I have a cold.

But it's okay!  I hadn't even had a runny nose yet this school year, I'm very proud of my immune system for holding up for this long.  Most of my friends have already been sick two or three times since school started.   First softball game is one week from today!

Life is Good!

A few anecdotes about my life as of late:

- My parents visited this weekend, it was wonderful seeing them.  We had lunch at one of the best restaurants in Carlisle and then went to the ever classy Walmart.
- I had softball practice outside today and it was very refreshing after having so many practices in the claustrophobic gym.
- After practice one of my fellow outfielders, Rachel, told me I looked especially good today.
- I just went to buy a water bottle from the vending machine and it gave me 3 for the price of one!
- I'm going to see the movie Gnomeo and Juliet tonight, just for kicks.

Happy Valentines Day!  Some might call it single awareness day, but I don't mind a day where I get to tell everyone I love them and eat chocolate!  I send all my love to Bethesda, Potomac, DC, Paris and Utah!   A special thanks to Mema and Papa for the chocolate and hand made card!

What a Day

It's been quite an eventful day, and it's only 12!
       I woke up to my phone ringing this morning at 7:30.  Confused, I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was one of my fellow softball freshmen who lives in my building.  I answered the phone, and our conversation went something like this:
Me: Hello?
Clara: Hi, can I use your phone?
Me: What.
Clara: The power is out, the power box thing exploded this morning.  This means we have no internet.  I need a smartphone to check my email to see if classes are cancelled.
What a wake up call THAT was.
During this time my roommate, Ali woke up, and proceeded to check her email from her phone.  An email from DPS, our public safety people, sent at 2:50am, advises us to "stay in our buildings, as it is severely icy, but classes are not cancelled".  The email after that says the college is on a 2 hour delay, but classes will happen as scheduled.  Still confused, a girl in my hallway called DPS and was told that all classes would be delayed by 2 hours.
MEANWHILE, a friend of mine who has the same 8:30 class that I do, went to class on time, and the professor was there, and they had class as per usual.
Frustrated and unable to check my email for further updates, I tried to sleep for a little while longer.  It didn't go very well.
I woke up at 10 and found someone with internet, and saw that my french teacher emailed us.  Her email said something along the lines of "I'm not going to class, but you are!".  We had class with the TA and then for extra credit had to go make crepes.
In the end, it turns out that DPS was wrong, and that classes are never cancelled due to weather related events.  Our power and internet are now back.  I'm eating lunch.
The end.
Oh, and I have a 10 to midnight softball practice tonight.  What a life!

Let the Season Begin

Hello!!!
       I had my very first softball practice of the spring season today! I was extremely nervous about it during this past week, I had to call my mom and send many an anxious text to my best friend, Maggie before leaving, just for reassurance.  But it happened, and here I am, alive.  I was mostly worried about the conditioning part of practice.  I worked hard over winter break but my team is the most in shape group of girls I have ever played with so anything fitness related can be a bit intimidating.  
       We started off with stretches in the squash courts (gym time is hard to come by in the winter, hence why my practice ends at midnight tomorrow) and then went into the gym for conditioning.  This consisted of 10 minutes of indian runs.  Indian runs are a drill type thing where the team gets in a line and begins jogging around the track.  The girl at the end of the line sprints to the front of the line while everyone else is still jogging, and resumes jogging when she reaches the front of the line.  The moment she hits the front of the line the next girl at the end of the line sprints to the front, repeat, repeat, repeat.  So, that was tiring, I'll be sore.  It wasn't as tiring as I expected though, so I felt good about it.
       For the next hour and a half we did a batting rotation and then a little bit of fielding.  During the fall I consistently practiced with the outfield, which I did today.  I don't mind it but I feel a little rusty catching fly balls, my foot work isn't all that it could be.
    Okay enough rambling, that was way more detail than anyone needed to hear.  I love you guys! I'm looking forward to seeing people, even though I don't really know the next time that will be.


25 Days until my first softball game!

I'm Back!

I just got my practice and game schedule for softball (practices start after this week).  I think I may not come home alive, folks.  Among the practice times are 10pm-12am on a Wednesday night and 7:30am-9:30am on a Saturday morning.  Some are 3 hours long and none are shorter than an hour and a half.  I have practice every day in the month of February except for 2.  I knew this was going to be a challenge but this is crazy!
On that note, it feels great to be back at Dickinson.  I missed my friends here!  I also miss everyone from home already; the weird thing about college is that no matter where you go you're reuniting with some people and saying goodbye to others.  I'll be sure make plenty of updates here this semester, especially about softball.  Come visit me and watch games!

Days until softball begins: 8
Days until my social life ends: 8

The Spotlight Effect

    

      Here's another lesson on why learning about psychology can help you.  I've been wasting a lot of time reading on the Internet and I came across an article talking about research that has been done recently on "The Spotlight Effect", a social phenomenon where people perceive themselves as being judged much more critically than they actually are.
     We are, in reality, our own harshest critics.  Whenever I do something clumsy, say something irrational or have an "awkward" moment, I fixate on it.  Sometimes for days if it's bad.  We all do this because we think other people notice and then judge us based on our actions.  However, research done by several psychologists at institutions like Cornell and Wake Forest, have shown that no one really notices, or cares, about our social gaffes.
     One experiment done at Cornell showed that students participating in a group discussion greatly overestimated how much their statements, both clever and not, were noticed by others.  In another study students at Ithaca were told to wear a Barry Manilow tee-shirt into a crowded room of their peers.  After just moments of being in the room, they met with researchers and reported believing that at least half of their peers had noticed the shirt and judged them for wearing it.  Researcher found that on average less than a quarter of the students paid any attention at all.
    There are exceptions to the spotlight effect.  For example, someone in a position of power, perhaps a CEO or a sports coach, is subject to more scrutiny than the average person, but only in certain situations. If a person trips while walking down a busy street people might think they're clumsy for a few seconds, but they will quickly forget it ever happened.
     The moral of the story is this: don't be so hard on yourselves.  Yes, it is good to be aware of your actions and to be a little hard on yourself, but don't generate unnecessary stress by obsessing over your last embarrassing moment.  The only person that remembers it is you.
 

So I've Been Doing Some Stuff (this is a long one)

Well hey there!

I wasn't originally planning on doing any updates here until I went back to school but I realized I've been super busy and actually have some fun stories to share, so here I am!

Let me begin by wishing you all a late merry Christmas and happy New Years!  This past week has been incredibly hectic and I'm exhausted but it was all very worth it.  I saw most of you on Christmas, which was lots of fun.  I always love being around my family and being reminded of where I come from.   I was very successful this holiday season.  Some highlights from Christmas were the Santa Claus drawing contest (which I rightfully won) AND the sane list (on which I was rightfully placed at the top).

The Sane List

Christmas always reminds me of how much I love you all.  I appreciate your love and support more than I can say.  I wish Christmas came around more often.

Moving on to post-Christmas/before new years:

We left for Orlando the day after Christmas and had a somewhat stressful first night there (I won't go into that in detail).  The next day we went to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom in Disney.  The crowds were absolutely insane, all the popular rides had wait times of over an hour, the park was packed.  Nevertheless, we made the most of the Disney experience.  We first went to Epcot and rode a few rides and walked through about 10 different countries (Disney is magical like that).  Then we went to the Magic Kingdom, which was in the middle of a parade when we entered.  I have to say, walking into the park with cheerful music blasting from speakers all over the place and seeing all the characters parading around was exhilarating.  I couldn't wipe the smile off my face!

 Epcot

You can kind of get an idea of how bad the crowds were from this picture - people everywhere! 

The next day in Orlando was a bit of a flop.  We tried to go to Universal, but it just happened to have a record high number of people in the park that day, and we couldn't go in.  A bit dejected, we returned to the hotel, where my mom and I got manicures and pedicures and my dad and brother went to play a little golf.  

Now here comes the best part.  As a result of our rejection the day before, we resolved to go to Universal at 8 in the morning when it opened the next day and head straight for The World of Harry Potter.  I was VERY excited for this, to say the least.  I've been reading HP since the second grade (my parents didn't believe I was actually reading, they thought I was just flipping the pages) so HP was a huge part of my childhood and teenagehood.  Going to The World of HP was a huge deal.  Again, it was packed, but I loved it.  I was giddy the whole time. 

We left Florida the same day and got back at round 10pm that night.  I proceeded to somewhat frantically unpack/pack to leave for New York the next day at 7:30 am.  My friend Mohan goes to NYU and was allowed to let guests stay there over the break so, he and some of my other friends decided to go up for New Years.  We did a lot of walking and saw a lot of things.  The first day we were there we went to the Museum of Modern Art and then went to dinner at a Thai restaurant.  On new years eve we went thrift shopping/walked around, and then at around 6 we decided to see how close we could get to Times Square, just for the heck of it, we had no intention of staying there until midnight.  There were a ton of barriers and blockades but we took a few shortcuts and managed to get pretty close! After that we got dinner at a nice Italian place and then watched the ball drop in Mohan's dorm room.  We then celebrated the new year by going to a karaoke bar.

The little green light in the top middle is the ball! 

Alright, I THINK that's enough for now.  I'd like to give props to my phone; I took all these pictures with it and they turned out pretty decent.  Click on a picture if you want to see it bigger.

PS. my friend showed me a video of the most ADORABLE little french girl telling a funny story, it is guaranteed to brighten your day.



Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.


PPS. Welcome to 2011!