I am done.

This morning I took my communications final and I just submitted my final paper for my Research Based Argument assignment for PWR. I am so relieved to be done. This afternoon will be filled with chillin (as Thomas says). Plus, doing laundry, packing, returning books, and cleaning. I am excited for all of it though because my brain can finally rest.

If you are interested, I attached my final paper below. It is lengthy, but I believe many of you would find it very interesting. I analyze the impact of Twitter on politics. My argument is that despite the fact that Twitter has increased participation, the hopes of online communication benefitting the ideal of an educated and informed Democracy have failed. Instead, Twitter enhances a less logical view of politics and the increase in participation is only due to people feeling more involved in the process. As a result, Twitter continues the trend of Democracy being more about winning elections than educated people making decisions that are for their best interest.

https://docs.google.com/a/stanford.edu/document/d/1laPQ6kJZZMyMiYAYqGG2NrVuNMhu5ycE8RhXfQ9U49U/edit

Final #1

I have my very first college final in 1 hour and a half. I prepared well, I took the practice final, went over my notes, and checked my answers. I feel like I could have done more but of course it always feels like there is more to study. Last night I relaxed before bed, watching pieces of Iron Man (to get pumped up) and then Pride and Prejudice (to relax and be at peace). I got 8.5 hours of sleep and woke up this morning feeling refreshed even though I was very jittery going to bed. I ate breakfast, took a shower, got dressed in my dad's Stanford sweatpants (because he aced his CS when he wore them) and finished printing out my notes for the final. I did some jumping jacks to get oxygen to my brain and then yoga to set my mind at peace and give thanks for my hard work and all that I have in this world. I am drinking tea now and talking with you. I will have lunch and then like over with friends to the final. I have been saying, "Break a Brain!" to all my friends with finals and now I can say it to myself. Let's Go!

Motivating Distractions

Facebook presents all these wonderful opportunities for students to support each other through finals week. Everyone has inspirational videos and quotes and comments to share that everyone gets pumped for. One problem, I am now spending too much time on inspiration, and not enough time on perspiration. So I will continue my distractions by sharing some of them with you.

Here is a site of the 5 inspirational movie clips to get you through finals week. Mom? Good Will Hunting is in here.

http://www.brobible.com/college/article/inspirational-videos-finals-week-grind

Here is a calming site. You can summon different calming manatees by clicking the button below the picture. There are quite of few of them. Very peaceful.

http://calmingmanatee.com/19

stanfordguyproblems.tumblr.com has some good memes and gifs about finals week as well.

Here is a pep talk from kid president. He is awesome :)

http://youtu.be/l-gQLqv9f4o

Aragorn's speech at the Black Gate at the end of the Return of the King. EPIC!

http://youtu.be/EXGUNvIFTQw

This site sums up thesis into one sentence lines. I wish I could have said my 20 page paper in just one sentence. It would have been awesome.

http://lolmythesis.tumblr.com/

This has to be the best one of all!!! Makes me laugh and smile over and over.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbellassai/the-absolute-greatest-dog-gifs-of-2013?fb_action_ids=702831926395157&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B624769247586736%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

That's what I have for now. I am sure I will find more though.

All grown up

This morning I cut my grapefruit all by myself :) You taught me well daddy! Now I can do it!

My id holder zipper broke off from my lanyard. I was so upset because my entire life is in that pouch and what is attached to my keys. But not to worry, my dad sent me a leatherman and I fixed it! Yay!

Pampered for finals

Our PHE (Peer Health Educator) in our dorm, hired two massage therapists to teach our dorm how to give swedish massages to help us decompress before finals. What a wonderful break from studying! Many people giggled far too much, but we still had a relaxing time. I feel so fortunate to have these kinds of opportunities here. Plus, I feel a little spoiled as well. Though I got to say, I have enough stress to need that massage for sure.

Intellectual Thoughts - Why won't you leave me alone!!

So I am writing my big, giant, end-of-the-quarter paper for PWR. I was getting a little stuck and so I switched to a different screen for a second. As I was doing so, I made the connection that I was aroused by the idea of task-switching which we discussed in my communications class a week ago. I mean SERIOUSLY!, I can't even be distracted from my work without thinking about school. To elaborate: we discussed multitasking. There are two forms of multitasking, dual processing and task switching. Both are bad and make one less effective at work because attention has to be divided between tasks. What is interested about my scenario tonight is the idea of why people constantly switch between tasks. Based on tests with measuring arousal through some scientific thing on your skin, there is a 12 second period of increased arousal before switching tasks. It exists between ANY task switching except from entertainment to work, which I think makes perfect sense. I am not looking forward to going back to work after this wonderful blog post :) But I will do it. Anyway, so people can enter into this "hunting" stage, where they are constantly task switching in order to receive more arousal. However, this does not help productivity. Therefore, I am learning to close my other windows while I work on one thing and only another window up when I am committing to another task for a little while. I am also trying to make sure not to dual multitask because it makes you worse at multitasking and actually damages your brain. This is such powerful and important research for my generation. Few accept it, but they actually need to in order to remain adept at their work.

Yesterday was..... GAME DAY!

PAC12 CHAMPIONS!!! WOO!! ROSE BOWL BOUND! I won't be able to go but many of my friends will be there on January 1st. I will be bringing all the Stanford football traditions home to my family. They can gawk at my craziness.

Dorm Days

We were being silly, and decided to straighten Thomas' hair. Fun times :)

Is this a job?

Friday night Cardinal Nights put on a free concert in Memorial Auditorium (known as MemAud). So, of course, I had to work it. It was really fun. I got a snazzy production badge so that I was allowed backstage and wherever I wanted. I got to watch the concert and meet the band beforehand. Awesome night!!

Here is one of their popular songs if you are interested.

Done with class!!

Yay! My classes are done for my first fall quarter of freshman year. Now I am just cracking down on a final essay and studying for my two finals for next week. Looking forward to it? Maybe? I am certainly ready to go home for Winter Break though. I am ready to see my animals, friends, family, and Albuquerque :)

Mega Primal Scream

During Dead Week, the week before finals, there is are screams from all around campus at midnight each night. Everyone opens up their windows and screams at the top of their lungs to clear the stress and frustration building up at the end of the quarter. Yesterday, I was really really ready to let it all out. Some people in my dorm ventured out into the freezing (I am not joking, it really was freezing) cold Wilbur field and screamed as we ran all the way across the field at midnight. Felt good :)

Dessert Progressive

To help us get through finals, our dorm staff organized a dessert progressive after house meeting tonight. Each staff member had a different dessert in their room and you went from room to room filling up on delicious snacks and treats to keep you studying. Aaron's room had milk and cookies; Ethan's room had strawberries, grapes, chocolate, and apple cider; Ben's room had pie; Orie's room had cupcakes; Baffour's room had cinnamon rolls and gingerbread cookies; Sarah's room had buckeyes, peanut butter chocolate covered dough things. It was really nice and sweet of them. I love our staff so much.

Merry Christmas!

Last night we decorated the lounge for the season. Here is our beautiful Christmas tree, all lit and snow covered. Before those greenery above was hung up, we used it to jump rope. And that snow that is sitting so beautifully on the tree? Well it was thrown around in an epic snowball fight "Stanford style" (cause we won't get real snow :) ). There was fresh baked cookies and hot apple cider. We made snowflakes out of coffee filters and sung our hearts out to Christmas music. What a wonderful night with the Cedro family after hours in the library. 

Happy Holidays!

Isn't it beautiful. This is an entirely edible ginger bread house of Memorial Church (we call it MemChu). It is located in the Arrillaga dining hall. 

Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah!

We lit the candles, sang songs, made latkes, and ate jelly donuts for the fifth night of Hanukkah last night. We celebrated with those who had grown up in a traditional Jewish household, have been raised with reform Judaism, or simply enjoy wonderful food. It was really nice and a great study break in the night. Happy Hanukkah!

Game Day!

Although the Stanford vs. Cal Big Game itself was not too exciting because we won 63-13!!!! (Ty Montgomery with 5 touchdowns!!), Oregon lost to Arizona which means we won the PAC 12 North, meaning we go to the PAC 12 Championship!!! YAY! During the game today everyone was checking the Oregon Score and starting chanting ARIZONA when they scored and then especially when they won the game. It was really exciting.

SNRAGG - Oh college...

Our Dorm Presidents, Thomas and Triple, asked us we wanted to do Secret Santa inside our dorm for dead week as a holiday festivity. For any of those who don't know, Secret Santa is where you anonymously get someone a couple inexpensive gifts to be fun and thoughtful.

Jordan, "That's fine, but can we please call it something that is inclusive of all religions. We have a lot of jews in the dorm. Thanks."

Fast forward to next house meeting.

Thomas and Triple (with the most serious face you could think of), "Anyone who would like to participate in SNRAGG, Secret Non-Religiously Associated Gift Giver, needs to email us by the end of the week."

Entire dorm erupts in laughter.

Thomas and Triple, "Guys. We're are serious."

Here is the great thing about this:
I totally understand why Jordan spoke up. Religious minorities often experience a lack of respect for their traditions during the holiday season. They would like to participate in the fun activities but would like to do so without it being associated with one particular religion. When I was little, anytime someone would tell me Merry Christmas, I would very loudly tell them that I was Jewish and we celebrate Hanukkah.
However, it has also become a joke (especially in youth culture) to be politically correct. People think its unnecessary and pointless. They say, "It's not a big deal." Often, when people are asked to be politically correct, they think it's work and really just prefer to call it what it feels like to them.
Thomas and Triple made it comfortable for everyone. They turned the situation into a joke that the whole dorm loves. We love SNRAGG. (By the way, we pronounce schnragg) We love the title. It's an inside joke. No one is offended either way. It's fantastic. I love the creativity and respect that our dorm has for each other. It is extremely valuable.

Bugs

The computer one. Check out this cool bug though.

I am writing a computer program that graphs the most popular baby names over time. So I have to display a graph. It looks good: :)

Another part of the program is that the window is supposed to be adjustable, so when the user changes the size of the window, the graph adjusts itself so that it looks the same. However, when I change the window size a couple of times in different ways, this is what my program looks like:

Instead of changing my code, I think I should just change the assignment to be creating a barcode picture :P

Just keep writing, Just keep writing, Just keep writing, writing, writing (Finding Nemo Reference!)

Hot apple cider and popcorn to supplement my paper writing. Good idea? I think yes!

For your entertainment, here is the video clip that I talk about in the introduction to my Research Based Argument Paper on Twitter. 

Here is the first segment:

http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/10/jon-stewart-crushes-cnn-non-commital-good-thing-bad-thing-analysis/

Followed by this segment:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-october-29-2013/good-badfellas---good-thing-or-bad-thing-?xrs=share_copy

Together, well, it's just pretty darn funny.

It's raining, It's pouring, The New Mexican Loves It!

Our first day of rain here at Stanford. When I am cozied up inside it is beautiful and lovely. However, riding bikes in the rain is not so fun. You get really wet and there is nothing to do about it. Well, I guess that's not true, you need a rain jacket, and I don't have one. Oops. 

Inconceivable! Professor Glasser and Vizzini

We had a guest lecture today in communications. Professor Ted Glasser talked to us about Freedom of the Press and Freedom of the Speech. It was very interesting and I learned a lot. He showed that freedom of the press is more important in American society than freedom of speech because of the inherent tradition, meaning, and logic behind the way we look at freedom of speech and press. Essentially, because our society values the information in the marketplace over publicly supported information, the only way to speak to the public is through the press because no one will hear what is said in public. It is more complicated than that but I have a paper to write. Anyway, I thought he sounded like Vizzini from the Princess Bride. Thanks to YouTube, I can provide ample evidence for my point. Here is a long video of Professor Ted Glasser speaking about Media and then some clips from The Princess Bride. I really just thought his intonation was extremely similar, but maybe I a hearing things.  

How to make a sick girl smile

Our dining hall hosted a fancy chef tonight for dining. We also had a guest speaker in the dorm, Dr. William Dement, who is the Father of Sleep and Dreams research. He teaches a class in the winter and spring called Sleep and Dreams where you get extra credit for falling asleep in his class because then he can use you for research by waking you up. I am not taking the class because I can't fall asleep in class and I don't like missing out on extra credit opportunities ;) silly me. But hearing about the importance of sleep was valuable and interesting. Back to the food:

Pictured here is vegetable curry over rice, sesame ball, two kinds of mochi, cucumber and pineapple salad, cous cous (not part of the fancy chef menu), and coconut ice cream (my favorite!). I also had a serving of green tea ice cream and a thai iced tea. Yay! Luckily my appetite was better than it has been with my headaches and it put me in a little better mood from all the stress from work. 

Violet

I saw Violet the musical today. Violet was put on by a group called At the Fountain Theatricals. The show was fantastic. It was so innovative. The show itself traveled. It began and ended on a bus and instead of changing sets, the show changed rooms for different scenes. It was really incredible. The cast was really talented, some great voices. 

A moment of silence... Almost

I am watching the beginning of Forrest Bump. I saw the end on Thursday after work but now I am relaxing with the beginning.

A moment of silence

It grieves me to say that the dorm is in mourning from our loss. Very painful. We changed out of game day gear, into mourning clothes, black. Everyone went to bed early. It is dreadfully sad. Goodnight.

Dorm days: FINALLY!

Guess what? We finally had the quintessential dorm conversation, about Religion. Last night, after Frosh Formal, many of the dorm residents sat down and talked about religion. Kevin actually initiated this discussion. He said, "Let's talk about religion." We all sat in the lounge, it was around 1:00am and began by all introducing our views and how we grew up with religion. There was some variety though most people identified as agnostic, believing in a high power but rejecting the idea of organized religion and not really knowing what the Truth is. Others were Roman Catholic, culturally Jewish, orthodox Jewish, Atheist, Protestant, and Buddhist. Once we introduced ourselves, we began to talk in this very polite and meaningful manner. No one was offended and no one was rude. Everyone got their chance to speak and everyone had different views to offer. Many had also had very little experience with religion and had many questions for those who really cared about their religion. The conversation mainly focused on Christianity. I would like to have another conversation where we talk more about the other religions and perhaps their relationships to each other. I am really happy we had this discussion though. Everyone was moved by it. I went to sleep at 3:30am because I had to wake up at 9 for a meeting. Everyone else was awake until around 4:30am. Don't worry, we all say it was worth it!

So yes, I went to a dance and just had fun. We being silly and just letting go. Smiling and singing (to what I consider not very great music but that's not important right now) and hanging out. And then we sat down and discussed religion into the late hours of the night. Gotta love that college!

Frosh Formal: Making us feel like we are in high school and then making us realize that college is so much better.

We had Frosh Formal last night, a formal dance for freshman. We all got dressed up and headed out for a fun evening of dancing. It is very much like prom or homecoming in high school. With a few differences.

• There was this beautiful entrance to the dance. A red carpet! 
• Most people don't have dates to Frosh Formal. So it is much more about your friends and dancing together and having a good time. There was actually very little grinding at the dance. Everyone was just with friends and having a good time. 
• Frosh Formal is less expensive. At my high school, tickets were about $30 a person for the dances. HA! I paid ten. (I don't think college students would ever be ok with $30 / person)
• Dinner is free. Dinner in the dining halls :) haha or many of us went to Shabbat for dinner at Hillel, which means it was completely completely free, meaning my parents hadn't paid for it on my meal plan. 
• Frosh Formal has food. In high school, sometimes there wasn't even enough water (no water fountains and they ran out of cups for the water coolers and you couldn't bring your own water because it might be alcohol). Frosh Formal had lemonade and water and didn't run out of cups. Plus, there were cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and chocolate covered strawberries all night long. 
• The DJ was awesome. He did a great job of mixing older music and newer stuff. In addition, mixing main stream and well known music with some other stuff as well. Also no repeats. It was great. The music was perfect for dancing :)
• The decorations were great. There was a projector showing pictures of Venice (the theme was Venetian Masquerade) as well as white tablecloth covered tables with roses on them. Set the mood for Gangnam Style really well. (Yes, that was sarcastic). 

I am sure I will think of more awesome things to say about it, but that is all I have for now. So here are some pictures. There may be more to come as well.

Some of the girls looking beautiful.

Just me. 

Triple was the pre-dance entertainment. 

Some of the guys looking sharp. 

Non-posed. For my mom :)

Maddie and I had a mini Game of Thrones photo shoot.

WGOT!

The attempt at getting everyone in the picture. 

My shoes :)

Kaya and I. And a photo-bomb, by Daniel! 

Come on... seriously... is this a job?

I had work on Thursday night. It was an event at Rockin Jump, a company like sky high. The whole place is made of trampolines and foam pits. So I jumped on a trampoline for three hours. Yep. nuf said.

An Academic Episode - Cultural Literacy Challenge

In my writing class we took a cultural literacy test, for fun. Comment below with how many of these people who know who they are (what they significance is) and suggestions for other prominent people who are at the top of their field and who are in their prime. Also think about people outside of pop culture and only modern day people. For example, I thought it was wrong that there weren't any athletes or philosophers. So my list includes Roger Federer and Lionel Messi as well as Peter Singer  and Zizek. Other ones I thought of were Sutton Foster and Steven Schwartz. My teacher is allowing us to submit our own lists of what we thought the list should look like. I do think that his list was pretty good though.

Ferran Adria
Ai Weiwei
Bashar al-Assad
Daniel Barenboim
Noam Chomsky
Timothy cook
Jamie Dimon
Kin Jong Un
Mario Draghi
Philip Glass
Adam Gopnik
Chuck Hagel
Anthony Kennedy
Ban Ki-moon
Tony Kushner
Jerry Brown
Yo Yo Ma
Angela Merkel
Rupert Murdoch
Sheryl Sandberg
Martin Scorsese
Aung San Suu Kyi
Steven Weinberg
Anna Wintour
Xi Jinping

I would be very curious to know what people think about this. If you don't want to comment, you can always email me :)

We also had a great discussion about whether or not it is even right to give a cultural literacy test in the class. Many say that it makes people feel inferior or creates a hierarchy in the classroom. There is also the element that people reject their upbringing because the test makes them feel like they weren't properly educated. I didn't get any of these feelings. I just think it's good to challenge myself to know more about prominent people in the world. I place value in having a wide range of knowledge, but also focussing on what you are passionate about. It is not possible to be an expert in all these areas. Anyway, it was really fun :)

Big Game Week - preview

Big Game week is coming up and the festivities begin. Big game week is the week leading up to Big Game, the football game against our rival school, Berkeley. It's a big deal and there are many traditions. One of which is Gaieties, a student written, directed, acted, and produced musical about Stanford taken down Cal and taking over the world. Here is the trailer for the show. It has a lot of inside jokes but also captures the spirit here. Warning: there is some inappropriate material.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QXK27JJMKo&feature=youtu.be

Visit at Google with Nannie, Poppi, and Daddy :)

Poppi learns what a selfie is. I needed it for the blog. 

Poppi checking into Google. These are the only pictures I have because you aren't allowed to take pictures any further inside the headquarters. 

It was so wonderful to see Daddy again. I missed him very much. 

Stanford has it, Google doesn't... haha!

So my family and I got really excited the first time we visited Google and they had It's-It, a classic San Francisco ice cream sandwich tradition with ice cream between two oatmeal cookies and covered in dark chocolate. However, Google got rid of It's-It in their cafeterias a couple years ago. No worries though... come to Stanford! Rob Urstein, the Dean of Freshman, brought It's Its to a meet and greet with my dorm last night. Woo hoo!

Ropes Course with Cedro

Here are some highlights (of me) from an incredible day at a San Francisco ropes course with my dorm. We did some amazing team building activities and really climbed to new heights in our relationships. I did the splits on top of a log that was 50 feet above the ground, climbed to the top of the wobbling web with Kaya, mastered a tight rope with Aaron (my RA), and cheered on everyone's accomplishments during the day. We were exhausted by the end and all slept piled on top of each other in the back of the bus on the way back to the dorm. Bonding, gotta love it :) 

Stretching out my splits. 

On the web with Kaya. 

Flying off Bird on a Perch. 

All of us piled on a bench. 

Teo and I. 

Kaya and I. 

This is what it looked like as we left the ropes course. Beautiful. 

Shout Out to my Mom, Ramey

Happy Birthday Mommy! I hope you had an amazing Birthday, sorry that I am posting this a day late. Thank you so much for all you love and support. I wouldn't be here living my dream life without many years of hard work that you put in. From staying alive through my temper tantrums to reading and rereading all of my application essays, you have been there every step of the way. I love you so much. I miss you as well though it's wonderful to know that you will never be too far away. I will always have your voice, your care, and our memories to remember. You are the most incredible mother and I look up to you in so many ways. I wouldn't want to be a part of any other family in the world. Thank you for everything that you have done. I can't wait to give you the birthday hug and kiss you really deserve. Until then, I hope you treated yourself well and I am sending all my good thoughts to you. I love you!

I had chocolate cake in the dining hall today for you :)

I am a vegetarian, but we had duck for dinner tonight!

One of the best experiences so far at Stanford. This was so memorable. Unbelievable game with unbelievable people. AND the coolest signs ever!

Here are just the highlights.

This is at the very end of the game as we left the stadium and it was just a good view for a picture. 

Storming the field after the game and absolutely can't believe it.

We are on the football field. We won. Oh my goodness!

On the field! Oh yeah, that is definitely a player behind me :)

Storming the field. 

I love this stadium

Made the coolest signs. 

This is in reference to de'Anthony's comment that Oregon would score 40 points on us. We turned it on... Stanford style!