Buenos tardes and howdy do everyone!
So today was a pretty typical Thursday. My writing class, then chem recitation immediately followed by chem lab. Lab was nice today because, since we have to turn in a computer generated plot, the lab report was not due today at the end of lab. I also think I might understand how to do the report without asking my TA every single question! Yay for us!
So I looked at yesterday's post, and I realize that the title made no sense whatsoever. Zilch. None. Zipo. So, if you will, kind reader, I would like to explain what the title might have meant had the topic under discussion been what I had intended it to be.
Alcohol. Yes yes, I know, I always write about alcohol but this is different. This is lab-alcohol. The alchohol that is made in a test tube by thousands of tiny little one celled organisms that take in glucose, do some fancy and surprising complicated procedures (they don't even have brains! No, nuclei don't count), and voila! you get alcohol. Lab-alcohol.
Ok, you got me. It's not really alchohol, or rather, not the stuff you were thinking of. Not the stuff that makes your throat burn and your nose scrunch up. Not that. Ethanol. Another form of alcohol that is made during alcoholic fermentation, the process that makes bread dough rise. And what are those darling little single celled organisms?
That's right! You guessed it: yeast! I am paying thousands of dollars and working my ass of reading hours per night just to go to lab and watch yeast make carbon dioxide in a tube. God I feel smart.
Anyway, the point. The point is that is all the alcohol I have come into contact, visually, spacially, or otherwise, in the last four days. People got work to do, man. Can't be showing up smelling of booze to the class of the person who's going to write your recommendation to med school. Which is almost literally half the school here. Everyone wants to be a doctor or an MD PhD, everyone want to do research, everyone is awesome. And we are. Everyone of us has done something to get us noticed, to get us into this school with an acceptance rate (according to 2008 edition of Fiske's guide to colleges) below that of Harvard.
So long story short, this is not an ordinary campus. My experience might be different from the "typical" experience. But it is representative of a certain population of American college students and their activities. Ok, I'm not sure where I was going with that, but there you go.
Tomorrow, I believe I will be drowning in books, not booze, but I'll be sure to keep an eye out to make tomorrow's blog interesting. Sianara (yeah i can't spell it, laugh it up people, go out on the web, find the correct spelling, and comment it to me just so you can be that one person who corrects the grammer/spelling of the blog. go on. i dare you) and see you later!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Lab-Alcohol vs Drink--Alcohol
Hello all! I hope you're grades are doing better than mine T.T Espanol es muy desagredable right now (those are cognates people, not actual words you have to translate). My professor obviously did not like my attempt to use imagery language in spanish. Ah, well, my fault for actually trying to challenge myself instead of sticking to the rote, formulaic writing style we learned in lower level courses. Sigh. Do you every feel like that? You actually put forth a lot of effort to make something good or do something nice for someone and it blows up in your face. BOOM! Soot, ashes, big mushroom clouds and little people screaming "Godzilla, Godzilla!"
Oh, right, sorry, wrong catastrophe.
So yesterday I wrote about choices, and the fact that here I feel like I do have a choice. I was talking with some of my floormates, and they brought up a good point. In some groups, "cliques", if you will, the choice might now feel like such a possibility. I am not really one for being exclusive simply for its own sake, but cliques are a part of life no matter where you go. Here, I feel like there are very few closed groups, but then again I have probably had a decent conversation with only 10% of the WU's population. There probably are groups and people who would judge me for openly deciding not to drink. There probably are people who will talk behind my back and laugh about my decision. So my plan to be different, to be upright, blah blah blah = BOOM! social ostracism and labeled uncool for the rest of eternity...or at least the next four years. Know what that feels like? Yeah, it's not good.
But, hey, this is university. Not an espcially large one, maybe 10,000 people, but big enough that there are OTHER types of people on campus as well. These people could care less what you do, as long as you do not condem their choices; I would hazard to say the majority of people would fit into this category. Here, the majority is so strong that I feel like those who would sneer in a different situation would not want to rock the boat and ignore it. And hey, let's face it, no matter what situation - drinking, not drinking, party, sport, formal, high school dance - at our age, everyone is too concerned with how other people are looking at them to concentrate too much on looking at you. Face it, it's the truth. I do it, and you do it, no matter how much you say "oh no! I'm self confident" and "It doesn't matter to me what other people think of me" blah blah blah.
No. You do care. I care. EVERYONE CARES. It's human nature. It's how we survive. And it should matter. How we are seen will affect what job we get, what grad school we get into, and how we see ourselves. Not to get too philisophical, but, yeah, take it or leave it.
Regardless, though I do care how people view me, I don't let it affect what choices I make (too much). Not drinking does take some courage. It's different from the stereotype and puts you out there to be accepted or rejected. WU makes it easier. Most people here tend to be more academically focused and not as prone to judgements (ok I now everyone makes judgements, you get the point). Alcohol is a prominent part of campus life. You're not getting away from it. But, at the risk of repeating myself, right here, right now, I feel like it is a choice.
Today, no parties, if there is any drinking, it's not very visible or wide-spread, and we all have tests, labs, essay due tomorrow. Work work work for now. Good day and hasta manana a todos.
Oh, right, sorry, wrong catastrophe.
So yesterday I wrote about choices, and the fact that here I feel like I do have a choice. I was talking with some of my floormates, and they brought up a good point. In some groups, "cliques", if you will, the choice might now feel like such a possibility. I am not really one for being exclusive simply for its own sake, but cliques are a part of life no matter where you go. Here, I feel like there are very few closed groups, but then again I have probably had a decent conversation with only 10% of the WU's population. There probably are groups and people who would judge me for openly deciding not to drink. There probably are people who will talk behind my back and laugh about my decision. So my plan to be different, to be upright, blah blah blah = BOOM! social ostracism and labeled uncool for the rest of eternity...or at least the next four years. Know what that feels like? Yeah, it's not good.
But, hey, this is university. Not an espcially large one, maybe 10,000 people, but big enough that there are OTHER types of people on campus as well. These people could care less what you do, as long as you do not condem their choices; I would hazard to say the majority of people would fit into this category. Here, the majority is so strong that I feel like those who would sneer in a different situation would not want to rock the boat and ignore it. And hey, let's face it, no matter what situation - drinking, not drinking, party, sport, formal, high school dance - at our age, everyone is too concerned with how other people are looking at them to concentrate too much on looking at you. Face it, it's the truth. I do it, and you do it, no matter how much you say "oh no! I'm self confident" and "It doesn't matter to me what other people think of me" blah blah blah.
No. You do care. I care. EVERYONE CARES. It's human nature. It's how we survive. And it should matter. How we are seen will affect what job we get, what grad school we get into, and how we see ourselves. Not to get too philisophical, but, yeah, take it or leave it.
Regardless, though I do care how people view me, I don't let it affect what choices I make (too much). Not drinking does take some courage. It's different from the stereotype and puts you out there to be accepted or rejected. WU makes it easier. Most people here tend to be more academically focused and not as prone to judgements (ok I now everyone makes judgements, you get the point). Alcohol is a prominent part of campus life. You're not getting away from it. But, at the risk of repeating myself, right here, right now, I feel like it is a choice.
Today, no parties, if there is any drinking, it's not very visible or wide-spread, and we all have tests, labs, essay due tomorrow. Work work work for now. Good day and hasta manana a todos.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Good Tuesday morning everyone!
I love Tuesdays. I have one class at 9am then NOTHING for the rest of the day. I can work, I can sleep, I can write really long blogs secure in the knowledge that I have hours and hours ahead of me, hours to fill with doing things I should be doing instead of reading random stories on the internet. Or blogging, I suppose. Since it's not going to get me into med school, raise my GPA, or give me memorable life experiences to write my personal statement about, I suppose it must be relegated to the pile of things labeled "Procrastination".
Anyway, my personal philosophical struggles are not exactly what I want to write about. Or maybe they are, since I just spent a whole paragraph on them. ANYWAY, alcohol. Yesterday I was owning that essay and going over general chemistry, looked up, saw it was midnight, and promptly went to sleep. So let's talk about yesterday.
Monday. The start of the week. When you look at your calendar and sadly observe the many square blocks of weekdays that separate you from the weekend blocks. It's sad, believe me. So, Monday as normal, class 9-12, finishing up chemistry tutorial, filing for a chem exam regrade (I need those four points that TA cheated me out of!), more class 1-3. Chem office hours 3-4, dinner with some friends 6-7, ALAS (Asso. of Latin American Students) meeting 8-9, and floor meeting 9:30-10 (I believe I have already implied my OCD, so don't judge).
For those of you who do not have "floor meetings", it is one of those institutions the university sets up to help transition the freshman into the community, make sure the freshman floor becomes a tight knit group so they feel comfortable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My floor is somewhere in between. We know everyone on the floor, name, face, generally what they are studying, but, as a whole, we're not the friends who-share-every-deep-dark-secret. It's not anything bad, in fact, I think we, as a floor, function well together, some annoying, slovenly habits, some slightly too sensative complainers, but overall, we're good.
The point of this floor meeting was "diversity". They gave us sheets of paper that had statements like "I identify as multiracial, mixed, or come from a combined heritage" and "I identify as middle class". There was also "I identify as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgendered" and "I have felt ashamed of myself on the basis of my gender/race/socio-economic conditions/sexual orientation". Anonymously, we put a checkmark by the ones that were true for us and handed in the sheets. Our RAs handed the sheets out, and while we stood in a circle, would read out a statement. Whoever had a checkmark on their sheet would step into the circle. After five statements we all would pass our sheets two to the right.
I was really impressed with this exercise. Without singling anyone out, embarrassing anyone, or outting anyone, the floor was able to see percentages of us who had certain opinions, identified a certain way, or had certian life experiences. During our debrief, talking about our reactions, many students said they would "be more concious of the things [they] did or said", now aware of some of the things they had assumed were not present among us.
One subject of the exercise was alcohol. "I enjoy drinking alcohol". "I am uncomfortable around alcohol". As expected, most of the floor stepped into the circle on the first, but not all, maybe six or seven people out of the forty something on the floor. Of course, that does not mean that they don't drink alcohol, simply that they do not enjoy it, but it was something to think about.
Our floor is pretty representative of WU. The majority drink and enjoy it, alcohol a part of the social scene, a given. There are those who do not like the taste of alcohol, but drink it anyway. However, some students choose not to drink. At all. My representative was one of those people.
Not drinking is a decision I made during high school. I have heard others' reasoning, alcohol has too many calories, it's expensive, it's illegal, etc. I do not drink because of my family. Alcoholism is a prominent condition in one branch. I have seen it destroy relationships, jobs, and people. It is something I simply choose not partake of.
Ok, way too serious! I don't drink. Yeah, you got that. But that doesn't mean that I care if anyone else drinks. My decisions are for me, not for everyone in the entire world. I can't say the same of the other individuals who have chosen to be non-drinkers, but this is my truth. I go to parties, I dance, I hang out with people who drink.
For those of you thinking "oh, she must just hang out with other non-drinkiers," have you not been reading? Did I not write that the majority of people drink? How could I choose to only socialize with non-drinkers!? I can't even tell one from the other!
So, yeah. Most of my friends drink. I still party with them. I play drinking games with them for g-sake! That is one thing I love about WU. Your choice about alcohol really is NOT AN ISSUE. You can choose to drink and not become social outcast #1. You can choose to drink, have the same fun, and no one cares. If I want to play kings or the animal game, no one care if my cup is full of orange juice minus the vodka or just coke (sidenote, yes I say coke for all caffeinated beverages. Want a coke? Sure, I'll have a Dr. Pepper). And, yes, I make it clear that it is just juice. I don't let them assume since no one can tell by the color.
On my campus, alcohol really is a choice, and I am free to choose either way.
Ok, now, back to biology. Only a hundred pages to go! Happy tuesday and good luck studying!
LPin
I love Tuesdays. I have one class at 9am then NOTHING for the rest of the day. I can work, I can sleep, I can write really long blogs secure in the knowledge that I have hours and hours ahead of me, hours to fill with doing things I should be doing instead of reading random stories on the internet. Or blogging, I suppose. Since it's not going to get me into med school, raise my GPA, or give me memorable life experiences to write my personal statement about, I suppose it must be relegated to the pile of things labeled "Procrastination".
Anyway, my personal philosophical struggles are not exactly what I want to write about. Or maybe they are, since I just spent a whole paragraph on them. ANYWAY, alcohol. Yesterday I was owning that essay and going over general chemistry, looked up, saw it was midnight, and promptly went to sleep. So let's talk about yesterday.
Monday. The start of the week. When you look at your calendar and sadly observe the many square blocks of weekdays that separate you from the weekend blocks. It's sad, believe me. So, Monday as normal, class 9-12, finishing up chemistry tutorial, filing for a chem exam regrade (I need those four points that TA cheated me out of!), more class 1-3. Chem office hours 3-4, dinner with some friends 6-7, ALAS (Asso. of Latin American Students) meeting 8-9, and floor meeting 9:30-10 (I believe I have already implied my OCD, so don't judge).
For those of you who do not have "floor meetings", it is one of those institutions the university sets up to help transition the freshman into the community, make sure the freshman floor becomes a tight knit group so they feel comfortable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My floor is somewhere in between. We know everyone on the floor, name, face, generally what they are studying, but, as a whole, we're not the friends who-share-every-deep-dark-secret. It's not anything bad, in fact, I think we, as a floor, function well together, some annoying, slovenly habits, some slightly too sensative complainers, but overall, we're good.
The point of this floor meeting was "diversity". They gave us sheets of paper that had statements like "I identify as multiracial, mixed, or come from a combined heritage" and "I identify as middle class". There was also "I identify as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgendered" and "I have felt ashamed of myself on the basis of my gender/race/socio-economic conditions/sexual orientation". Anonymously, we put a checkmark by the ones that were true for us and handed in the sheets. Our RAs handed the sheets out, and while we stood in a circle, would read out a statement. Whoever had a checkmark on their sheet would step into the circle. After five statements we all would pass our sheets two to the right.
I was really impressed with this exercise. Without singling anyone out, embarrassing anyone, or outting anyone, the floor was able to see percentages of us who had certain opinions, identified a certain way, or had certian life experiences. During our debrief, talking about our reactions, many students said they would "be more concious of the things [they] did or said", now aware of some of the things they had assumed were not present among us.
One subject of the exercise was alcohol. "I enjoy drinking alcohol". "I am uncomfortable around alcohol". As expected, most of the floor stepped into the circle on the first, but not all, maybe six or seven people out of the forty something on the floor. Of course, that does not mean that they don't drink alcohol, simply that they do not enjoy it, but it was something to think about.
Our floor is pretty representative of WU. The majority drink and enjoy it, alcohol a part of the social scene, a given. There are those who do not like the taste of alcohol, but drink it anyway. However, some students choose not to drink. At all. My representative was one of those people.
Not drinking is a decision I made during high school. I have heard others' reasoning, alcohol has too many calories, it's expensive, it's illegal, etc. I do not drink because of my family. Alcoholism is a prominent condition in one branch. I have seen it destroy relationships, jobs, and people. It is something I simply choose not partake of.
Ok, way too serious! I don't drink. Yeah, you got that. But that doesn't mean that I care if anyone else drinks. My decisions are for me, not for everyone in the entire world. I can't say the same of the other individuals who have chosen to be non-drinkers, but this is my truth. I go to parties, I dance, I hang out with people who drink.
For those of you thinking "oh, she must just hang out with other non-drinkiers," have you not been reading? Did I not write that the majority of people drink? How could I choose to only socialize with non-drinkers!? I can't even tell one from the other!
So, yeah. Most of my friends drink. I still party with them. I play drinking games with them for g-sake! That is one thing I love about WU. Your choice about alcohol really is NOT AN ISSUE. You can choose to drink and not become social outcast #1. You can choose to drink, have the same fun, and no one cares. If I want to play kings or the animal game, no one care if my cup is full of orange juice minus the vodka or just coke (sidenote, yes I say coke for all caffeinated beverages. Want a coke? Sure, I'll have a Dr. Pepper). And, yes, I make it clear that it is just juice. I don't let them assume since no one can tell by the color.
On my campus, alcohol really is a choice, and I am free to choose either way.
Ok, now, back to biology. Only a hundred pages to go! Happy tuesday and good luck studying!
LPin
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The First Day
So. Hello all and welcome to my blog, the point of which will become clear soon. But not right now.
I would first like to introduce myself, go over the fun little ice breaker things that everyone has to go through on the first day of a) pre-school b) summer camp c) group trip of any kind and of course d) university. Yes, for those of you who did not get to go through the stunningly mind altering awesomeness that is saying you name and an adjective that begins with the same letter in order around a circle, my first day on campus at WU, we did ice breakers. Ok, ok, so they weren't that bad, though everyone always groans when a leader says, "So, to get to know everyone we are going to...". Right. Rant over, on with the show.
Name: Lovely LPin
Year: Freshman
Home State: OK
Current Location: Ambiguously abbreviated university in Missouri
Major: potentially Spanish with and English or Writing minor
What I Want to Do with My Life: Physician, unknown specialty
If you can't conclude some things about me from my OCD intro, stop now, and turn back. This is not the blog for you. Or, continue reading. Honestly, I could care less what you do. I suppose that's a bit callous, but I have an essay to write, two hundred pages in biology to read, a club event to plan, and right now I am locked out of my room because I locked my card key in my room. Hopefully my roommate will come back soon... anyway, yes the point. Alcohol.
Like any other university, college (I'll be using the words interchangeably), vocational school, and (hard to believe, I know) high school in the country, alcohol and drinking have a large place in the lives of the students. In my life. Sure, we're all under the legal age limit. Yes, it's bad for us. Of course we do it anyway. It's college. Everyone does it. Right?
Wrong. Though my use of "we" might lead you to infer otherwise, I do not drink. At least, not in this country where it is, oh, how do I put this...ILLEGAL!
Ok, lol, you caught me. No, I do not not drink solely because of the law. Yes, I still am a non-drinker, for my own reasons that, perhaps, will be revealed later.
Anyway, yeah, everyone always says, all college students drink, you've got to do it, just let loose and have some fun. Everyone's doing it. It's college.
And it's true. Many students do choose to drink. Pre-gaming getting buzzed, drunk or somewhere in between before parties or activities, is pretty much a given. Glassy eyed and giggly, partiers walk through the door already prepped for a good time. It happens and nothing short of an adult in every dorm room is going to stop it.
But that's for later blogs. Right now, it's early Sunday afternoon and people are up and around, slowly, watching TV, eating, with some people working on what they should have finished yesterday. No one I know will drink tonight. Tonight is frantically working on the essay, biology reading, problems sets, etc. People here a WU have a saying, "Study hard, play hard". Not the most original thing in the world, but accurate. Students here are in it for the long haul. I know other universities have drop outs and other such things, but I know no one even vaguely considering that option, though I have heard of one guy who either dropped out or transferred.
WU students drink. But they also know when to cut the crap and settle down in front of the books for five hours. Today, alcohol affects life through the leftover taste after passing out with one's clothes still on and the slightly dulled reactions that their owners do not notice. Today, alcohol does not play a large part in life. So, happy studying and good luck with life.
I would first like to introduce myself, go over the fun little ice breaker things that everyone has to go through on the first day of a) pre-school b) summer camp c) group trip of any kind and of course d) university. Yes, for those of you who did not get to go through the stunningly mind altering awesomeness that is saying you name and an adjective that begins with the same letter in order around a circle, my first day on campus at WU, we did ice breakers. Ok, ok, so they weren't that bad, though everyone always groans when a leader says, "So, to get to know everyone we are going to...". Right. Rant over, on with the show.
Name: Lovely LPin
Year: Freshman
Home State: OK
Current Location: Ambiguously abbreviated university in Missouri
Major: potentially Spanish with and English or Writing minor
What I Want to Do with My Life: Physician, unknown specialty
If you can't conclude some things about me from my OCD intro, stop now, and turn back. This is not the blog for you. Or, continue reading. Honestly, I could care less what you do. I suppose that's a bit callous, but I have an essay to write, two hundred pages in biology to read, a club event to plan, and right now I am locked out of my room because I locked my card key in my room. Hopefully my roommate will come back soon... anyway, yes the point. Alcohol.
Like any other university, college (I'll be using the words interchangeably), vocational school, and (hard to believe, I know) high school in the country, alcohol and drinking have a large place in the lives of the students. In my life. Sure, we're all under the legal age limit. Yes, it's bad for us. Of course we do it anyway. It's college. Everyone does it. Right?
Wrong. Though my use of "we" might lead you to infer otherwise, I do not drink. At least, not in this country where it is, oh, how do I put this...ILLEGAL!
Ok, lol, you caught me. No, I do not not drink solely because of the law. Yes, I still am a non-drinker, for my own reasons that, perhaps, will be revealed later.
Anyway, yeah, everyone always says, all college students drink, you've got to do it, just let loose and have some fun. Everyone's doing it. It's college.
And it's true. Many students do choose to drink. Pre-gaming getting buzzed, drunk or somewhere in between before parties or activities, is pretty much a given. Glassy eyed and giggly, partiers walk through the door already prepped for a good time. It happens and nothing short of an adult in every dorm room is going to stop it.
But that's for later blogs. Right now, it's early Sunday afternoon and people are up and around, slowly, watching TV, eating, with some people working on what they should have finished yesterday. No one I know will drink tonight. Tonight is frantically working on the essay, biology reading, problems sets, etc. People here a WU have a saying, "Study hard, play hard". Not the most original thing in the world, but accurate. Students here are in it for the long haul. I know other universities have drop outs and other such things, but I know no one even vaguely considering that option, though I have heard of one guy who either dropped out or transferred.
WU students drink. But they also know when to cut the crap and settle down in front of the books for five hours. Today, alcohol affects life through the leftover taste after passing out with one's clothes still on and the slightly dulled reactions that their owners do not notice. Today, alcohol does not play a large part in life. So, happy studying and good luck with life.
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