This is What I Do When I Should Be Studying...

Well, a little detour never hurt anybody, right?

Now, tell me that doesn't look like me!

ONE

That is, one paper revision and one exam before I've completed one semester of college. Today was our final day of classes, which is a bit of a relief!

At any rate, it's been a while since I last blogged--and for that, I apologize. Here's the newest from Durham:

1. Check out this article on from ESPN.com by Graham Hays about the Duke Women's Basketball Team: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=ncwexperts The season is underway and we're currently 5-1 after last night's victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes. We have another home game on Sunday against Michigan. We've encountered some obstacles as two of our point guards (including our starting PG) are currently out with injuries, but the team is relentless and continues to work hard.

2. I made a brief visit home over Thanksgiving and had a really wonderful time. Mostly, it was good to see familar faces--I got to catch up with dear friends, laugh a lot, stay up late a lot, and eat delicious home made food...what could be better?

3. Moments ago I informed my mother that I intended to rush. *Imagine the reaction I got!* At Duke, we have deferred rush so that freshmen can adjust to college life before deciding if they want to be in sorority or not. I'm not sure if I'll end up pledging but I'm keeping my options open and am looking forward to meeting new people.

4. I rang the 5pm church bells at Duke's Chapel. My Renaissance music class visited the chapel to get a tour of the bells and to watch them be played (they are played daily at 5pm).

5. I registered for next semester's classes...but I'll save that for another post!

6. The dorm is infested with holiday spirit--Christmas lights in the hallway, in people's rooms, decorations on doors, cookie making parties...you name it! It's quite a jolly place.

That about covers things for now...if you're in town in December for the holidays I'd love to see you while I'm home so shoot me an email and we'll be in touch.

Blue Stained Faces...They're Normal When You're a Duke Student

It's true.

If you see someone walking on the quad and their face is tinted blue, its obvious what they were up to. No questions necessary. Clearly they were at the night before's basketball game.

Here's a curve ball for ya though: If you see people walking around today with a stained blue face, they probably just auditioned for a coke zero commercial.

And before you ask that question which is on the tip of your tongue, just think about it for a minute. Would I, die-hard-sports-fanatic-and-spirited-loud-cheerer, really pass up an opportunity to be a crazed duke fan on a national commercial (and make $150 for it)?

That's what I thought.

A Student Specimen

College kids are poor. College kids like money. Duke University researchers, well, they research A LOT.

What does all of that have to do with anything?

I have a plan. Probably the greatest "get rich quick" scheme ever and it's perfect for college kids. There are fliers posted everywhere soliciting studies which are in need of participants. If you take the time to read them you'll learn that each participant is compensated for his or her time and it's never any less than $10/hour. It's pretty easy to make some good money here if you take the time to pull the slips with contact information and send out an email to the researcher to learn more about the study and participation. This morning I completed my first study and am already $10 richer! I have 3 more studies scheduled for the next week and managed to grab more slips.

Now, I don't want anyone to worry. I am not volunteering for any medical clinical trials. Most of the studies are some sort of psych or sociology study and at most require a saliva swab!

I am a student specimen.

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful Covergirl!

First, you should know that my creative juices almost titled this post: Extra! Extra! Read All About it... Between the two, you should get the idea that:

I, (insert my full name here*), was on the cover of today's issue of The Chronicle.

The Chronicle is the daily student newspaper. Generally speaking it does a nice job of covering campus events, issues, studies, sports...you name it, along with some big time stories from the rest of the world that is not Duke University.

So, now that we've established the title of the post and some general Duke knowledge:

Tah-Dah! Your's truly!

So what is this all about? This weekend was Duke's homecoming. In light of such, the alumni association and President Broadhead host "The President's Ball". It's kind of like your high school homecoming dance in the gym, but with a live band and a free bar. Well my dancing partner, Eduardo (a friend who lives down the hall and is from Puerto Rico), and I found ourselves on the dance floor getting our funk on and having ourselves a fine time when the student photographer obviously decided that we were photo worthy. The rest is in the picture...as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words!

A picture of the girls from my hall before heading out:
*The astrisk denotes that internet safety precautions stopped me from typing my full name in this post...mainly to humor my mother who is a little concerned about things like this and was opposed to my blogging in the first place for this very reason! (Don't worry, she's recently come around and told me that she actually enjoys reading my blog.)

The Halls are Alive with the Sound of College-kids!

It's been a little quiet around the dorm recently. Duke undergrads were fortunate to have Monday and Tuesday off for Fall Break, giving us a nice four day weekend. Most students who live in the southeast, northeast and midwest ventured home to see family and friends who might still be around. So yeah, you could say it's been quiet. Tonight was a reunion though and it's safe to say that the halls are alive once again. I left the deserted dorm for basketball practice late afternoon and arrived back to a lively one...people in the hall ways, music spilling over through walls and doors, stories being swapped and laughs shared. Though I did not venture out of the dorms it's good to be "home".

All this talk about break probably begs you to ask the question of what the heck was I up to while everyone was away? Well, there were a few other students stranded here with me...mostly international and west coast kids, but hey, we stuck together and life was good. Friday night a bunch of us went to the men's soccer game. We lost to UNC 2-0...it was disappointing. Saturday I went on an adventure with a group of friends. We hit 9th street, which is our pathetic attempt at a college street. Really though, its kind of cute...just very small (2 blocks, maybe). We also came across a small park. Sunday we went in another direction in Durham to a small shopping area called Brightleaf Square. A lot of the shops and eateries were closed due to it being a Sunday, but we got a nice feel for what it had to offer. Other than that it's been a mixture of hanging out and getting some work done.

All in all, it was a nice to have some down time and a chance to explore the area.

The Basketball season officially kicks off Friday, Homecoming is this weekend and parents and family weekend is the weekend after next. So be sure to stay tuned for a lot of exciting happenings here in Bull City!

The Real Duke Experience

There is only one thing which really challenges academics for students' undivided attention at Duke. It is the reason that students camp out from the first day back from winter break (and in some cases, come back early from winter break) until March. The man in charge in this case is more revered and revered by more students than the "man upstairs" himself. Need another clue? It starts with B and ends with asketball. You guessed it...Duke Basketball.

This morning marked the beginning of what is sure to be a stream of memories by the time I graduate. It marked my beginning of what is surely a most memorable experience of any Duke alum. So, at 4:40 am when my alarm went off I grabbed my backpack for the day, donned my best Duke sweatshirt, wiped the sleep from my eyes and joined the ranks of Cameron Crazies. See, this morning tickets went on "sale" for the exhibition game. Yes, you read that correctly. All of this for an exhibition game. A game which will mean nothing to the selection committee come March, to any AP Poll voter, to our ACC standings and which will not garner us bragging rights in the face of any Tar Heel. All of this for tickets to the exhibition game against Virginia Union. Just who is Virginia Union? Don't ask me. I've never heard of them. All I know is that we will be playing them on October 25th and that I will be at the game with my Dad who will be in town for Parent's and Family Weekend.

So, lets recap...what was all of this madness this morning that got me out of bed at 4:40 am and took me across campus to sit in line for two hours?

Duke Basketball.
'Nough said.









Caption: "Is that the basketball team?" you might be asking yourself. Afterall, they're all wearing matching "warm ups". In fact, that is not the basketball team. Those are our line monitors. It is safe to say that basketball ticketing at Duke is a serious serious business. Something we do not take lightly...and yes, my newest Duke dream is to be a line monitor!

From New York to New Year

So, this past weekend I was in NYC with my Focus program. We met at 4am in pouring rain on Friday to drive to the airport. Once we arrived we did your standard airport things--security, food, check in, etc--and proceeded to the gate to board the plane. Our plane ended up being a really small commuter plane so to board it we had to walk across the tarmac (see picture below). The storm complicated our travel (the plane was overweight) and they needed two volunteers to deplane and catch a flight leaving ten minutes later to laguardia (instead of jfk). For 400 Delta Dollars a very spontaneous Risa, who has always wanted to take advantage of such opportunities, volunteered to join two of her other classmates who volunteered earlier when the flight was overbooked. Well, then plane had to land in Baltimore to get more fuel...we finally made it to NYC. We grabbed a cab with our free ground transportation voucher from Delta and went back to one of the other girls' houses. Before we met up with the group we stopped at a neighborhood diner for some grub. Then we caught up with the rest of our Duke group at JP Morgan's Library and Collection. After that we went to the Museum of Modern Art, which is free on Friday evenings. We spent the night with Jackson, Mark, Pablo, Marc and some other fellows ;) We grabbed some food and called it a night. The next morning we went to the Cloister museum, which was the coolest thing I saw with Focus while on the trip. Basically, before customs really cracked down on this sort of stuff, people stole entire buildings and/or parts of them and made a museum of it in NYC. The architecture was spectacular. On our way back downtown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art spontaneous Risa jumped off the bus when she saw the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. Unbeknownst to her, there was some martial arts competition and the museum was closed :( The guy at the front desk let me in, though, so I walked around and saw cool stuff. I made it back downtown to the Met in time to meet up with the group and see some of the Renaissance exhibit. After a little bit, a few of us left to go find some tickets to a show for that night. A friend and I got some tickets for Gypsy which was starring Patti LuPone and Boyd Gaines. Between getting the tickets and showtime we spent time checking out fifth avenue and the surrounding areas. We also made our way to the top of a sky scraper. All in all, it was a really fabulous trip. Oh, and I'm a public transportation expert.







Back at Duke, it's now Rosh HaShannah. I spent the majority of my time at the Freeman Center (Duke's Hillel). Meals were tasty and services were well attended. Wishes for a wonderful 5769 to family and friends who may be reading this and who are Jewish.







Some New York Pictures: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001310&l=f1a5e&id=1018950065


The cloisters:


Broadway! NYC In Love! (above)/MoMA (below)Me and Jackson Me and AndyMe and MarkBoarding the Plane!

Learning your ABC(D)s

Over the course of this weekend I'll post and share some of my experiences. So here you have it, the ABC(D)s of my weekend: Athletics, Books, Culture and Durham.


I'll unconventionally start with C, culture, because the athletic events I'm hoping to catch are taking place tomorrow and let's be honest, I'm in college and it's a Saturday, so I haven't quite hit the books yet!


Today for my focus program we had the opportunity to go on a field trip of sorts. Since we are medieval and renaissance themed, we checked out a small renaissance reenactment. It's not a big renaissance fair like what you might be picturing, instead think civil war reenactment only a few centuries earlier! It's hosted by an organization called the Society for Creative Anachronism. If you're like my grandparents (Hi, I love you!) and want to learn more about the organization I'll have the links at the end. It was a neat experience. When you arrive they have all sorts of medieval and renaissance garb that you get all dressed up in. Then we just kind of explored. We met the King and Queen (I'm not really sure how all of this works, but I do know that the King wins his kingship in some sort of fight/battle and reigns for six months) and a bunch of other people. Some friends and I struck up a conversation with a blacksmith and watched him craft for a while. When I asked if I could try he said sure, pulled out a new rod of metal and let me go at it. He taught me how to make a sun pendant (basically, a spiral) and let me take it home. It was really quite fun and if I may say so, I wasn't half bad.

Some students and professors all dressed in pre-17th century attire.


His (above) and Her (below) Majesties.

Hard at work blacksmith-ing.

Me and the Blacksmith with my finished necklace pendant (better picture below)

And the links: http://www.sca.org/ (general organization)
http://www.atlantia.sca.org/ (the kingdom which includes North Carolina)


More later...
--------------------------------------------------------------
Take Two:
As your typical college kid, my plans changed and I did not end up at our fieldhockey or women's soccer games (though we won both!). In light of this, A is now for Art and B is now for Benches...

A is for Art: Durham held it's annual arts and culture fair Saturday and Sunday of last weekend. It was within walking distance of campus so a friend and I decided to go check it out. We arrived to find a number of local artists of all mediums, concession stands, live music and nonprofit and community organizations set up. It wasn't a First Fridays sort of deal, like I was hoping, but I did enjoy myself. I also bought three new buttons/pins for my button covered purse, so all was not lost.

B is for Benches: Benches are staple of East Campus (where Freshmen live) life. Each dorm has its very own bench out front which was made by students who lived in that dorm in prior years. We hope to have the chance to build our own bench later this year. See, it is customary that when (not if; when) Duke beats UNC in men's basketball at home the benches find themselves serving an important role in our bon fires. Until then, though, we have a beautiful newly painted bench. Pictures of the final product below (well, it seems that I'll have to upload them later when the internet isn't being shotty).

To Frisbee or to Rugby, That is the Question

Outside of classes and my basketball commitments I'm getting involved in other aspects of campus life. At the activities fair a few weeks ago I learned about the opportunity to play a club sport here at Duke. I wanted to have an athletic and intense outlet of my own, so I looked in to it some more. They offer the traditional basketball, soccer, softball, etc but also have ultimate frisbee and rugby teams. I didn't want to participate in the cross country one because I'm a little burnt out of all of that and thought it'd be fun to pick something new and a little off the wall. I decided I'd choose between ultimate frisbee and rugby. After going to a practice and looking at the competition and practice schedules of each, I finally decided that I wanted to be on the ultimate frisbee team. The team is called Charkra, which I think is just really cool. It's an all girls team and has players with all levels of experience and who are undergraduate and graduate students at Duke. So far, I'm loving it. My roommate, Katy, is doing it too, so that's fun for the two of us.

Until next time, Chak-raaaaaa!

Staying Classy

So I've fielded a lot of questions about the classes I'm taking and I've decided to dedicate this post to talk about them.

First though, I must say, that my schedule is really fantastic. I'm out of class every day by at least 1pm and most days I'm out before then. I also only have two early mornings with 8:30 classes.

Now on to the actual classes.

Two of my classes are part of the Focus program. Basically (don't hold your breath, this is a lengthy explanation), The Focus Program is a program especially for freshman at Duke. Within the program there are 10 clusters each of which is focused on some topic (ranging from engineering and healthcare to islam, medieval/rennaisance,neurobiology, humankind, etc). In each cluster there are 32ish students and four interdisciplinarian classes. Each student takes 2 of the courses (15ishkids each) and a general discussion dinner with everyone. In addition to these classes, each cluster lives together (but not exclusively...the 32 kids in my Focus are integrated along with the other 120 kids in my dorm). All of that was a long explanation to say that I'm in the Medieval and Renaissance Focus Cluster. Of the four offered classes within my cluster, I'm taking a British literature class which examines writings from medieval times which dealt with the idea of a utopia and a class on music in renaissance England. Both are really interesting and are completely different from anything I've ever taken before or anything I'll take in the next four years.

I'm also taking an intro to econ class, which I love a lot and a sports business class, which provides some insight into what I might be getting myself into in the future.

I guess when we talk about classes, the next question is about the professors, so I'll say this: All of my professors are really fantastic. They're all passionate about their subjects, very knowledgeable and teach well in their respective settings (seminar vs. lecture, etc).

Until next time...go blue devils!

"Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End..."

I've been at Duke for a little while now, but as I become more and more comfortable and acclimated it feels like this has been home for a long time. I moved in two weeks ago yesterday, which is bizarre and things are in full swing. To catch people up, I'll compile a list of exciting happenings...

1. On the second or third night that I was here I went out to dinner with some people I met at this jazz thing. We went across the street to Whole Foods and it started raining. Once it slowed we decided to dash back to the dorms. I continued on to my dorm and continued some more...and some more...and some more. Seems I didn't quite know my way around campus yet, especially not at night in a storm, and with no one out to ask for directions I had a nice tour of the surroundings. I surrendered to the rain and had a good laugh about it with my hallmates when I finally got back. One of many freshman moments to come, I'm sure.

2. I'm a manager for the women's basketball team here. They're a phenomenal squad and we've got our eyes set on the national championship, so stay tuned. You can find the schedule here: http://www.goduke.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&KEY=&SPID=1846&SPSID=22762

3. I've survived my first week of classes...and the first weekend. If you want to see pictures, take a peek at my facebook album, which you can access (even without an account), here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001210&l=3576d&id=1018950065
I'll continue to update that album periodically as more pictures become available...when it's full and I have to switch to a new album I'll post that link up in a post for you. Right now it has some pictures from orientation week, an 80's themed night out and the first football game of the season (see below).

4. Saturday was the first football game of the season. After a 75 minute rain delay, we won a home game for the first time in 3 years and the season opener for the first time since 2002. I can't say enough about the school spirit here at Duke.

5. Everyone in my dorm is great. We all hang out a lot and do lots of cool stuff together.

6. I almost went out for the varsity crew team, before my hallmates talked some sense into me. Well, they mostly listened and offered some wisdom, but I was crazed for half a day (ask my parents!!).

7. There is always something going on here. The campus is just buzzing with excitement 24/7.

8. I heard Maya Angelou speak. She was the keynote speaker to wrap up our Orientation experience. She's been coming to Duke for over 15 years now, I think. Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I look forward to being in touch...shoot me an email if you want: rfi@duke.edu or leave comments to any posts.

I think that sums up the beginnings of college so until next time...GO BLUE DEVILS.