Well, considering I haven't written in this blog since last year, it's good to be back.
I've had some things floating around my head that I've been meaning to write down somewhere but haven't because of other, more pressing obligations, so I figure I might as well record them here. I've also been meaning to post something on this blog because I haven't done so since like last year, but I didn't really know what to say, so I'll just merge the two to-do list things together here and ta-da.
A thank you letter to my linguistics professor
Dear Professor Polinksy,
Now that I've had a long break from Harvard, I've had time to reflect and look back on on the whirlwind that was first semester. Of course, that means I thought of my classes as well, one of which was Linguistics 83. Ever since I first became conscious about learning other languages from meeting people from around the world (and from being able to speak English, Tagalog, Cebuano, French, and most recently German), I've wondered about human language. I knew that eventually, I would want to delve into the field of linguistics to discover explanations for things I noticed across different languages, and things I wondered about individual languages' characteristics. There certainly weren't any opportunities to study language in-depth before I got to college!
Your class has been eye-opening, and I sincerely thank you for helping to feed my curiosity about human language. You're a wonderful, funny professor whose lectures I quite enjoyed. Now I look forward to seeing what else I can learn within linguistics while at Harvard!
Warm regards,
Amanda
A thank you letter to my Intro to African Languages and Cultures professor and teaching fellow
Dear Professor Mugane and Lowell,
Now that I've had a long break from Harvard, I've had time to reflect and look back on on the whirlwind that was first semester. Most of what I've taken from this class you've already read in my final essay, but I just wanted to extend my sincere thanks. I was particularly excited for this class because I have never traveled to Africa (that and South America being the only two continents I haven't yet set foot on), and I realized I didn't know much of it. The "languages and cultures" aspect of the class also particularly intrigued me, because when I travel, I always love listening to foreign languages and learning about them in the context of their native country. This class has also introduced me to the field of linguistic anthropology, a field I am very interested in exploring further (and will actually be taking a class on in regards to Latin America next semester, go figure!). It was a very nice complement to the intro to linguistics class I took first semester indeed.
Furthermore, it was also a wonderful complement to my first choice expos class, cross-cultural contact zones. It wasn't until the end of the semester that I realized both classes, which I voluntarily chose to take, counted for the EMR* secondary. I wasn't considering it previously, but I feel that if two classes I took out of being interested in them counted for it, it should mean something, and now I do think that I would like to secondary in it.
Anyway, getting back to the point, thanks for being part of my perpetual journey of learning! I'm very glad to have had you as class preceptors for my very first, crazy, fulfilling semester at Harvard. I look forward to what's coming next and will certainly keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Amanda
*Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights, one of the secondary fields (minors) offered at Harvard.
A thank you letter to my expository writing professor
Dear Sri,
Now that I've had a long break from Harvard, I've had time to reflect and look back on on the whirlwind that was first semester. I'll have you know that cross-cultural contact zones was my first choice of expos class. When I read the description of the class, I knew that I wouldn't just learn how to become more adept at academic writing, I would also gain a new perspective on my identity as an immigrant (and female traveler).
Your class, while it did give me anxieties at certain points, did not disappoint. It frustrated me and challenged me to what felt like no end, but it also heightened my determination and motivation to become a better writer. I thoroughly enjoyed the readings; they were thought-provoking, and invoked the same sensations I feel whenever I travel, or recount my experiences as an immigrant from the Philippines and exchange student in France. I did tell you this, but once I read about the Mapparium in "Sexy," I knew I would have to visit it. I finally had the chance over reading week, and the moment I stepped inside, it took my breath away, and it instantly became one of my favorite places to visit ever. Thinking of the story, it was an especially profound experience to me, as I stood on one end and whispered to the tour guide, whose whispered answers I heard back from the other end across the bridge, just like in the story.
Another way that this class has impacted me is apparent in the way I feel about a certain event that occurred last summer. I was supposed to visit India to see one of my best friends from my year abroad, a girl living in Mumbai. I worked so hard to make the trip happen, but had all plans I made ruined when I found out at the ticket counter in the airport that US passport holders needed to acquire a visa at least a month in advance before visiting India. For a while, I couldn't get over the despair and frustration at having experienced something so disappointing. But it consoles me now that after having taken your class, I will be an even more educated and enlightened visitor when I finally set foot in India, and the experience will be even more fulfilling and meaningful than it would have been if I had traveled there the summer before my first semester at Harvard. When I write about it, I'll definitely be thinking of Heat and Dust, Lawrence's theories on female travelers, and other ideas discussed in your class, and I know I'll be able to write a thought-provoking piece in my journals and blog worthy of the sensational experience that is India.
Finally, though I knew that this course counted for the EMR secondary, I never really considered EMR as a potential secondary until I realized that another class from first semester I really enjoyed (and complemented expos), Intro to African Languages and Cultures, also counted towards it. If I had chosen these two classes because I was interested in them without necessarily knowing that they both count for a certain secondary, I feel like that's pretty significant. I'm now seriously considering pursuing a secondary in EMR.
Anyway, thank you for contributing so much to my first semester at Harvard, and in the bigger picture, my perpetual journey as a curious learner. I'll be sure to keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Amanda
Why I want to be a researcher-writer for Let's Go! - to be put in the application, when I GET IT
I first heard about this travel writing publishing company under Harvard Student Agencies from my Harvard interviewer, and from the moment she mentioned it, I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to do while at Harvard. I thought it was too good to be true--I knew that Harvard would have plenty of opportunities for every interest, but I never could have imagined that it would actually send people out to random countries for eight weeks to write about their experiences. Like, that's the stuff I do for fun. I've been travel writing since I first experienced the glories of international travel (ten years old, Hong Kong, saw some samples in a scrapbook my mom made). I like to think I could be the Mindy Kaling of the travel channel.
I love travel and would go anywhere beyond this nation's borders when offered the chance. I love writing and have been keeping a daily journal since I made it a New Year's Resolution for 2009. I like to think I'm a witty person with a distinct sense of humor that people enjoy (most of the time). This job is basically who I am.
Just because applications like this call for a certain amount of narcissism, I am also the gutsiest person I know. I not only immigrated from the Philippines across the world's biggest ocean to another country I had never seen before, I also left my family and the new life I made for myself in the USA for an entire year to live in France, when I had only ever known French within the context of French class. I find that my most fulfilling experiences come from huge risks I've taken, lots of them impulsive. And I've found that I am most at home when exploring a foreign land I know nothing of, because not only does it remind me how much I don't know, it reminds me how much there is I can learn.
There is nothing more this summer that I want to do than be a research-writer for Let's Go.
Amanda Flores' Valentine's Day lottery, the second installment - to be posted on Facebook
Next month is Valentine's Day. Why am I bringing this up so early, you ask?
Like I did last year, I'm continuing this Valentine's Day Letter Lottery in order to make it a yearly tradition, and I am going to send a letter via snail mail to a special someone somewhere on planet Earth for Valentine's Day.
AND THAT PERSON COULD BE YOU.
How to join? Just like or comment (or both, you have free will) on this status AND MESSAGE ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS (or if you live at Harvard, your room address so I can drop the letter in your door mailbox)!
(seriously, that was a step quite a few people last year failed to do)
I will then put the names of everybody whose addresses I have in a hat this weekend, and pull out one person's name, who will then be the winner of Amanda Flores's Valentine's Day Letter Lottery 2015.
I don't care if you live in Australia, in Straus A, or somewhere in between. If your name gets picked, you are getting a letter from me for Valentine's Day, sealed with a kiss. Nobody will know whose name got pulled until the recipient gets their letter and they choose to publicize my awesomeness on Facebook. No exceptions; this is meant to be a surprise.
What are you waiting for? Express your interest right here right now. ;)
xoxo me
The description for my next Valentine's Day video - to be posted on Facebook
In keeping up with a now time-tenured tradition, I am posting a Valentine's Day music video for the third year in a row.
In my first video, I serenaded my ukulele. In my second video, I (with my partner-in-film Abigail Magsarili) serenaded food. In this video, I'm going to be asking a very important question, because I'm obviously a funny, clever, amazing, narcissistic girl who deserves to ask it.
(And because I still enjoy the element of surprise like I did in my first video, you'll have to watch it to find out what I so desperately inquire.)
Happy Valentine's Day. I can only hope yours is more fulfilling than mine.
Things to accomplish in the coming semester, coming year, life
Semester
My friend Adela and I first became friends at a speech and debate tournament during our freshman year of high school, way back in fall 2010. Over the years, we've kept up the friendship despite going to different schools, and would meet periodically senior year. One of the things we did before senior year started was make a bucket list for senior year. So when we met after we had one semester of college under our belts, we created the following list of things to get done over second semester:
• write a poem about your experience
• go to a formal dance
• perform at an open mic
• strike up a conversation with somebody really cute
• start a chain of letters
• pull an all-nighter (sleep at 5:30 at the earliest) (and yeah, I know, the fact that this is part of a bucket list would make most college students scoff) (I like sleeping, okay)
Coming year
Compared to the two New Year's Eves I had, this most recent one was terribly anticlimactic. While I entertained the idea of sleeping through it (so I could say it would be nice to sleep and not have to wake up until next year), I ended up doing something even better - Skyping Sari! (Who's my best friend, yeah) Even though she was an hour ahead of me in Canada, she rang in the new year with me. We then chatted for around two hours, and made a list of things we would try and get done over the course of the year. Here is that list.
• learn a new language (Spanish)
• write somebody a letter in Spanish
• learn how to cook something
• meet more guys (lol, not sure how seriously I was taking this one)
• send somebody on Filles Formidables a surprise letter
• go a day without looking in the mirror
• send somebody you admire an anonymous note
• donate to a charity (or participate in a good cause for a similar organization)
• At some point during the Eurotour 2-year anniversary on April 15-26: drink Hefe-Weizer beer, roam Boston on a rainy day, eat a dessert then write a critique of it, climb up the stairs of a really tall building (if you can find one), eavesdrop on a boys' room while they're having a conversation for two minutes
• make a time capsule on your 20th birthday
As for the main life thing, I suddenly had the inspiration today to start planning for the travel memoir/autobiography I'm eventually going to write.
Things to include in my travel memoir, which I will start planning this year (these things could also be future entries here) - Things I've discovered in my journals that I wish I had forgotten: A (mostly travel) memoir
• I propose a special kind of passport
• the speech that got me into Harvard, and how I would ruin it with newly acquired cynicism
• the question that got me into Brown
• how I will be BuzzFeed famous
• how at this point my life is pretty much governed by Pinterest
• In which I travel to the infamous witch town with a couple of Harvard girls who are probably capable of witchcraft
• The name of this memoir was inspired by an incident I read about from the beginning of my exchange year in which I attempted to exit a building through a window thinking it was the door
That's it for now. Can't wait to make these things a reality throughout the rest of the year!
I've had some things floating around my head that I've been meaning to write down somewhere but haven't because of other, more pressing obligations, so I figure I might as well record them here. I've also been meaning to post something on this blog because I haven't done so since like last year, but I didn't really know what to say, so I'll just merge the two to-do list things together here and ta-da.
A thank you letter to my linguistics professor
Dear Professor Polinksy,
Now that I've had a long break from Harvard, I've had time to reflect and look back on on the whirlwind that was first semester. Of course, that means I thought of my classes as well, one of which was Linguistics 83. Ever since I first became conscious about learning other languages from meeting people from around the world (and from being able to speak English, Tagalog, Cebuano, French, and most recently German), I've wondered about human language. I knew that eventually, I would want to delve into the field of linguistics to discover explanations for things I noticed across different languages, and things I wondered about individual languages' characteristics. There certainly weren't any opportunities to study language in-depth before I got to college!
Your class has been eye-opening, and I sincerely thank you for helping to feed my curiosity about human language. You're a wonderful, funny professor whose lectures I quite enjoyed. Now I look forward to seeing what else I can learn within linguistics while at Harvard!
Warm regards,
Amanda
A thank you letter to my Intro to African Languages and Cultures professor and teaching fellow
Dear Professor Mugane and Lowell,
Now that I've had a long break from Harvard, I've had time to reflect and look back on on the whirlwind that was first semester. Most of what I've taken from this class you've already read in my final essay, but I just wanted to extend my sincere thanks. I was particularly excited for this class because I have never traveled to Africa (that and South America being the only two continents I haven't yet set foot on), and I realized I didn't know much of it. The "languages and cultures" aspect of the class also particularly intrigued me, because when I travel, I always love listening to foreign languages and learning about them in the context of their native country. This class has also introduced me to the field of linguistic anthropology, a field I am very interested in exploring further (and will actually be taking a class on in regards to Latin America next semester, go figure!). It was a very nice complement to the intro to linguistics class I took first semester indeed.
Furthermore, it was also a wonderful complement to my first choice expos class, cross-cultural contact zones. It wasn't until the end of the semester that I realized both classes, which I voluntarily chose to take, counted for the EMR* secondary. I wasn't considering it previously, but I feel that if two classes I took out of being interested in them counted for it, it should mean something, and now I do think that I would like to secondary in it.
Anyway, getting back to the point, thanks for being part of my perpetual journey of learning! I'm very glad to have had you as class preceptors for my very first, crazy, fulfilling semester at Harvard. I look forward to what's coming next and will certainly keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Amanda
*Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights, one of the secondary fields (minors) offered at Harvard.
A thank you letter to my expository writing professor
Dear Sri,
Now that I've had a long break from Harvard, I've had time to reflect and look back on on the whirlwind that was first semester. I'll have you know that cross-cultural contact zones was my first choice of expos class. When I read the description of the class, I knew that I wouldn't just learn how to become more adept at academic writing, I would also gain a new perspective on my identity as an immigrant (and female traveler).
Your class, while it did give me anxieties at certain points, did not disappoint. It frustrated me and challenged me to what felt like no end, but it also heightened my determination and motivation to become a better writer. I thoroughly enjoyed the readings; they were thought-provoking, and invoked the same sensations I feel whenever I travel, or recount my experiences as an immigrant from the Philippines and exchange student in France. I did tell you this, but once I read about the Mapparium in "Sexy," I knew I would have to visit it. I finally had the chance over reading week, and the moment I stepped inside, it took my breath away, and it instantly became one of my favorite places to visit ever. Thinking of the story, it was an especially profound experience to me, as I stood on one end and whispered to the tour guide, whose whispered answers I heard back from the other end across the bridge, just like in the story.
Another way that this class has impacted me is apparent in the way I feel about a certain event that occurred last summer. I was supposed to visit India to see one of my best friends from my year abroad, a girl living in Mumbai. I worked so hard to make the trip happen, but had all plans I made ruined when I found out at the ticket counter in the airport that US passport holders needed to acquire a visa at least a month in advance before visiting India. For a while, I couldn't get over the despair and frustration at having experienced something so disappointing. But it consoles me now that after having taken your class, I will be an even more educated and enlightened visitor when I finally set foot in India, and the experience will be even more fulfilling and meaningful than it would have been if I had traveled there the summer before my first semester at Harvard. When I write about it, I'll definitely be thinking of Heat and Dust, Lawrence's theories on female travelers, and other ideas discussed in your class, and I know I'll be able to write a thought-provoking piece in my journals and blog worthy of the sensational experience that is India.
Finally, though I knew that this course counted for the EMR secondary, I never really considered EMR as a potential secondary until I realized that another class from first semester I really enjoyed (and complemented expos), Intro to African Languages and Cultures, also counted towards it. If I had chosen these two classes because I was interested in them without necessarily knowing that they both count for a certain secondary, I feel like that's pretty significant. I'm now seriously considering pursuing a secondary in EMR.
Anyway, thank you for contributing so much to my first semester at Harvard, and in the bigger picture, my perpetual journey as a curious learner. I'll be sure to keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Amanda
Why I want to be a researcher-writer for Let's Go! - to be put in the application, when I GET IT
I first heard about this travel writing publishing company under Harvard Student Agencies from my Harvard interviewer, and from the moment she mentioned it, I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to do while at Harvard. I thought it was too good to be true--I knew that Harvard would have plenty of opportunities for every interest, but I never could have imagined that it would actually send people out to random countries for eight weeks to write about their experiences. Like, that's the stuff I do for fun. I've been travel writing since I first experienced the glories of international travel (ten years old, Hong Kong, saw some samples in a scrapbook my mom made). I like to think I could be the Mindy Kaling of the travel channel.
I love travel and would go anywhere beyond this nation's borders when offered the chance. I love writing and have been keeping a daily journal since I made it a New Year's Resolution for 2009. I like to think I'm a witty person with a distinct sense of humor that people enjoy (most of the time). This job is basically who I am.
Just because applications like this call for a certain amount of narcissism, I am also the gutsiest person I know. I not only immigrated from the Philippines across the world's biggest ocean to another country I had never seen before, I also left my family and the new life I made for myself in the USA for an entire year to live in France, when I had only ever known French within the context of French class. I find that my most fulfilling experiences come from huge risks I've taken, lots of them impulsive. And I've found that I am most at home when exploring a foreign land I know nothing of, because not only does it remind me how much I don't know, it reminds me how much there is I can learn.
There is nothing more this summer that I want to do than be a research-writer for Let's Go.
Amanda Flores' Valentine's Day lottery, the second installment - to be posted on Facebook
Next month is Valentine's Day. Why am I bringing this up so early, you ask?
Like I did last year, I'm continuing this Valentine's Day Letter Lottery in order to make it a yearly tradition, and I am going to send a letter via snail mail to a special someone somewhere on planet Earth for Valentine's Day.
AND THAT PERSON COULD BE YOU.
How to join? Just like or comment (or both, you have free will) on this status AND MESSAGE ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS (or if you live at Harvard, your room address so I can drop the letter in your door mailbox)!
(seriously, that was a step quite a few people last year failed to do)
I will then put the names of everybody whose addresses I have in a hat this weekend, and pull out one person's name, who will then be the winner of Amanda Flores's Valentine's Day Letter Lottery 2015.
I don't care if you live in Australia, in Straus A, or somewhere in between. If your name gets picked, you are getting a letter from me for Valentine's Day, sealed with a kiss. Nobody will know whose name got pulled until the recipient gets their letter and they choose to publicize my awesomeness on Facebook. No exceptions; this is meant to be a surprise.
What are you waiting for? Express your interest right here right now. ;)
xoxo me
The description for my next Valentine's Day video - to be posted on Facebook
In keeping up with a now time-tenured tradition, I am posting a Valentine's Day music video for the third year in a row.
In my first video, I serenaded my ukulele. In my second video, I (with my partner-in-film Abigail Magsarili) serenaded food. In this video, I'm going to be asking a very important question, because I'm obviously a funny, clever, amazing, narcissistic girl who deserves to ask it.
(And because I still enjoy the element of surprise like I did in my first video, you'll have to watch it to find out what I so desperately inquire.)
Happy Valentine's Day. I can only hope yours is more fulfilling than mine.
Things to accomplish in the coming semester, coming year, life
Semester
My friend Adela and I first became friends at a speech and debate tournament during our freshman year of high school, way back in fall 2010. Over the years, we've kept up the friendship despite going to different schools, and would meet periodically senior year. One of the things we did before senior year started was make a bucket list for senior year. So when we met after we had one semester of college under our belts, we created the following list of things to get done over second semester:
• write a poem about your experience
• go to a formal dance
• perform at an open mic
• strike up a conversation with somebody really cute
• start a chain of letters
• pull an all-nighter (sleep at 5:30 at the earliest) (and yeah, I know, the fact that this is part of a bucket list would make most college students scoff) (I like sleeping, okay)
Coming year
Compared to the two New Year's Eves I had, this most recent one was terribly anticlimactic. While I entertained the idea of sleeping through it (so I could say it would be nice to sleep and not have to wake up until next year), I ended up doing something even better - Skyping Sari! (Who's my best friend, yeah) Even though she was an hour ahead of me in Canada, she rang in the new year with me. We then chatted for around two hours, and made a list of things we would try and get done over the course of the year. Here is that list.
• learn a new language (Spanish)
• write somebody a letter in Spanish
• learn how to cook something
• meet more guys (lol, not sure how seriously I was taking this one)
• send somebody on Filles Formidables a surprise letter
• go a day without looking in the mirror
• send somebody you admire an anonymous note
• donate to a charity (or participate in a good cause for a similar organization)
• At some point during the Eurotour 2-year anniversary on April 15-26: drink Hefe-Weizer beer, roam Boston on a rainy day, eat a dessert then write a critique of it, climb up the stairs of a really tall building (if you can find one), eavesdrop on a boys' room while they're having a conversation for two minutes
• make a time capsule on your 20th birthday
As for the main life thing, I suddenly had the inspiration today to start planning for the travel memoir/autobiography I'm eventually going to write.
Things to include in my travel memoir, which I will start planning this year (these things could also be future entries here) - Things I've discovered in my journals that I wish I had forgotten: A (mostly travel) memoir
• I propose a special kind of passport
• the speech that got me into Harvard, and how I would ruin it with newly acquired cynicism
• the question that got me into Brown
• how I will be BuzzFeed famous
• how at this point my life is pretty much governed by Pinterest
• In which I travel to the infamous witch town with a couple of Harvard girls who are probably capable of witchcraft
• The name of this memoir was inspired by an incident I read about from the beginning of my exchange year in which I attempted to exit a building through a window thinking it was the door
That's it for now. Can't wait to make these things a reality throughout the rest of the year!
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