~ Where Has The Time Gone~

Today was my final day in class. I am actually really sad, I am going to miss the memories, the campus, and especially the people. Their wasn't really a class discussion everyone just talked a little about the reading overall we have done and that it, it got short. In lecture however, we had a mini ceremony for the students who couldn't come to the graduation tomorrow. After the ceremony we talked about improvements that could be made with the course which I suggested to lay off the reading of one book because it was very repetitive and any time we watched videos in the course have the videos more interactive. Another suggestion that was made was a group presentation instead of the final essay because their is a lot of writing in this course so it would be good to change it up a little.

In the end I took so much from this course I learned about leadership in depth not the general concept of it. I learned so many steps and also what an effective leader must do as in skills or actions. Leaders must always start off with a clear vision, they must enact a strategy or a plan, keep good communication with everyone and recognize hard work and keep up an encouraging environment. These things one might read and assume it is self explanatory,but it is so much more to it. Their is steps to how you must enact each skill.If you sometimes miss a stage everything can go wrong. This course just makes me think about all my decisions more now and helped developed skills that I can put to use in my community, school, and future career. I really loved this class because I feel empowered and more confident I honestly feel like I am on top of the world. It is hard to explain how I feel because so many emotions are all over the place, but I am so happy that I was allowed the opportunity to come to Cornell and take this class. 

After I said my goodbyes to the class a couple of the students and I went to go with our professor Mark to lunch and have our final conversation. It was a good final chat with everyone. I am so happy Mark was my professor because he really is a nice professor and a awesome guy . He is one of the few professors who I can tell actually cares about his students and want to see them succeed in the future.

Diana, I , and Kachi

After the lunch I went with Kachi and Diana to the commons which if you don't recall is downtown Ithaca. I bought this beautiful Alice in Wonderland poster that looked very vintage and unique and I could not help myself, so I had to get it.Downtown has a Berkeley feel to it a lot of things are vintage and unique and almost a hippy feel if you will.

After we went to college town to go get some food together for the last time sadly.We came back to the dorm and I finished my final tweaks on my essay and even took a quick nap. I finally went to the other dorm on campus and hanged out with a giant group of friends that I am going to miss. After it got late I went back to spend my final night with Kachi having  a dance party and laughing about memories. The one good thing though is I met Kachi through this program and we are going back together and she does not live far from me. So I made a new friend who is back at home at least I can take a part of Cornell's memories back with me.

Dawn of the End

With waking up came the sad realization that today was the last full day I'd get to spend with  my new friends. I went for a run with Paula and afterwards we talked about the regret of not running everyday since the first week. It made me realize it had really been such a long time since we met.

Breakfast was even more crowded than usual because most people had their finals at 9 or 10 AM. As usual, I did my routine and then went to class. I went to office hours to print out my negative constructive and get some help studying for the final. I ate my last lunch at Trillium, and I wish it would've been the same as my first one, but it wasn't. I went to my final nervous, but actually feeling like I knew the material. I sat down, and after Sam gave out the students that wouldn't be at graduation tomorrow their certificate. Rubin and Armands handed out the tests and the rest is a horror story. The midterm was a simple and straight-forward test, and this one was quite the opposite. 

In about an hour, I was done, because yet again I answered everything I knew and the ones I didn't know I made my best guess. I said goodbye's and thank you's to Sam and Rubin, Armands was MIA. I went to my dorm to relax before whatever my friends and I were going to do, being our last day. I picked up my return key envelope at Appel, and I went to Donlon to wait for everyone. We were probably in our friend Salvador's room for about an hour making plans. Some wanted to go swimming at Treman since it was still open and others go bowling. In the end, we walked to College Town Bagles and then took a bus to the Commons. We hung around the Commons for a while until we tried to go get some Mexican food at Viva! The wait for 10 people was 30 or more minutes. so we went to a place called Madeline's across the street. It was basically fine dining, which was nice for a change. The food options were mostly Italian or Japanese. I ended up ordering some beef skewers and a house salad, which had a delicious dressing and duck prosciutto. We had a really good time during dinner, and we even raised our cups to the amazing time we all had together.

My house salad

Extremely delicious creme brulee

The restaurant offered a variety of desserts, and Keith decided to go check them out. He came back raving about the fact they had chocolate Crème brûlée, and of course I got up from my seat too to check it out. Eva and I decided to share one, and Keith and Doug got one as well. It was delicious, ten out of ten would recommend. We all paid our check and left the restaurant. Outside, we took a group picture, which will be added as soon as it's sent to me, and we met our friend Eva's parents. She's from The City, so they were able to drive out here. Paula and I still wanted to go to the observatory, because she was very sadly leaving at 9 PM. The soonest bus was at 8:30 PM, so we knew we weren't going to make it and I felt really bad.

On the bus back to campus, we all sat pretty quietly as our last night came to an end. Everyone but Eva, Paula, and me got off the bus at the stop by Libe Slope for one last sunset. Eva and I wanted to go to Paula all the way to Balch, because her dad was already there to pick her up. As much as we made an effort not to, the tears still spilled. We all hugged and cried even harder. It was a very difficult moment, since she lived across the hall for me for three weeks we became very close friends. She's a hilarious person and I'm going to miss having that around so frequently. She had to go, so Eva and I went to catch the sunset at Libe Slope. We took more group pictures and just hung out on the slope. There was a brief crying session there too since so many are leaving at 7 AM. We all wish we could stay together for another three weeks, but our time is up.

It was already pretty dark, so we decided to finish our night at the Donlon 5th floor lounge. We sat around, listened to music, and just talked among each other. We stayed there until it was almost midnight so we had to go check-in to our respective halls. Being there made it feel like it wasn't the last night. Yet, it is and we won't be seeing each other again for a while. It's difficult to come to terms with, and it makes me anxious for when I'm in college and that's what life will be like.

Last Night

I took my final today and hopefully I did well. The final was not as bad as it could have been. The tests I took during this class weren't necessarily difficult because if you understood the concepts then you were fine, but there were definitely a lot of concepts to memorize. 

Afterwards, I met up with Janisse, Hillary, and Nadia at Trillium (dining hall only available at lunch). We all headed to Cornell's Dairy Bar to celebrate finishing these three weeks. Janisse and Hillary had to go meet with the administration and so Nadia and I went to Uris Library. This was the first time I had been inside any of Cornell's libraries and it was honestly extremely beautiful. The way the work stations were set up made it very private for the worker and generally had a good view. 

We then went to the design and immersion's students exhibit. Their final project was a lamp. It was super cool because the main shape of all the lamps were constructed from paper. The lamp I took a picture of was the only lamp that you could interact with. The girl who designed it wanted it to be different compared to regular lamp, which she feels she achieved. 

Nadia, Janisse, Hillary, and I later all met up to go to dinner. After dinner we went to the study lounge on the second floor of Donlon (the floor my room is on) and we all played mafia with a bunch of other girls who wanted to play as well. It was super fun this time because we all knew how to play. It was super funny because every time I was the mafia, meaning the other mafia and I choose who we want to "kill" for the night, I would choose to kill Nadia. Nadia would also get killed every time she was mafia. We played a bunch of rounds before Nadia, Janisse, Hillary, and I went outside to kick a soccer ball around. I was super apprehensive at first because I'm super scared of getting hit by a ball and I have pretty slow reflexes, but it ended up being pretty fun. My foot hurt a little when kicking it because we were playing barefoot and I kicked it with my toe instead of the side of my foot a couple of times. We then walked to the observatory to look at the stars. There weren't too many we could see, but it was still super cool. It's kind of really sad because just as I was getting really close with these girls, it's already time for us to leave. Though, I do think that anytime I'm in New York I would definitely try to meet up with them. 

Studying For Finals

We went over the social self and how there isn't a self without others. There isn't because there would be nothing to compare ourselves to to understand what we ourselves are as people. During the discussion we went over questions that were emailed to review for tomorrow's final. After eating lunch, I went to the last seminar. This seminar was given by Cayuga Addiction Rehabilitation Services (CARS). They had three in patients come and tell us their stories. It was very enlightening and interesting listening to all of those people's stories. All of the three started their addiction and went to prison at least once due to a large trauma in their life. It kind of opened up my perspective on people who go to prison because they weren't bad people, but they just had a bad experience that they didn't know how to deal with. 

Janisse, Hillary, Nadia (left to right) 

After that I went back to my dorm and saw that a bunch of people were in my room. There was nadia from New York (my roommate), Janisse from New York, Hillary from New York, and Jordan from Belgium. They were all over so we could study together. I've never really done group studying sessions before. So, it was definitely an interesting experience. A lot of talking was done, but it was still productive and kept my mind from getting too irritated from constant studying. After about two hours we went to dinner and this was pretty exciting because I got ice cream. We then went back and studied some more. 

I made a quizlet again and we were studying and talking. After a awhile some other girls from my floor came and did Jordan's makeup. It was super fun to watch. Nadia, Janisse, and I don't really use any makeup, so we were all sitting there in a completely different world. We got hungry and tired of studying so we ordered from College Town Bagels. I got a bagel with sausage, hashbrown, egg, and bacon. It was really good. I heard that their bagels were really good and I had to try it before I left Ithaca. Right after we finished eating, I spent the next hour and a half or so going over my quizlet again to make sure I knew this week's information. I also looked over the last two weeks quizlets because there's a cumulative multiple choice final with essay questions from this week. The amount of information I had to memorize and know was massive and kind of overwhelming, but I really didn't have any time to freak out because then I wouldn't have been able to know it all without staying up super late. 

~ Close to the End~

Today I woke up around 7:30 AM to go into discussion where all we talked about was how the training course was. I really liked the trust that was formed being there with every one and all the encouragement that came with it. After the discussion we went into the lecture room where our professor just went over guidelines on what he expects to see in our essay that is due on Friday night. He just added onto making sure you support your claim with evidence and forming a clear thesis statement. Than after the guidelines and making sure everyone was on the same page we surprisingly got our Essay 2 back. I got another A-, but now it was a 92%, so I went up two percent from my last essay and all my comment on how to improve is just to work on rephrasing my essay, but the arguments and evidence were extremely clear and that is what pushed me up to get an A-, so if I can just work on rephrasing and making the essay sound better I can get that A.

After class I went straight to my dorm to take a nap because I slept really late the previous day to work on my essay. From there I went straight to the library and stayed there to work on it and after I went to dinner with Kachi and Diana and we proceeded to do a picnic outside and we bought food. 

We finally got back to the dorm and watched Shark Tank ate our food and now I am back to working on my essay.

Having to Detach

Today was almost very routine-like, I went for a run, had breakfast, showered and got dressed, and went to the ILR library to do research for my negative constructive. As I walked outside of the ILR building to go to Trillium, it was pouring rain. I was feeling lazy that morning so I only had sandals on and considered just not eating lunch because the rain was so heavy. Luckily, I'm in Ithaca so within 3 minutes it stopped raining and I was good to go. I found that Sam was having lunch with a bunch of students so I joined in. The topic of conversation was a debate team that was debating the actual format of Policy debate, and how privileged kids were able to go to debate camps and such so they had an advantage in debating. I don't know the whole story, but apparently they went to collegiate competitions and beat Northwestern.

In class, we continued discussion about similar things. We first went over the syllabus and Sam asked if we felt like we had really met the objectives. Most of us said yes for almost everything. He also said there are two important things in life, to never give up and think for yourself. We also spent some of the class going over framing and watched videos about it. We also got on the topic of racism, because of everything that has been going on lately. There's even racism in debate sometimes, and that's why the format of Policy is being fought. It was a very interesting and engaging lecture. That's what I love about the class, we still talk about current events and what's happening in the world, in addition to sharing our experiences and opinions. The subject matter for debate is so broad, and I don't think you can experience such broad topics in any other class.

Henry, the current Cornell under-grad, shared with us an article from the Atlantic, by Ta-Nehisi Coates and it really talks about everything that has been going on. Makes me realize I probably should be reading the newspaper more often, they have some great writers. After class, he offered to give us tour of Statler Hall, since he is in the Hotel School. The building is very modern and beautiful, but the tour was more than that. He recommended classes from the Hotel School that even if we're majoring in something else, we should really take. The cool thing is that apparently you can be a hospitality lawyer through the Hotel School, and I had no idea. The Hotel School allows a lot of flexibility with the classes you can take and almost every "hotelie" has a job right after graduating. I didn't think Hotel Operations and Hospitality was for me, but the school seems like a good fit.

Menu at Pizza Aroma

Pupusaaaaas

Amelia, Rachel, and I went to the library to either work or watch Netflix. Personally, I worked. Once I was done and satisfied, I met up with Paula only to find out hiking club wasn't happening today. We went up to our friend Eva's room in Donlon and decided to go the Commons. My friend Valeria had told us there was a place that sold Pupusas, which is a Salvadorian food. Paula and Eva had both never tried them so I was excited to have them try Pupusas out. The place is called Pizza Aroma, which doesn't sound too Latino, but on the outside it had the photo of Pupusas, Tamales, Albondigas, and other Latino foods. Not just that, but they were playing lots of Mexican music. We got our food and I was content with it, they weren't exactly like the ones I usually eat, but it was impossible for them to be. Paula and Eva really liked them too.

Super yummy, so worth it

Afterwards, we wandered into a Movie Poster store, which was extremely cool. A lot of the posters seemed vintage, and were probably really expensive. They also sold comic and anime books among DVDs and VHS. I loved the store, a lot. It had a lot of character and you don't really see Movie Poster stores often. Then, I got ice cream at 15 below, and it was a large amount but delicious. We were in the Commons for about 2 hours until it was getting dark so we caught the bus back to campus.

Once back on campus, we went up to Donlon to hang out. Our friend Victoria came in and she was really emotional about going back home. I think all of us present almost started crying, because we've gotten so close these past three weeks and it's hard to say goodbye. 

Last Day of Lecture

It was a very different day for me today. Today was the last day of the behavior economics unit, and the last day of lecture overall for my class. I was really excited to finally finish with all my lectures for the class. I also got all the grades for my memos so now all that I have to wait on is for my final group presentation on my public policy (addressing the drug overdose epidemic in North Dakota). After my class, I had walked with Diana, from Minnesota, to Donlon to just hang out and wait for our meetings with our groups. After two hours of waiting and learning Russian from Diana, I had met with my group to discuss the final logistics of my group project. I'm hoping my presentation comes out very well since I worked really hard on the research of it.

After working with my group for a few hours I eventually went to chill out on the grass with both Dianas (Minnesota and California) and listened to music as we relaxed. It was a great way to de-stress after such a stressful couple of weeks.

Tomorrows also my graduation for my class (just found out that it was moved) so I'm really excited to see how it goes.