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Pre-Frosh & Presencia Latina

April 20, 2012 in Jesse's Blog by Jesse Sanchez | Comments closed

Visitas Weekend has finally come! Every April, Harvard opens its gates to the admitted students for a jam-packed weekend full of diverse events, great food, and incredible conversations. This is an important weekend because the admitted students have to make the decision of where to spend their college careers. It’s an exciting time of college exploration and finding out if Harvard is right for you.

My favorite part about this weekend is meeting the Admitted Students- or as we call them at Harvard- the “Pre-Frosh.” Current students get the chance to host Pre-Frosh in their dorms during Visitas in order for a chance to see what it’s really like to go to Harvard. Hosts are also there to provide any kind of advice, guidance, or past experiences to help the Pre-Frosh make their decision. I signed up for 3 and I can’t wait to pick them up and show them around once they get here!

Another one of my favorite parts of this weekend is that Presencia Latina falls on the Friday of Visitas. Harvard’s Presencia Latina is a spectacular Latin Arts Showcase where groups from across the Harvard, Cambridge, and Boston communities can come together to celebrate the Latin culture. I really hope some of my Pre-Frosh can make it to the show! I was at Dress Rehearsal last night until the early morning so I know the show is going to be a great one, as always.

Another reason why this year is so special is because Presencia Latina has reached it’s 10th Year! That’s an entire decade of Latin Arts. I really appreciate that Harvard gives us the resources and space to celebrate a culture that means so much to me and I know that we’ll continue sharing this beautiful culture for years to come! That was one of my concerns about coming across the country to college- I thought I would lose my culture. Luckily, Harvard provides a ton of opportunities to celebrate the culture you grew up in as well as learn of the diverse set of cultures that make up Harvard’s student body. This weekend will be unforgettable.

To get a look in to what last year’s Presencia Latina looked like, check out this video!

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Lookin’ Ahead!

March 29, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | 3 comments

Hello everyone!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ACCEPTANCE LETTERS(if you’ve received your emails/letters by the time you’re reading this, congrats)!!!!!! Last year, this time, I was freaking out the entire day at school, biting my nails and checking my email virtually every two minutes, counting down the time until 5pm. AND THEN MY ACCEPTANCE EMAIL wasn’t sent out until 6:45pm! So good luck!

Sorry that I missed my post last week; I was really busy until Friday came ’round, and it was already too late ): Right now, I’m at the Greenhouse Café, one of Harvard’s many dining locations, sipping on a soy chai latte and editing a few of my essays for Friday. Last night I had not one, but TWO rehearsals for The Nostalgics (at the quad) and for SOL Cupsi (in Kirkland basement), which meant I had to miss out on a lovely Indian-food study break (wop). However, I love both of those activities, so it was fine with me!  CUPSI will be going to LA in late April (yay! lot’s of fundraising to do) and The Nostalgics will be competing for the opening of Yardfest on Friday (ahh). Check out the poster I made in my printmaking class for this event!

Yardfest is a huge celebration and music concert in April, and this year The Cataracs and Das Racist will be playing; hopefully my band will be opening for them, in front of everyone! Last year Far East Movement, Sammy Adams, and White Panda came; this year’s lineup isn’t too exciting, compared to U-Penn’s Tiesto and Yale’s T-Pain and Passion Pit lineups. But what can you do…except get someone better for next year! (Beyonce, anyone?)

I’ve been relatively busy this week, and will be next week, as it is Advising Fortnight for the freshmen, which primes us for our concentration decisions. My calendar is full of fun events, such as “Cool Cupcakes and Hot Munchies” from the Anthropology department, a dinner with the African and African-American Studies department, Romance Languages and Literatures meet&greet, and Enviro-Sci and Public Policy tea! I’m really excited to decide on my concentration (major) and secondary (minor), but I have a while (luckily we declare next November) because I have no idea what I am going to do! It’s not like I don’t have ideas; I’d love to do Franco-Italian Studies, Environmental Studies, African Studies, Anthropology, and Architecture, but sadly I can’t “double major” or “joint concentrate,” as we call it here, in many of these concentrations. There are just too many requirements that I’d have to complete by the time 2015 rolled around. Also, Environmental Studies is not a real concentration here; it’s part of the Visual and Environmental Studies concentration, but is not a fixed path and varies widely based on what you’d like to study within that concept. And architecture isn’t a “real” concentration, either; there’s History of Art and Architecture, which does not prepare you for Architectural studies. So I am going to have to do some research to create my own path here, and I will have the resources if I put my mind to it.

 

Panorama from top floor of William James Hall!

As hectic as this will all be, I’m very excited to have a set direction for my academic studies. It will definitely constrict me, and I’ll have to make some hard decisions, but I will end up with a concentration that I enjoy. (And if I don’t, there’s always petitioning for a change of study and grad school!) Joint concentrations are pretty difficult to make work, but if my so-called “electives” (aka the language courses that I’m obsessed with) count towards my requirements, I’m set! I just have to do what I love, and make my huge dreams a reality. It’ll happen.

Speaking of making dreams a reality, I will be going to Paris this summer!!!!!! I received a huge Rockefeller grant for summer study, and will have a crucial jump on my concentration requirements by studying in France! I’ve never spent the summer in a city, but I’ll be home for a few weeks in June and a few in August to get a breath of country air and swim in the river near my house. I’m going to have to get into a good athletic schedule so that I don’t become too heavy from all those pastries … yum. Also, two of my really good friends will be spending the summer there, one interning in a Neuro lab and the other doing the Columbia-Penn French program. (Oh so fun.) I can’t wait! I have yet to receive another very important grant from the Romance Language department, but it should show up tomorrow as a lovely birthday present. (I’ll be 19, yay!) Check out what I could design with my potential future concentration in my potential future city!

 

So, that is all for now :)

Happy spring!

-Reid

 

 

PS Check out some Harvard Talent, for those of you who are still unsure of whether or not Harvard is the right fit for your artsy-selves.

(Leah Reis-Dennis from my band!)

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New York, I Love You

March 16, 2012 in Natalie's Blog by npadilla | Comments closed

Perhaps it is the 70-degree weather, the free (working!) espresso machine I found on the side of the road, or perhaps being in the company of friends and family, but New York City is intoxicating. While a flight to California was just out of reach, visiting my brother and his girlfriend in Brooklyn, NY was a perfect substitute, especially considering I was able to make the trip with my boyfriend and our other friend, Dan.

In case you haven’t been (or just if you’re interest to know about all the great cities you can visit easily by bus from Harvard), here’s a short whirlwind tour of NYC, Brooklyn, and beyond.

New York has great buildings…

… delicious (and beautiful) coffee…

… thiiiis many cool used book store (as does Harvard square too!)…

(PS. ^ that’s me)

… cheap thrift stores…

(as modeled by my boyfriend & legal advisor here ^)

… towering buildings…

… and towering people? (or the use of wide-angle lens cameras)…

(^ Dan & I just grew a few feet…)

One of the greatest parts about the location of Harvard (besides Boston being a fun city and Harvard Square having some of the best sandwiches around) is its closeness to other great cities to travel too—D.C., Portland Maine, and Pennsylvania have been among the ventures.

Indeed, all the time away from Harvard has given me the breath of fresh air (though being in the city, perhaps not so fresh) necessary to come back for part two of the semester. Already the Leverett House Open Email List is filled with discussions of diplomas, graduation day speakers, and job openings.

And speaking of post-grad plans, I have recently been working on my submission to the Carol K. Pfrozheimer Student Fellowship, which invites Harvard Undergraduates to take advantage of the Schlesinger Library I discussed in my last post. The Fellowship provides money for research that draws of the library’s holdings and given the amazing diversity of literature on food culture and history in Schlesinger Library, I’m putting together an application that draws together my work in political-economic anthropology and food culture, focusing on the recent artisanal movements. I believe this research would also be extremely beneficial for my final project for my American Food history course.

I’ll try to stay up to date on that process and until then, hope you guys all have a great weekend! I know I’m looking forward to this last weekend off and yet also to hanging out with my Harvard girl friends once a few of them return from their own spring break adventures in Austin, Texas as the South-By-Southwest Festival.

~Natalie

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From 60 to 40: Spring Break in VT

March 15, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | Comments closed

Hello!

Sorry this post is coming a few (umm…almost 12) hours later than normal, but here’s one anyways! While my friends are jetsetting or tanning in Bermuda/Cayman Islands/Mexico, I am just chillin’ (literally, look at the title) with my family and friends back home. In no way am I complaining; Vermont is totally awesome, and I absolutely love it here in March. (Plus, I was in LA over winter break, so that was enough sun to hold me over until the summahtime.) For those of you who are flatlanders (anyone not from Vermont, Northern New Hampshire or Upstate New York), you may not know that Vermont has more than four seasons. We have six, in fact: Spring, Summer, Fall, Stick Season, Winter, and Mud Season, in which we happen to be right now! Though people say you can’t wear white after Labor day, I say you can’t wear white during Mud Season; aptly named for its lovely driving conditions on our dirt roads, this span of a few weeks prepares you for spring by making you readjust your outfits and cars. (You’ll need a realignment on top of taking off your snow tires once May rolls around.) I’ve avoided nice clothing, donned my Muck Boots, and only driven my truck, because the roads are really bad, and you don’t want to bottom out on the ruts and ruin your car!

Luckily, the weather has been pretty nice. It’s been sunny, and today I did all of my French homework for the next few weeks outside on one of our Adirondack chairs and watched my goofy dog, Posey, attempt to catch a squeaky chipmunk as it hid in our stone wall. Here are a few prime photos from the little escapade, which hopefully will bring a smile to your face.

Also, I cut my hair today! Yay! Actually, my really good friend’s mom cut it for FREE, and she owns a salon so it was all professional and such! I also have done a lot of online shopping and research on DIY projects that I can do to create an EPIC dorm room next year…seriously, it’s going to be insane. Prepare yourselves. Think: awesome lighting and headboard.

So, back to Academia: there are a few things that I can assess, as this is the middle of the semester and I probably should crack down around now…not like I haven’t been, but I have to decide my concentration by next November, so I should at least decide whether or not I like my courses. And so I shall, right now, ranking my courses with some numbers, but mostly judgment…just like Flyby’s housing ranking. (Sadly, I won’t make a cool graphic.)

1. Italian Acd: Intensive Italian

This class is totally awesome. My prof (TF, actually) is incredible, and it’s her first semester teaching…ever! She’s wonderful, the camaraderie in my class is top-notch (we had an Italian party the other night where we made pasta carbonara and spoke Italian to one another), and we have learned so much. After having only taken 2 months of Italian, from knowing nothing, I now can form the future tense, both past tenses, and the present, not to mention all the vocab and culture we’ve picked up! Soon we’ll be covering the subjunctive and conditional…yippee! Overall, this class is an A+, which mightn’t be reflected in my final grade, but we’ll see (:

2. Freshman Seminar: Pressing the Page

This class is also totally awesome. The only reason it comes in second place is because I don’t have it every day at 10 am (we only meet for 2 hrs mon/wed), and so I think it hasn’t really been properly tested in the long-term, early-morning scheme of things, like Italian has. My prof is, again, incredible, and Adams’s Bow and Arrow Press is both historical and efficient, creating some gorgeous art. The only reason I’m bummed about  getting housed into Currier is that I’ll be rather far away from the press, but luckily (or unluckily) The Crimson is right next to Adams, so I’ll be spending a lot of my time in that area, anyways! I have no qualms about this course, and really love being able to show my creativity through another outlet (for credit, nonetheless). In conclusion, this class is an A; the only thing that stops it from being perfect is the lack of adequate time to create as much art as I’d like!

Okay, this is where it gets kind of tricky, as I only have 4 courses….so it’s not like the fourth spot is the worst spot, but rather, it is simply the last one, which doesn’t make it bad.

3. Expos 20: Contemporary Theatre

Two things I really like: theatre and writing. Sadly, I don’t like writing about theater all that much; I’d rather perform, and creative writing/poetry is my forté, not analytical writing. But, it’s Expos, and most people complain a lot about their courses. Mine is pretty interesting, and covers risqué topics, so it’s never boring during class…it’s just when I get in front of my computer and try to write my 6 page essay about something I’m not interested in…that’s when it gets pretty difficult. I do, however, want to be a better writer, and I trust that this course will help me to become more apt with my words. Overall, I’d give this course a B, which is probably higher than my current grade.

4. French 50: Liberty and Culture (or something)

J’adore le français, alors c’est un peu étrange que je n’aime pas ce course beaucoup. Also, I’ll be going to Paris this summer (hopefully), which might lend some insight about my sentiments towards French culture. (I love it.) This class is interesting, and our workbook clarifies the complexities of French grammar (which is honestly so ridiculous sometimes…SO MANY EXCEPTIONS), but it feels like a lecture, even though there are only 15 people in it. Language courses should be more interactive, at least for me, and this isn’t very interactive. Still, I am heavily considering a concentration in Romance Languages and Literatures, or at least Francophone studies, so I can’t dislike this class too much (: Final grade? B-. It’s not in the C range, because it is definitely above average, as all courses at Harvard are!

Soooo, that’s all for now. Time to go:

a) bake a cake?

b) clean my lil’ room?

c) record a new song?

You choose.

Until next time,

-Reid

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Happy March!

March 1, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | 3 comments

Hello everyone!

It’s March, my favorite month. Why? Because it’s my BIRTHDAY MONTH…though I have to wait a whole 4 weeks until the big day rolls around and I turn 19. Another reason is because it’s only a week (exactly) until Housing Day! Eeek! Look at what I just got under my door, from Leverett House!

Housing Day is so SOOON!

I am very excited about this big day, because I’ll get a whole new community in which I can stay for three whole years! Also, even though Harvard is a small school (~6,000), I really need a smaller group of people, and having a House will let me do that. Some really funny housing day videos have come out from Pfoho, Eliot, and Adams (private video), and a very weird Currier video. Check ‘em out. I can’t wait to make one once I’ve been “sorted.”

Speaking of Housing Day, I will be reporting next week on Friday instead of Thursday, giving you all the insight you’ll ever need about Housing Day. YAY! I’m blocking with my friends Cynthia, Buffalo, and Ansel, and we’ll be staying in Thayer where we have a perfect view of the Yard, which apparently gets totally crazy. OMG IM SO EXCITED I CANT WAIT.

Anywayssss, yesterday was Leap Day, which meant that Lady Gaga and Oprah came to Harvard. I don’t really care all that much about seeing either of them (I know, I know) but my friend Allie got some incredible photos of Gaga. Check them out here, in the “Going Gaga” media file. Also, it snowed (for about three seconds, and then it turned to rain) but c’est la vie, and this life is without snow :( I miss it, not going to lie.

Another exciting thing that happened this week was Cultural Rhythms on Saturday afternoon, with my favorite person, John Legend, coming to Harvard to receive his Humanitarian Award!! I love him. He sang a few bars of “Ordinary People” and was a brilliant host, but the majority of the show was devoted to student cultural groups, mainly dance and music. I took some lo-fi videos, which are posted here.

IMG_0987

African Dance Troupe

Wushu

Step

I loved being able to cheer on my friends in this amazing exhibition, because everyone is so good at what they do, and it makes me so proud! I couldn’t cheer too loudly, though, because I had a gig right after and couldn’t ruin my voice before the show. My band and I cruised to Wellesley, the women’s college nearby, and played for their College Formal; it was awesome, and they had great decorations and even better food! (Yum)

I’ve been having a really great semester so far, with my midterms coming up next week (eek!) before we all go on Spring Break. I have to study my Italian vocabulary and flashcards, but we’re having a party tomorrow night (without la professoressa, sadly) where we’ll make “la cucina Italiana” and dance! My Italian class is awesome; we have a great mix of people, learn at a crazy-fast pace (tomorrow we’re doing the future tense, after only studying the language for a few weeks), and I love my teacher. Some of the students in my class are from MIT, and commute here every day, which I couldn’t imagine doing, but it is for the love of languages. I’m just glad we have such incredible courses offered here!

In my other courses, I’ve also been having a splendid time. I’m more motivated in French, although the class becomes stagnant sometimes, and I have to study hard in order to do well in my summer in Paris (hopefully). My expository writing course is great; we have a ton of papers due next week, though, with one due on Thursday (housing day), along with my Italian midterm! And, of course, my incredible Freshman Seminar that I’d actually been drooling about since last summer when we received the Seminar booklet. It’s amazing, and I know I’ll be spending a lot of time in the Bow and Arrow Press for the next few years here!

The back room of the Bow and Arrow Press, where all of the wood type is kept.

 

The presses are rollin'!

 

Some orphan lead type (don't worry, we wash our hands thoroughly).

 

Thank you so much for reading, and get ready for the most exciting post of YOUR LIVES next week!!

Again, happy March :)

-Reid

 

 

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Good for your Health, Good for your Brain

February 24, 2012 in Natalie's Blog by npadilla | Comments closed

For better or for worse, in a week and a half my thesis will be in, done, gone, and sweet sweet spring break will be the reward! For once the description is perfect as spring seems to have come early here to Cambridge this year (almost 60 in February? Amazing–though I hate to think of what summer will bring…). This spring break I’ll be sticking around here but my friends from California will be visiting complete with tour of Boston and New York City.

As for now, the week has flown by as I really get started in this semesters extracurricular. Tonight I just held my first Food Literacy Project event in Lowell House, a Superfoods Tasting. With the sudden ’bout of sickness that seems to be transversing around campus this antioxidant filled event was just the recipe. Lowell house students and friends came by and were able to sample a variety of healthy fare including cacao nibs, spirulina, coconut water, and roobios tea.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’m about to finish my second article for The Crimson today. I’m currently writing as an arts columnist about Culinary Arts in a postmodern era. You can find my first article here and another great column from a fellow writer here. It’s odd to think that The Crimson is over a hundred years old, but its the sort of place that when you walk into their headquarters to certainty feels established (in the best possible way). I’m excited to see how the column develops through-out the semester and am getting teary eyed already at the thought of this being my last semester to do extracurriculars such as these.

So in an effort to make the best of it now, I’m going to go finish the article before burying myself in the library for the weekend, hoping to emerge with a more finely edited thesis (i.e., readable). Have a great weekend!

~Natalie

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Innovate or Die (?)

February 23, 2012 in Reid's Blog by Reid | Comments closed

 

Hello Everyone! I’ve been really, really busy (in a good way) these past few weeks, mostly with Crimson and school stuff, which is obviously a blast. Although I’m getting worn down, I think I’ve been structuring my day properly to allow myself enough time to do exactly what I need to do and still get some rest. Do you know that I sleep 8 or 9 hours a night? Yep. I do. I pride myself on that, and basically my theory is that anyone who gets less sleep hasn’t organized their time well enough, or totally overbooked themselves. I have managed to (kind of) find a balance, with the help of some schedules and structure.

My schedule from yesterday afternoon…pretty full, but totally do-able!

 

So what, exactly, have I been doing? Same old, same old, except for this INCREDIBLE and very bizarre event I recently went to. It was called “Experiencing Economies; Innovate or Die,” and basically it was a tour of innovative and design businesses/spaces in Boston which ended up selling out in one minute (there were 50 slots, too). My favorite place that we went to was Continuum, an innovative consulting corporation that was definitely one of the coolest places I’d ever been. I was covering this event for The Crimson, and ended up going all alone on a tour with a ton of grad students and people who were older than me. It was all very secretive, and I really had no idea what to expect, so the bus that I boarded could have been going to Akron, for all I knew! However, we ended up at Harvard’s iLab first, which is essentially a large technologically-innovative and up-to-date building where students from MIT and Harvard can come in and collaborate on big ideas, eventually getting funding for them. It’s about half way between Harvard and MIT, and was really cool. There, we did a psychology experiment on advertising and branding, lead by a History of Psychological Science Graduate student. Here are some photos from the event!

Some Art at the iLab

 

This was pretty cute…and cool, because people were drawing on the walls!

 

This was definitely my favorite quotation.

 

Some photos of the psychology experiment….bringing me back to my SLS-20 (intro to psych) days!

Obviously, my artistic and academic abilities were put to the test! The next stop that I enjoyed was Continuum, because there was an incredibly interesting exhibit set up there; these two women had gone into Boston’s inner-city high schools and worked with students who were affected by violence, and they broke that violence down altogether. They filmed fights and replayed them to analyze how they worked, charted the cycle of a fight, talked about the differences between domestic abuse and gang violence, and went into extreme detail to help these students work out the true definition and consequences of violence.

This was really inspiring.

 

This exhibit was moving, and made me really consider pursuing a career within Continuum; it puts creative and innovative ideas to good use, for the benefit of others. What could be better? By the time the exhibit was closing, I started to get really, really hungry. Luckily, there was tons of food, and my friend Ned was bartending, so I could swing by and visit him!

Yummmm

 

Ned with the red suspenders!

 

The evening was a total success, and after I went to my friend/bandmate Noah’s 21st birthday party, I fell asleep both content and inspired. Check out the OFA article I wrote here!

 

The next day (Saturday), it was my mom’s birthday! I called her up a million times until she answered, chatted with her for a while, and was on my way. I love my momma! I had to finish a photography shoot for the cover of this week’s Crimson Arts, so I ended up staying at the Crimson all day Thursday, for part of Friday, and for a while on Saturday and Sunday in order to finish up the cover with my fellow exec, Dean. Here are some behind the scenes shots!

Dean photographing one of our models in The Crimson

 

Our completed cover!

 

It was a really fun assignment for The Crimson that Dean and I got to run entirely, from conception to final product, which was printed yesterday! Many thanks to all of my models/friends for their pretty faces (:

Now that I’ve covered some exciting things in my past, we can look to the exciting thing in the future: this summer, I will be going to Paris in the Harvard Summer Study Abroad!! I was accepted about a week ago, from a pool of many applicants, and will be able to get a jumpstart on my potential path as a Romance Languages and Literatures concentrator! Nothing could be more exciting than spending my summer in the City of Love (and blogging about it while I’m at it). Now all I need is for my grants to be approved, something I’ll know in about a month. By that time, I’ll be in a House, have my summer planned out, and be preparing for my trip to LA with my fellow CUPSI Slam Poetry members. Wow! The future is pretty exciting in general, but even more exciting when you’re at Harvard.

Thanks for reading, and happy Thursday.

-Reid

 

 

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Psychedelic Psouls

February 8, 2012 in Shannon's Blog by shannon | 3 comments

This weekend I had a birthday, and even though the week is already halfway over, I’m still feeling happy.  My friends threw a sorta-surprise birthday party at midnight, which included this groovy cake with psychedelic colors:

When I first came to Harvard as a fresh freshman, I had no idea if I would find real friends and relationships in college.  I was hoping for the best, but that first year of college is pretty socially demanding and hard to navigate, as any college-kid you know can probably confirm, and we were all more concerned with making friends than with keeping them.  During those first months of school, everyone had a ton of “friends.”  But while we were bouncing between room parties and study groups and sports practices and formals, the substance and mettle of those relationships hadn’t been tested yet.

The last three and a half years have been full of fluctuations for me.  I studied abroad in Paris last fall, and I felt like a freshman all over again when I came back to campus in the spring.  Then there are the natural ebbs and flows of friend-groups; for example, in field hockey off-seasons, I don’t see my teammates nearly as often.  Even though most of us long for relational consistency, I think that friend fluxes are a natural (and sometimes inevitable) part of life.  But on Saturday night, as I looked around at my closest friends, I felt so blessed and full to the brim.  To the casual onlooker, I was just shoveling rainbow cake into my mouth, but on the inside, I was thinking: the people in this room are all people I love.

I’m so grateful I can write that sentence before I graduate, and mean it.

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Figuring it Out: Post-Shopping Daze

January 27, 2012 in Natalie's Blog by npadilla | 4 comments

You know those days where sometimes things just fall apart? I was having that pretty much for a week. Sounds worse than it is… I’m really referring to my once-thought-to-be-set-in-stone class schedule, which is now completely switched around.

 

I started with my hope to cross-register and take a class at the Harvard Kennedy School, Food & Agribusiness. Note the picture above from the Kennedy School… they have an affinity for quirky floors there I suppose.

 

Turns out my class was nowhere to be found because it didn’t start until mid-march, a half-semester class. That won’t do. A so starts the long chain of moving, and shopping, and disliking, and moving, and shopping new classes.

 

Four hours to go till our Study Card detailing our course choices are do, but I think I figured it out, with classes one may more than I cared for, but another interesting food course to do research in:  American Food, A Global History.

 

My second choice that got run out was a History of Science, Machines and Human Nature course. Any class that starts out an introduction with a clip from The Matrix sounds awesome to me! Bladerunner, AI, I-Robot, all assignments for the course. Even the view (see below) from the fourth floor of the Science Center where the class is was persuasive.

 

Note the reflection on the glass window…

Alas, sometimes things just don’t work out (i.e., no history of computer course because another put a discussion section in the way). But with Friday upon us I can feel little reason to worry (except the sudden need to run out and find the cheapest books to buy….).

 

Tonight is the first in semester for senior social gatherings: a series event put on during the last semester for seniors featuring discounts of food, lots of friends, and everything from games to live music. I’m excited to see all my friends again and relax. I saw a lot of them, but not all, last weekend when we trekked by bus to Allston for Korean Food (btw. do try Bibimbap in a hot stone if you haven’t, so delicious!) for my friend’s birthday—great times! We ended the night back in Harvard square at a favorite restaurant, also the location for the first senior social.

 

But most of all, what I’m looking forward to on the next few Friday nights is some free s’mores, hot chocolate, and ice skating right inside Harvard! Above is a picture of the new erected (temporary) ice rink by the science center… can’t wait to try it out!

 

Have a great weekend!

 

~Natalie

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Wintersession 101: Fun in the Snow

January 20, 2012 in Natalie's Blog by npadilla | 1 comment

So apologies to begin with for missing out last week on posting: it was a busy week trying to get packed up from California and move back to campus in Boston. But I’m back now and will be making a particularly detailed post to make-up for it because it’s been a particularly busy (but fun!) week.

 

This week we saw our first two snow falls since Halloween, luckily nothing too heavy but gives a nice winter-feel to the barren trees. Trudging through the windy days, Harvard campus finally saw the return of many students to campus for the week long Wintersession.

 

Wintersession is a great, recently invented opportunity for students to come back to campus a week early to participate in a number of activities, some free or quite discounted. Everything from a one-day ski trip to a TV script writing class (taught by Carlton Cuse, Harvard Alum and scriptwriter of Lost, aka. Greatest drama show ever). I was lucky enough to participate in some great events that I know will be extremely useful as I move forward towards graduating and living on my own.

The first was a weeklong(-ish) afternoon Personal Finance Program set-up by the Harvard University Employees Credit Union. The subjects covered each of the four weekdays were Financial Budgeting and Planning, Personal Credit, Personal Insurance and Taxes, and Investing.

 

After a continental breakfast (much needed coffee and bagels at 9:30am), we received lectures from experts on personal finance as well as practice making our own budgets, choosing insurance plans, and credit cards among others. The information on personal credit was of particular interest as I’m currently looking into starting to build my credit now, as was the investing day for potential use in the future.

 

One more of the career oriented side, I participated in three different events put on by the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) and the Office of Career Services (OCS) oriented towards understanding jobs in food and wine. These events were led by Harvard alum Cathy Huyghe, wine-writer and contributor to WGBH—part of NPR and the Public Broadcasting for Boston.

The first event was an evening on wine writing where we learned to understand all the sensory aspects to wine (including sight, texture, taste, small) and history to allow us to write about wine more creatively. After my experience on the wine tasting tour in Santa Barbara, this was a great way to integrate the skills I learned in sensory description of wine into creative writing. Of all the wines tasted that night I found my favorite to be this Argentinean Malbec that elicited a strongly smoky smell and brought forth an interesting history of how foodways changes with cultural adaptation (Malbec being originally a French grape).

 

The next day was an amazing experience. For the first time I took the commuter rail from Harvard Square to Concord, MA where we were led on a tour of recently opened restaurant by HBS alum (Ian Calhoun) and his partner, 80 Thoreau. Carolyn Johnson (former Chef-de-Cuisine at Rialto) is the head chef for this quaint upscale restaurant on the second story of the station, overlooking small shops and quite streets. Calhoun and his partner Vincent Vela were incredible informative and friendly in telling all of us about how to open a restaurant and what its like running a business. My own future endeavors I hope one day will lead me towards opening a restaurant/bar and the information I learned was enlightening.

 

After that we proceed back to Harvard Office of Career Services for the Harvard Food and Wine Internship and Job fair. There were a number of interesting opportunities I look forward to applying to in the next few weeks both during school and after. I’ll keep you updated as the career moves proceed. For now, I’ll enjoy the first days of snow with the last free weekend before classes start.

 

~Natalie

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