Power Naps

In the morning, I met up with my cohort and ate breakfast at the State Diner with Mike. I shared a ham and cheese omelet and chocolate chip pancakes with Joceline. I don't have a picture of the ham and cheese omelet because we forgot to take a picture before starting to eat. It was actually my first time eating chocolate chip pancakes and they were super good. About a week ago, I did an experiment testing whether chocolate makes you happy or not and at the time I thought it didn't make me happier, but after eating the chocolate chip pancakes I think that it might make me happier. I ate quite a bit of food and I've been eating quite a bit of food, but I don't think I've gained the summer 15 that a lot of people have told me about. The dining hall food is good and has a nice variety, but it's definitely getting old. Even with the nice variety, I still find myself going for similar things everyday. 

After finishing the amazing breakfast, we went to Wegmans. When we arrived there was a light rain, but it was also sunny. I didn't really care that rain was getting on me even though I was in a tank top and shorts. I think I can officially say that I am not scared of the rain anymore (California stereotype). The light Ithaca rain was nothing compared to the thundering rain in Chicago. I originally heard about Wegmans from my friend, Diane. I asked her what it sold and she told me it was a super market on crack. I didn't believe her because I didn't think any super market could be all that amazing, but Wegmans is amazing. Rather than a supermarket on crack, it's more like a Target and Safeway had a baby and decided to get way bigger than its parents. The selection of food you could buy to eat freshly made was crazy. There were little sections of foods from all over the world. There was taste of Asia, Mexico, and so much more. I wish we could have been there longer, but we had to get back to our dorms soon after buying some random snacks and souvenirs. 

I worked more on my final essay when I got back to my dorm. After about an hour, I went on a field trip with Kachi, Minnesota Diana, and Joceline. We went to Treman Falls Park. When we got there we really only had time to swim or go hiking. I didn't really want to hike so I decided to go swimming. When we got to the designated swimming area I was super excited because there was a diving board and the waterfall was so amazingly beautiful. I quickly changed and put my stuff down to go jump off the board. Even though I sound so excited, I have never actually jumped off from a diving board before. So needless to say, it was actually a much higher than jump than I thought it would be. I jumped after Diana and when I looked down from the board and felt the jiggle of the board I was a little bit scared. I was close to just backing out, but I knew I just needed to be brave enough to jump off the board. So, I did. I jumped and screamed as I went down, but it was worth it. The water was super refreshing even if it wasn't the warmest. 

Diana and I Getting Hit By the Waterfall

I swam around for a while before I decided that I needed pretty pictures near the waterfall. So, Diana grabbed my phone and handed it down to me before going down the ladder. Kachi, Diana, and I were super scared about the possibility of dropping my phone in the water, but I figured it was worth it because it was probably going to be a long time until I got the chance to be near a beautiful waterfall again. Plus, my phone is waterproof, but I've never felt the desire to test it out. We tried getting Kachi closer to the waterfall, but since she isn't the best swimmer it was too difficult to get her that close without her drowning. Thankfully, there was this nice flat area near the ladder that had plenty of room for the three of us to sit on and I was able to take a picture of Diana and Kachi. It was a really funny situation because Kachi was freaking out so much more than I was about my phone being so near the water. Eventually Joceline and her group of friends joined us in the pool and we took lots of silly photos as the sun slowly came out. The sun felt really nice while we were in the cool water. 

We eventually got out and dried off before getting back on the bus to head back to campus. As soon as we got back to campus Diana and I went to the dining hall because we were starving. In the middle of eating, Hoi Ki (a girl from Hong Kong) asks to sit with us. She was interested in the presidential election and we told her about the primaries and the way we vote. That led to us talking about the civil rights movements that happen in Hong Kong. One movement she described was extremely similar to the Black Lives Matter protest in California. We discussed the implications of such protests and how successful they actually were. We both agreed that while such forceful actions are necessary for people to listen it is definitely not the most helpful for thousands of cards and people to be stuck on the freeway for hours while everybody has places to go. It's not helpful when the people stuck on the freeway become hateful towards them for being late to where they are going and stuck in that traffic. Not only that, but it's a huge safety hazard. 

Afterwards, I went back to my room and immediately took a shower. After taking a shower I started doing my reading for the night, which was a relatively short 30 pages. In the middle, I got super tired and kept falling asleep reading so I decided to power nap for 30 minutes, which really helped me work more efficiently when I woke up. I finished the reading after another hour or so and then I wrote about another couple hundred words for my essay. I'm really liking the direction it's taking and think that it'll be pretty good soon. Finally, I started writing my blog and added in all the pretty pictures I took before going to sleep.