Before going to Harvard, I had already known about the brutal New England winters. Being dumped with snow, cold like I had never known cold, and wind chills to add to the misery. All of that made me anxious. In Oregon, school would be cancelled if we got even four inches of snow. Winter temperature highs would usually not dip below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. So the experience of real winter was one I wasn't sure if I would ever be ready for.
I decided that I would go on thinking like this, basically over-hyping myself, so that when I found myself back in Cambridge in the dead of winter at the end of January, it wouldn't be as bad as I was anticipating. And yup, I did indeed make myself excessively paranoid about the winter, because I surprisingly have adapted very quickly to it.
Either I love the novelty of this climate I have never lived through before and I'll eventually be sick of it like the locals are, or I'm just an extremely adaptable person. I hope it's the latter.
Thanks to a miracle-working parka that I purchased over winter break and a complete rearrangement of my closet and drawers, I'm as ready as I could be every single day to face the weather and all the obligations that come with being a Harvard student.
I've taken to going to the law school gym to work out with the 7:15 am Zumba class three days a week, and despite blizzards, I still go. This is the extent to which all of this extreme weather has become a part of my everyday life. I bet little girl me growing up in the tropics of the Philippines would never have been able to imagine this life!
Here are some pictures to enjoy:
As for school life, here are the classes I have and my reviews of them so far:
Life Sciences 1b (Genetics, Genomics, Evolution): It's so strange to think I didn't take a science class last semester, because throughout middle school and high school science (alongside foreign languages) was my best subject. The complicated vocabulary, the trying to grasp a reality too minuscule to fathom, having to worry about whether I understand concepts instead of whether or not a paper will be to a professor's expectations... it's good to be in a science class once more. I'm rather intimidated by the sciences at Harvard because there's obviously a lot of science geniuses here, but for now, I'm just ploughing through. Science continues to fascinate me, and I'm glad to be back in that mode of thinking again!
Literature and Medicine: Minimal explaining needed. Last week's reading for this class was a short novel called Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, and I devoured it in one sitting. (Practically; I only stopped with 20 pages left because I had to go to class.) It was told in first person memoir-style, and was about a woman in 1950s Egypt who became a doctor. It was so inspiring and relatable. One of my favorite quotes from it is, "I felt compassion for people, all people: they were both wrongdoers and the victims of wrongdoing." This, to me, is one of the premises of medicine; acknowledging that when one removes all the cloaks society puts on a person, human beings are fundamentally the same. I like to think that eventually, when I become a doctor, I'll be able to look past prejudices and preconceptions and just focus on doing the work that matters, which is helping people. (Lawyers can take care of all that complicated stuff.)
The Politics of Language and Identity in Latin America: This is an anthropology class. So far, I am thoroughly enjoying it. Our first assigned reading was about drunken speech in a small bilingual Quechua/Spanish speaking community in the Andes of southern Peru. It explored the dynamics between people and about their cultural tradition of getting inebriated. We also read the script of a satire acted out between a "priest" and a "sacristan," mocking the institutions of the Catholic Church, marriage, baptism, etc. I volunteered to reenact it in front of class, with another student. It was tons of fun and quite absurd. Another notable reading was the one about midwifery in indigenous communities in the Yucatan Peninsula. It was so eye-opening to me... to get an idea of it, here's the idea that I elaborate on in the reading's corresponding response paper: "The idea of medicine being applicable anywhere is rendered far too complicated thanks to the presence of vastly differing cultures around the world that have different interpretations of the way life should be lived, thus affecting their views on medicine and how they should care for their people." Before you think this contradicts my statement about feeling compassion for all people no matter what, here is my response paper's concluding sentence: "This reading has certainly encouraged me to eventually be the kind of doctor that will not only prioritize the healing of her patients, but also do so while respecting their cultural beliefs." Let's leave it at that.
Introduction to Indo-European: My second linguistics class! The Indo-European language family is one that contains a lot of the world's major languages. Here's a picture that illustrates it (and was a hit on the exchange student Facebook page):
Right now, we're learning about the characteristics of the parent language of all these modern languages, Proto-Indo-European. It's totally fascinating work. It continually blows my mind how so many different languages all stemmed from a common source. As a side note, I know Tagalog and Cebuano, which actually don't belong in Indo-European and stem from another huge language family, Austronesian. It makes me oddly proud to speak a language not part of this tree. Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning more about it and furthering my knowledge about the world's languages.
Anyway, I've got some wonderful travel-related news, my favorite kind!
Over winter break, I worked on an application for a Harvard Alumni Association spring break trip scholarship. I saw ads for it in the freshman dining hall and decided it was worth a shot. So to fulfill the creative part of the application, I made a time lapse drawing video:
Obviously, I'm writing this because I got the scholarship.
I'M GOING TO GREECE!!
I am bristling with excitement. I've never been to Greece, and I haven't been back to my beloved Europe since I left France. I leave on March 13th, and it's going to be a blast, I just know it. I can't wait to write about it!
Another thing I applied for over winter break was a Harvard Summer School program in Paris about biology and urban development. It entails spending two months in Paris, living in an international student neighborhood, and working on an independent project with French university students. It sounded too good to be true, so I decided to apply as a backup in case I didn't get accepted into Let's Go (the application for which I just submitted).
And yup, I got in.
The thought of going back to France makes my head spin. There it is, my chance to go back, and yet I don't know whether or not it's for certain (I await the results of the funding application). I'm feeling torn already. The program seems perfect, and what's more, I would have the time before it starts to go around France seeing people whom I have really missed these past two years. The thing is, I still have to wait to hear if I'll be accepted as a researcher-writer for Let's Go, and if I'll be accepted to this two-and-a-half week long program in Japan.
At least for 2015 I already have Greece in March and Bolivia in August (as part of a volunteer trip! more on that later) going for me.
Now, I'm asking myself...
Will I finally return to France?
Will I be able to actually realize my idle daydream of seeing 20 countries before I turn 20?
Will I be able to actually realize my idle daydream of seeing all inhabited continents before I turn 20?
Will I end up spending most of this summer in South America and improve my Spanish beyond basic conversations and profanities?
Will I literally travel around the world? (See, I fantasize about leaving from Boston after school gets out to a place like Morocco or India to spend 8 weeks as a Let's Go writer, then from there go to Japan to do that program, then from Japan go to Bolivia, and from Bolivia go back to Boston. It'd be the perfect summer of my wildest dreams if that could happen.)
Knowing the answers to these questions all depends on certain responses that I will get over the next few weeks. I'm impatient and a bit nervous, but for now, it's time to live for March.
See you in 33 days, Greece!
I decided that I would go on thinking like this, basically over-hyping myself, so that when I found myself back in Cambridge in the dead of winter at the end of January, it wouldn't be as bad as I was anticipating. And yup, I did indeed make myself excessively paranoid about the winter, because I surprisingly have adapted very quickly to it.
Either I love the novelty of this climate I have never lived through before and I'll eventually be sick of it like the locals are, or I'm just an extremely adaptable person. I hope it's the latter.
Thanks to a miracle-working parka that I purchased over winter break and a complete rearrangement of my closet and drawers, I'm as ready as I could be every single day to face the weather and all the obligations that come with being a Harvard student.
I've taken to going to the law school gym to work out with the 7:15 am Zumba class three days a week, and despite blizzards, I still go. This is the extent to which all of this extreme weather has become a part of my everyday life. I bet little girl me growing up in the tropics of the Philippines would never have been able to imagine this life!
Here are some pictures to enjoy:
 |
| Sledding down the steps of Widener Library |
 |
| The walk to breakfast the morning of a record-setting blizzard |
 |
| Straus, my dorm |
 |
| After things have calmed down a bit |
 |
| A snow bank downtown that was irresistibly fun to climb |
 |
| Ah, the city in snow |
Life Sciences 1b (Genetics, Genomics, Evolution): It's so strange to think I didn't take a science class last semester, because throughout middle school and high school science (alongside foreign languages) was my best subject. The complicated vocabulary, the trying to grasp a reality too minuscule to fathom, having to worry about whether I understand concepts instead of whether or not a paper will be to a professor's expectations... it's good to be in a science class once more. I'm rather intimidated by the sciences at Harvard because there's obviously a lot of science geniuses here, but for now, I'm just ploughing through. Science continues to fascinate me, and I'm glad to be back in that mode of thinking again!
Literature and Medicine: Minimal explaining needed. Last week's reading for this class was a short novel called Memoirs of a Woman Doctor, and I devoured it in one sitting. (Practically; I only stopped with 20 pages left because I had to go to class.) It was told in first person memoir-style, and was about a woman in 1950s Egypt who became a doctor. It was so inspiring and relatable. One of my favorite quotes from it is, "I felt compassion for people, all people: they were both wrongdoers and the victims of wrongdoing." This, to me, is one of the premises of medicine; acknowledging that when one removes all the cloaks society puts on a person, human beings are fundamentally the same. I like to think that eventually, when I become a doctor, I'll be able to look past prejudices and preconceptions and just focus on doing the work that matters, which is helping people. (Lawyers can take care of all that complicated stuff.)
The Politics of Language and Identity in Latin America: This is an anthropology class. So far, I am thoroughly enjoying it. Our first assigned reading was about drunken speech in a small bilingual Quechua/Spanish speaking community in the Andes of southern Peru. It explored the dynamics between people and about their cultural tradition of getting inebriated. We also read the script of a satire acted out between a "priest" and a "sacristan," mocking the institutions of the Catholic Church, marriage, baptism, etc. I volunteered to reenact it in front of class, with another student. It was tons of fun and quite absurd. Another notable reading was the one about midwifery in indigenous communities in the Yucatan Peninsula. It was so eye-opening to me... to get an idea of it, here's the idea that I elaborate on in the reading's corresponding response paper: "The idea of medicine being applicable anywhere is rendered far too complicated thanks to the presence of vastly differing cultures around the world that have different interpretations of the way life should be lived, thus affecting their views on medicine and how they should care for their people." Before you think this contradicts my statement about feeling compassion for all people no matter what, here is my response paper's concluding sentence: "This reading has certainly encouraged me to eventually be the kind of doctor that will not only prioritize the healing of her patients, but also do so while respecting their cultural beliefs." Let's leave it at that.
Introduction to Indo-European: My second linguistics class! The Indo-European language family is one that contains a lot of the world's major languages. Here's a picture that illustrates it (and was a hit on the exchange student Facebook page):
Right now, we're learning about the characteristics of the parent language of all these modern languages, Proto-Indo-European. It's totally fascinating work. It continually blows my mind how so many different languages all stemmed from a common source. As a side note, I know Tagalog and Cebuano, which actually don't belong in Indo-European and stem from another huge language family, Austronesian. It makes me oddly proud to speak a language not part of this tree. Anyway, I'm looking forward to learning more about it and furthering my knowledge about the world's languages.
Anyway, I've got some wonderful travel-related news, my favorite kind!
Over winter break, I worked on an application for a Harvard Alumni Association spring break trip scholarship. I saw ads for it in the freshman dining hall and decided it was worth a shot. So to fulfill the creative part of the application, I made a time lapse drawing video:
Obviously, I'm writing this because I got the scholarship.
I'M GOING TO GREECE!!
I am bristling with excitement. I've never been to Greece, and I haven't been back to my beloved Europe since I left France. I leave on March 13th, and it's going to be a blast, I just know it. I can't wait to write about it!
Another thing I applied for over winter break was a Harvard Summer School program in Paris about biology and urban development. It entails spending two months in Paris, living in an international student neighborhood, and working on an independent project with French university students. It sounded too good to be true, so I decided to apply as a backup in case I didn't get accepted into Let's Go (the application for which I just submitted).
And yup, I got in.
The thought of going back to France makes my head spin. There it is, my chance to go back, and yet I don't know whether or not it's for certain (I await the results of the funding application). I'm feeling torn already. The program seems perfect, and what's more, I would have the time before it starts to go around France seeing people whom I have really missed these past two years. The thing is, I still have to wait to hear if I'll be accepted as a researcher-writer for Let's Go, and if I'll be accepted to this two-and-a-half week long program in Japan.
At least for 2015 I already have Greece in March and Bolivia in August (as part of a volunteer trip! more on that later) going for me.
Now, I'm asking myself...
Will I finally return to France?
Will I be able to actually realize my idle daydream of seeing 20 countries before I turn 20?
Will I be able to actually realize my idle daydream of seeing all inhabited continents before I turn 20?
Will I end up spending most of this summer in South America and improve my Spanish beyond basic conversations and profanities?
Will I literally travel around the world? (See, I fantasize about leaving from Boston after school gets out to a place like Morocco or India to spend 8 weeks as a Let's Go writer, then from there go to Japan to do that program, then from Japan go to Bolivia, and from Bolivia go back to Boston. It'd be the perfect summer of my wildest dreams if that could happen.)
Knowing the answers to these questions all depends on certain responses that I will get over the next few weeks. I'm impatient and a bit nervous, but for now, it's time to live for March.
See you in 33 days, Greece!
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