice, and then I rowed religiously for two years of my life. It's kind of a funny story.
I came to college looking for something exciting that I could put my time and effort into, other than my classes. I'd had a freakin weird summer, and I was kinda ready to just throw myself into something completely new and fulfilling. I thought it was going to be Greek life, but I lost interest in my sorority in like .4 seconds, and dropped it. I'm not usually a quitter, but I am when there are that many bonding activities. If there's one thing that will drag me to hell one day, it's bonding activities. When I came to my first crew practice, I was both barely awake and super alert (which is how I spent all subsequent 8:30am classes), trying to figure out who was who, what they were teaching me on the rowing machines, and why every time I thought I was pulling really hard, my numbers kept decreasing. I learned later in the week that the smaller the number, the better you're pulling. 4am is early to learn things, okay? Obviously, one week is too early to figure out if you love a new sport, especially since we hadn't gone out on the water yet. It was just rowing on the ergs, and conditioning with extremely challenging land practices at the campus football field for the first few weeks. In that time, I got to know, and absolutely love my teammates; hard workouts and early mornings are the best way to bond with a new group of girls. Maybe Kappa Alpha Theta should have tried that instead. Now that I had fallen in love with my team, I had a better chance to fall in love with the sport, and I did. I was so fulfilled by the workouts, which challenged me more than any sport I'd ever done in my life. I literally put my blood, sweat, and tears into rowing. A lot of times I hated it, and wished I had a little more sleep in the mornings, or that Saturday regattas didn't make me want to fling myself off the dock. But mostly, I was super into it. It's highly rewarding in so many different ways: you can feel yourself improving in the boat, and you can literally see your growth on the screen of an erg, which times you per 500 meters. After a 2K test, my team and myself could be found on the floor of the boathouse, sometimes crying, or vomiting, but always relieved that those 8 minutes from around 5:15- 5:23am were goddamn over. Two of my teammates, Katie and Lexi, became some of my best friends, and practically took me under their wings for these two years. They just graduated in May, and college will never be the same without them, so I am going to Prague this Fall to forget that they won't be at Chapman when I return. Actually, I'm studying abroad, but that feels like a large and valid reason for it. The three of us together were definitely able to make the mundane parts of crew into a party, which was sometimes not smart of us, but everything always turned out fine! Our combined men's and women's team was so overly dramatic at all times that it was impossible to have a boring night with them-- someone was always stirring the pot. Morning practices were no exception. We all became a messed up yet hilarious family pretty quickly, and I saw way too much of them all, but that's what made the whole thing so much fun. I can't imagine that I would have stuck with a sport that early in the morning if my teammates were anywhere near boring! Brown paper packages tied up with strings...
Now that we’ve gotten that joke out of the way, I should mention that it’s actually so true— the joy of your Amazon package showing up on the doorstep is truly fantastic, and should be part of my list of favorite things. Gotta love prime shipping. I know Fräulein Maria would have my back on this. One of my favorite things is watching movies, especially those that are cleverly written, well-cast, and amazingly executed. And even better than that, is knowing a movie well enough to quote it at the perfect moment. And even better than that is when I’m with people who understand and appreciate the quote. My family is the best at recognizing and returning them. A prime example of this was a few years ago at a Giants game; one of the players hit a ball that soared right into McCovey Cove, which prompted Kruk and Kuip to announce that it had “splashed into the pond.” I leaned over to face my parents and brother, and with deep concern on my face (I may have even grabbed my mom’s wrist for emphasis), I drew in a sharp breath and said, “Michael’s in the pond.” To anyone else— a random and unrecognizable line from Jaws— but to them, an impeccably timed application. Moments like that happen, I kid you not, every single day at my house, if not multiple times a day. The references span old, new, bad, and brilliant works, whether it’s a movie, TV show, YouTube video, or even a previous dinner conversation we had as a family. Those are often so funny and unforgettable that we just start to quote ourselves. Another one of my favorite things is learning. I KNOW IT’S SO CHEESY BUT IT’S TRUE. Watching movies and TV, and learning new things, are two of my favorite parts of life. Both give me information that I can take in, and then use later in other situations (hence my love for quotes). Learning about history or literature allows me to understand the allusions in film and TV that make the jokes funny. Learning about politics and current events helps me participate in the conversations going on around me, and supply valid and educated opinions. Doing my own research on subjects I find interesting can keep me occupied for hours at a time, because once I delve in, I like to become an expert. I like to ask questions to understand things, and I love being able to consequently answer those questions for others. It never stops. There’s a general life principle: Once you're aware of something, you'll see it everywhere. It's almost a phenomenon, in my opinion. You learn a new word, and all of a sudden hear it in conversation the next day. You read about a historical event in the morning, and then catch a reference towards it on the news that same week. It makes you wonder how many times you've heard those things casually thrown around, but didn't really hear them because you didn't understand them. It's kind of a crazy, cosmic coincidence how often this occurs, and it never fails to amaze me. Learning, understanding, and applying, makes me so happy. Lastly, at least for this post, I love to write. It’s my favorite creative outlet, and I love being able to produce something concrete out of my random thoughts and daydreams. I like to write about what I’ve learned, whether from books, or just from life. I love to tell stories, and make people laugh, or think, or say to themselves, I see what she did there. Combining words and theories and allusions into something that will entertain someone else is exhilarating to me. So, you probably see where this is going. Film and TV, learning new things, and writing— all my favorite things, for as long as I can remember. And, all three of which combine perfectly into my job— writing clever copy to advertise film. I know I’ve talked a little bit about how much I love my internship, but hopefully this explains it best. It is a job that consists entirely of my favorite things about life. I get to watch new movies, write copy for a mass audience, and build each sentence and joke I write out of the expansive collection of knowledge, references, and events that surround my every day existence. Soaking in as much of it as I can is what fuels the work I produce every day, and what makes it so much fun. I am finding so much happiness, affirmation, and success in this line of work, and I know it’s because I’m doing what I love. I’m sitting at Starbucks on a sunny LA day, drinking an iced coffee and writing this, and I find myself wishing I had gone into the office today on my day off. I think I will next time. :) A hornet just flew past my head. I've never seen one in person, but it whizzed by my ear and I instantly knew that by God, that was a hornet. The entrance hall is now a red zone that is no longer safe. I'm ready to get out of this house.
I'm not quite sure where all the bugs are coming from. And just to clarify, I don't mean to imply in any way that this house always keeps the doors closed, or that no one ever leaves food out, or that there naturally aren't insects outside that want in, so why would we have bugs? I'm aware of how bugs work. What I mean is, I didn't know this many bugs existed, and why they have collectively agreed upon Sigma Chi for their congregation headquarters. The house was relatively creature-free for the first half of the summer, with a few minor exceptions, but nothing that is uncommon for any normal house. But about three weeks ago, one little fucker slid through and decided to alert the entire rest of the phylum, it seems. I've always been kinda scared of bugs in an indoor setting. Not really ants or flies, which just annoy and gross me out, but pretty much everything else will make me jump or scream, depending on the size. I am pleased and nauseated to report that after 7 weeks here, I am a stronger woman. This house is hardening me. I've killed more bugs here than I have in my entire life, which is saying a lot, because I'm surrounded by men who can do it for me, and I've still had to react to enough critters in a timely fashion to sum a greater number than all times previous to Sig Chi. Myself and all other girls in this house now greet each other in the hallways not with salutations such as "hey" or "good morning," but with strong words of encouragement or mutuality, such as "we'll get through this" or "I can't wait to move out!" It's comforting. They say misery loves company, but in our case, I would say that the company loves to commiserate. We all live our own fine and dandy lives each day, feeling swell, but when we band together, the ranting begins. I'm not usually one for spreading negativity, but when a hornet flies past your head, your standard of living leaves something to be desired. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
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