Archives for January 2015
Freshman Fail Numero Uno
Hello all my wonderful fellow member of RCL. I’m sure most of you who are reading this at 10 a.m are only half awake right now, but I thank you nevertheless for taking the time to read the passion blog of yours truly. If you have read my previous blog post, the subject of my passion blog is going to be my freshman failures, something I hope you all can get a kick out of and hopefully learn to do the complete opposite of what I did first semester, for the most part anyway.
Of course there are so many embarrassing things that I did first semester that I sheepishly blush at whenever I think about them, but to kick things off, I figured I would start with one of the biggest lessons learned. Get ready guys and prepare to have your socks knocked off. P.S. if you don’t feel bad for me after this one, I’m assuming that you don’t have a heart.
It all started during hell week, or my version of it anyway. It was the week before thanksgiving break and you could say that I was struggling to survive. Within a timespan of two days, yes you heard that, two days I had two exams, a 100-problem math assignment due, my TED talk, and worst of all, my final report for chem lab. As you can imagine, I was extremely sleep deprived and barely functioning, but I still tried to push through. As the good student that I am, I decided to start my chem lab report 2 days before it was due. Obviously a great plan. I worked on it for about 10 hours straight. No breaks, just focus. At about 3 am, a day and a half before it was due, I finally finished it. 23 pages of pure chemistry. Not gonna lie, at this point I was pretty proud of myself. But here comes the kicker. Get ready. Because all I wanted to do was just get to bed when I was done with it, I quickly tried to save it. However instead of saving it as its own file, I overwrote the file with another document. Yes you heard correctly. If you don’t know what overwriting a file means, its ok neither do I. But in les mis terms, I basically lost all of what I had just written in a matter of seconds. I know right? Pretty awful.
I tried EVERYTHING to get it back. I went to tech support. I called my parents. I called my friends. I called the best friend of my friend who lives in Washington D.C. I even tried to ask for an extension on the due date. Nothing. That’s right, nothing folks. I was left with one choice and one choice only. Try and rewrite the entire report within a matter of hours, or basically fail chem lab. You can probably guess which option I chose, but it was not easy to say the least. Many hours, and many tears later, I finally got it done. The struggle was real.
So ladies and gents, that’s my first freshman fail. Easily one of the worst moments of my life, but I hope you can learn to do what I was so naïve to do in the first place: make sure you save things correctly, because computers are wacky little creatures that are out to get you. Also, don’t leave things to the last minute like me, because my life got a hell of a lot worse because of it. Thought this was bad? Just wait until next week’s freshman fail. Thanks for reading everyone!
Spring 2015 Blog Topics
Thank you to all of my lovely peers for your suggestions and comments about my civic issue and passion blog. After a lot of consideration, I think I’m pretty content with what I’ve decided to do for my blogs. For my passion blog, I decided on doing a school survival guide. Although, the ice cream idea sounds amazing, its gonna have to wait because for obvious reasons I probably couldn’t afford it and also, I’d probably end up at around 200 pounds by the end of the semester. Plus, I think I have a lot of good ideas for my freshman fails. I think a lot of good advice will (hopefully) come out of it as well. Then for my civic issues blog, I decided to go with global poverty. It’s such a broad topic, but I think that its something that people need to hear more about because there are so many ways that you and I can get involved, even if its in the smallest of ways. I guess that’s all for now. Thanks for listening!!
I Believe in the Coming of the Sun
I have no recollection of when it all began, but it became an immediate tradition. The kind that makes you both smile and draw a tear when looking back. It began with a rocking chair. An old, checkered one in the corner of my room that squeaked ever so slightly when rocked just a bit too hard. But it was perfect. The earliest memories of life that I have began in that chair. Every night, I sat curled up in a little ball on my dad’s lap in anticipation. He was about to sing, very off key, but sing nevertheless. It wasn’t just any old tune like Itsy Bitsy Spider or Hush Little Baby. No, I only listened to real music, and my dad knew that. For me he chose the Beatles, and more often than not he would serenade me with my favorite, Here Comes the Sun. Looking up at his face, my bug eyes fixated on the gentle words that flowed from his lips, I felt at peace. My eyes struggled to resist the temptations of dreamland, and slowly feathered shut, but through my ears the words continued to echo. “Here comes the sun, doodoodoodoo, here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right.” And from that moment on, I believed. I believed that as long as I had that song, and I had my dad, everything truly was going to be alright.
There came a point when I could no longer fit on my dad’s lap, when I no longer needed to be rocked to sleep, and when there was no longer a use for the old, checkered rocking chair in the corner. But the song lived on. It lived on in the hearts of both my dad and me, getting us through those days when we simply felt that we could not go on; reminding us once again, that it’s all right. Breakups, bad grades, and broken souls, my dad and that song were always there for me. He would wrap his big arms around me, rock me gently and hum the tune we both knew all too well. Even when masked by my tears and cries, the beauty and effortlessness of the words rang true. It’s all right. The day came when I no longer would always have my dad by my side. I would have to face the world on my own, without him being there to tell, or rather sing to me that everything was ok. As I hugged my way through a tearful college goodbye, my dad reached into his coat pocket, and shakily pulled out a note. It was nothing fancy, it was a little crumpled on the corners, but it didn’t matter. As I opened the note, my eyes once more welled with tears. On it were printed the lyrics of Here Comes the Sun. “To Emily,” it read, “to remind you that everything will be alright.” To some it is just an ordinary song with meaningless lyrics, but to me it is so much more. It is a promise. An everlasting promise between a father and a daughter that through thick and thin, there will always be someone by your side to brighten your day. After every dark cloud, comes the sun. I believe in the coming of the sun. Of the promise of a new and beautiful day, shared in moments with those you love the most.
Hello Friends!!!
Hello everyone currently suffering from an RCL hangover!!! So it’s a new semester and I guess the schoolwork at some point must begin. That day was today. Props to Dr. J for giving me my first official homework assignment of the semester! It’s all good though, because I’m actually pretty excited about the blog categories this time around, so without further ado….
Up first is my passion blog. My problem with my passion blog is that I have so many little passions that I want to write about, and not one that stands out in particular. Last semester, I really focused on running and fitness for my passion blog, but I feel like I really exhausted that topic, and quite honestly feel like I have nothing left to write about it. So then I was like, “Ok Emily, what is your next biggest passion?” The answer was obvious. Food. Particularly desserts. It’s actually kind of a problem. Anyway, one of my ideas was to do a taste test of all the ice cream flavors at the Creamery and to pick the absolute best of the best. Although this would be a delicious passion, I’m a little scared what my whole weight situation would be at the end of the semester, so this idea is still on the rocks. For option two, I’m thinking about doing some version of Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide: College Edition (if you don’t remember that show, you clearly didn’t have a childhood). I had so many epic freshman fails first semester that I would love to write about, and I think out of those experiences have come a lot of good lessons that I would love to share with you all. Let me know which idea is your favorite, or if you have any others!
Next, on to the “This I believe” podcast. Something that I have strongly believed in for almost my entire life is the power and influence of music. Music has always been a huge part of me, and I truly believe that it can shape us and define us. So for my podcast I was thinking that I could discuss one particular instance (still trying to narrow it down) in my life where it really influenced me and taught me to look at the world in a new way. So that’s idea one. My second idea is to write about the advantages of failure and disappointment. I feel like in my life some of my darkest and toughest times have shaped me more than some of my happiest moments and I think it would be cool to write about how I used some of my failures positively in the long run.
Finally, my civic issues blog. The issue that I feel the strongest about would easily have to be global poverty (bonus points for using it for a college application essay!). Clearly, this is an issue that has been around for a long time and will continue to be unless we start taking immediate action. It’s hard for me to think about my life compared to that of a teenager living in a third world country because it truly isn’t fair. So for this blog, I was thinking I could discuss the causes of global poverty, its immediate and long term affects, what we are doing to help, and most importantly, what we could be doing more of. The other idea I have for my blog is something that has sparked my attention in more recent years, but is nevertheless incredibly important. It is the eating disorder epidemic that we are having in this country, both for excessive and insufficient intakes of food. Obviously obesity is a hot topic right now in our country and is definitely something that I would include in this blog. However, I think it would be also important to discuss anorexia and bulimia because they are less talked about, but equally as awful, especially for young girls.
So thanks for sticking through that everybody! I Hope I didn’t bore you too much. I would love to hear thoughts on any of these three things so let me know what you think!
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