Update

So I haven't really updated this in a while. Figured I probably should, eh? Yet where should I start...so many things have changed, both the good and the bad. Finals have approached and all I can say for this is "There's no place like summer, there's no place like summer!" I'm loving the ending school by May 1st deal.

Updated my lists...
Read Now or Soon List (RNSL)

• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, Richard Lannon
• Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues by Paul Farmer
• The Power of Appreciation: The Key to a Vibrant Life by Noelle C. Nelson and Jeannine Lemare Calabra
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny by Robin S. Sharma
• Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins
  

Future Goal List (FGL)

• Graduate from McGill
• Spend a year after undergrad in Greece
• Work for either Partner's in Health/Doctors Without Borders/World Health Organization
• Get into med school
• Travel the world
• Work in developing countries (Haïti, South Africa, Rwanda...etc.)
  

Present Goal List (PGL)

• Study for all my finals and do well (hahaha!!! I hope)
• Find a job/internship
• Take org. chem and calc over summer
  
• Get in shape for soccer/ult. frisbee tryouts next year
• Read books on RNSL

Things to Do Before Summer Ends (TDBSE)

• Go dancing near Beaver Lake
• Walk to McGill from home and back again
• Climb all the steps up to St. Joseph's Oratory
• Watch the sunrise from the viewpoint
• Watch the sunset from the viewpoint
• Read ALL books on RNSL
• Visit my friends in Seattle

Well I've think I've dwelt on the matter quite enough. Need to get back to the real world!

Here It Goes...Here It Goes Again!

So if you don't know already. I have started my classes. It's amazing how summer can make you forget all the hypes of reading forty pages per day, having your feet get accustomed to walking from class to class, and tuning out during lectures. Not that I don't do the last one, it just sort of happens...

In a few hours I will be able to forget all this and go to the ABS kick-off party. I was promised a night to kick back, dance a little, and maybe meet some new Bahai's that go to McGill. At least it sounds fun, more details will follow.

But at this very moment, I am sitting in the computer lab at school working on Calculus web homework. When have teachers been reduced to not collecting assignments anymore. Although I am not complaining one bit when it comes to submitting homework online instead of writing it all on paper (save the trees!), but what kind of understanding does it give the professor about me. I no longer have to neatly align my numbers or put the date at the top-right hand corner. Are professors really getting lazy, or is it the school administration that is becoming more rigid on its grading restraints that even professors seem to find it difficult to grade all assignments by a certain date? Well I must say that we are slowly becoming an impersonal civilization and its only getting worse. Another shocking thing that I have discovered is that lectures are now recorded and slides copied, so that if you miss a class you can easily catch up by viewing the material online. Yet, what about the students that just don't go to class? They have the same benefit of not having to wake up at 7am to go to their 8am lecture, but wake up at 12 and view it all online. Of course, I have no idea which side to take as there are times that you just can't wake up in the morning and its helpful to know that you don't REALLY need to when lecture is online.

Alors...enough about school. I think I'm starting to catch the cold that's going around. In my bio lecture there were at least 10 people coughing per minute, that I was bound to get it myself. I truly hate colds and the uncomfortable feeling you get when you can't breathe out of one nostril. I think the worst part is that when your laying down your nose gets unplugged on one side and when you turn it unplugs the other...MAKE UP YOUR MIND! Well Im just glad my nose isn't do that anymore. Last night I drank enough tea to fill up a bath tub. I figured it would help wash the cold away. So far it looks like I was right. YAY for tea!!!

Well I am off to the party, will update later I hope.

Adieu for now.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I wasn't quite sure what I should title this blog because I have so many things to say at once and don't really feel like separating them into separate blogs...

Every day gets closer to the beginning of school. I feel both excited and nervous at the same time. Questions seem to constantly pop up in my head. Will I be able to get the grades I need for med school? Are my professors going to be challenging? Will the material be overwhelming? Will I make the right friends to help me through my career? Some of these are good to think about for awhile but not to ponder and feel gloomy about, right? I guess I'm just having social withdrawal as I am mostly just spending time with Baha'i friends and relatives. I miss my friends and going to the movies and to the beach. That's another reason I am excited to begin school so I can make new friends and hang out with them as much as I can. As for worrying about classes... I know its normal so I try not to loom on the questions too long.

My next subject of conversation is beauty. Is there really such an exact meaning to the word? Some people would, without hesitation, say yes but I quite disagree. People choose to look at their life the way they want to, they perceive things the way they were brought up to perceive. We all are influenced by someone or other (media, family, friends, heroes, heroines, etc.) which shape the way we observe things and take things as a negative or positive. As for beauty I would think of it as the same thing. Yet there are, I admit, some things that have a greater influence than others, like the media. Their influence on what beauty is, is quite corrupted. Yet our society thrives on what it delivers. From magazines to television, media shapes at least half of today's youth perception. I have no idea where I am coming with this, but it was just something I woke up thinking about.

Well I was recently given some book recommendations by a few people. So my current books to read list is expanding at an exponential rate. Among these books are: A General Theory of Love, The Power of Now, The Good Earth, The Power of Appreciation, and Flow. At the present time I am reading A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon. The three authors happen to be three professors of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). I have only begin reading a few pages but it seems quite interesting. It is supposed to explain the psychological aspect of love and how the chemicals in the body react and whatnot. So will keep posted about the book as I discover more about love.

On the Road Again... To the Land of Plenty!

These are pics of the McGill campus.




So if many people haven't gotten the memo: I have officially moved away from Washington and currently live in Montreal. That's right--CANADA! So why the move? Well I found out on July 4th that I had gotten accepted to McGill University, which is something like the Harvard of Canada. Not to mention the city is beautiful and there is all sorts of things to do. I have also been very busy having family visit, so I have not been able to posts new blogs or write emails--please forgive to whom it may concern.

I am definitely enjoying the city-life. All the beautiful lights and constantly seeing people everywhere you go. It's amazing the difference that I see from the little town of Edmonds compared to Montreal. How could I have missed out on so many things? Where have I been? Not to mention day by day I have am developing my francais. Now that my great-grandfather (who is 104 years old I might add) is living with my grandmother, I am also learning a great deal of Farsi. All the better for me!
Every day I think, "wow, how am I going to do all that today?" which is great! I'm happy to be busy and not feel like every day is a waste. So I will be starting school soon...September 2nd. I can't wait!
I feel like I have come to the land of plenty. Plenty to see, plenty to do, and plenty of things to learn.

Saturday Morning Rain is Falling...

I know I am a little behind on the dates but I just had to include this before I didn't get a chance. So on Saturday which was...1...2 days ago (yes I had to count on my fingers), my friend Ali and I drove from my house all the way to south Seattle (a good 40 minute drive) for our Ultimate Frisbee playoff game. Yes, Ali and I play Ultimate Frisbee which I must admit (not because I am at all bias to the sport) is the most fun and definitely exciting game you will ever play...besides maybe soccer...or hockey. So our team, sad to say have won only one game in the regular season. Unfortunate to say we lost both of our games played but on a positive note we didn't have to play on Sunday. YAY! So that was in the morning...

Later Ali and I went to her house, because she lived in North Seattle and it would be silly to drive all the way to my house then head back to Seattle for the soccer game. What soccer game you might ask? Well..let's just say it was Brazil versus Canada - World Cup Friendly Match. HELL YES! So went to her house first stopping at a nearby 7-11 to get some slushies, because it just sounded good. At her house, I felt I needed to take a shower bad. Especially since we played two games back to back and it sort of rained so my hair was a big frizz ball.

The game was awesome. It was like a volley of points scored first Brazil and then Canada. After the game Ali and I got hungry so we stopped at a Mexican restaurant which was absolutely "delish"! It had the tastiest quesadillas that we both knew we had to come back again.

Cinco de Mayo Baby!

These are kind of old...but I still wanted to add these pics. They are from the hottest band out there: THE ELEVATERS. The band members are: Sam (vocals and piano), Miles (Vocals), Ben (Vocals, Drums, and Beatboxing), David (Guitar), Itai (Bass), and Andre (Kit). They are going to make it big...which means a lot because they are more than just "representing penthouse down to the basement", they get people moving. So for Cinco de Mayo I sure had a good time hanging with these guys.

Going off a tangent...

My first blog, and I don't have anything interesting to write about. Well what can I say besides life can sometimes be freaking amazing at times and oh so boring the next. For example, yesterday I just BSed a psychology project in a little less than two hours. The sad thing is I knew about the project for at least two months and hadn't even did an ounce of research to start the damn thing. I guess that is why they call me queen of procrastination. Anyway, by chance I met up with one of my group members for the project and he told me we were presenting today (in this case yesterday). CRAP! For the past week, I had completely forgotten I even had homework in psych. So instead of going to my oh so glorious Discovery Core class (which is a class you are forced to take in your first year of college to help you decide on what you will do with the rest of your college years), I put the pedal to the metal (sort of speak) and tried to quickly gather as much information as I could on split brain surgery...because of course that is our topic of research. So after two hours and a iced white chocolate mocha later, my group member and I cranked out a three page paper and a pretty decent (if I say so myself) power point. Yeah I know, we sound crazy...or we must be joking. But I'm not and to make it even better, we had 6 minutes before class started. Just enough time to review the slides and to see how we were going to present it.
Well...the project had been completed and I was feeling pretty good about myself, so then I left class headed to Seattle to my chemistry quiz section. It takes about an hour to get there by bus, when it only takes like 20 minutes by car. Man! I wish I had a car. I mean seriously... I know the gas prices are high, I know that insurance is a b****... but still a car is just WAY more convenient. Like I was saying so I got to the Seattle campus and went to class and had to take a super hard quiz. It sucked balls! But then after failing that quiz I went back to Bothell to do so homework with my good friend, Ali. Though while we were "studying" we got really hungry. So we ordered some pizza and invited the guys, Ryan and Jim to join in the party...and Steve who joined a little later. The night ended with us partying it up and watching the Mariners Game/Lakers vs Spurs Game.
So all that was yesterday...
Today I went to school and have been on Facebook for the last two hours!!! Is that sad or what?

XOXO Ariel