THE END

It’s all over. Final = DONE. Everything is done. I am almost all packed. My roommate already moved out. Wow it is really all over.

The final wasn’t as horribly scary as I thought it would be. I felt that after studying with the gang that I had covered most of the stuff that was asked of me on the final. I am not going to say I did great or anything like that, but it is nice to know that all that stress and pressure is off my shoulders. I have really learned so much these past three weeks, and I must admit I was very worried that I would be behind the game because I have not had the best history classes while at ECHS, but I never felt like I was not a competitor while being here. I think I gained a new level of confidence while being here.

I am going to miss Professor Kramnick and Simon my TA. They have been amazing support through this whole trip. I have learned so much from both of them and I know there is no way I can thank them enough for everything they have taught me. For you future Freedom and Justicers out there I really hope you get Simon as a TA because he is a lot of fun to get to know. And for anyone interested in the ILC Cornell Freedom and Justice is a ton of fun and extremely interesting. I will never forget what they have taught me.

Gosh it is just such a shock that it is all over. It feels like I haven’t seen fog in a very long time, but my three weeks here have not felt very long at all, and now it is over.

I owe a HUGE thank you to the ILC. This has been a trip of a lifetime I will never forget it. Being here at Cornell opened my eyes to everything I have to look forward to in life. There are so many people out there for me to meet, so many places for me to go, and so much for me to learn.

I have enjoyed my time here at Cornell and cannot believe that I am leaving tomorrow morning. I would really just like to say I have learned so much about myself while being here. I have learned new time-management lessons (the hard way at times). I have learned how to be more confident and out going person. And I have just learned a lot from the other student that I have been surrounded by these past three weeks. I could never have learned all these things if the ILC had not believed in me so thank you so much.

I am going to miss Cornell!

Over and Out blog readers.

Is This It?

It still hasn’t hit me in any form that I’m going to get on a plane tomorrow, leave this awesome place, and go back to my home. It’s a bit weird even calling my house in California home right now, since I’ve been here so long, it feels like I’m about to go to my home away from home, not go from it. These three weeks have been fun and boring, short and long, relaxed and stressful, all seemingly at the same time. It’s hard to explain just how I’m feeling about going home now, mainly because it’s impossible to look at this whole experience objectively, at least at this moment.

Anyway, today I took my final, and I felt good about it. Not great, but good. It was a bit odd hearing the professor telling us we were done and to leave.

Well, off to enjoy my last night of freedom, I’ll probably be able to actually reflect over the weekend.

I'M DONE

I'M DONE!!! I know I said last night that I didn't know if I would be sad or excited, but I am SO excited!!! Turning in my final and hearing Professor Kramnick say those final words, "You're done!" just made my heart jump. I can't believe that I have no academic work to do tonight and I definitely cannot believe that the main item on my to do list today is to pack up.

So, the final went well! I don't know if I would say great, but definitely well. The introduction to my essay was a bit off topic, which I realized after I went back and re-read the question, but the rest of my body paragraphs and conclusion were solid. The question I chose prompted me to pick three thinkers that we had covered throughout our class and compare their methods for reaching the goals that they had in mind for society. I chose to write about Plato (who wanted to lie to the people in order to make them subordinate), Martin Luther King Jr. (who contrastingly chose to show people the truth behind racism and prejudice), and Karl Marx (who differed from both of these thinkers in that he just thought his vision of a communist society would inevitably become a reality).

After that were the short essays: First one asked me to compare Locke's ideas of labor and property with Marx's, and the second one asked me to relate the message of one of the speakers we'd had to the fundamental themes of the class (i.e. freedom, justice, or equality). Those essays went fairly well and although I feel like I could have done better, the essays I wrote were about as good as I could have gotten them in twenty minutes, which was our time constraint.

The short answer questions after that went well, but I think I only got partial credit for one of them again like last time! I was solid on four of them, but the fifth one was a little shaky. I definitely knew who said the quote that it asked but I could just barely relate it to that philosopher's overall message. Oh well. 4 1/2 out of 5 isn't bad, haha.

When I turned in my paper I made sure to thank Simon for all of his help and was happy to hear him offer a letter of recommendation. It was such a happy moment. We shook hands and I was on my way.

Now it's time to celebrate. My friends are currently in my room waiting for me to finish this blog so we can go out and play basketball. I don't know what we're going to do with the rest of the night, but I'm just so excited to be done with everything.

Thank you again ILC for sending me out here. This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I would never have been able to do it without you. I appreciate everything you've done for me and I've done the best I can to represent WCCUSD. I can't wait to get home.

To my family, I love you guys, and I'll see you soon.

Have an awesome day readers! I'll talk to you soon. Good bye!

A Last Surge

As the rest of my esteemed colleagues, I have to apologize for a blog post that will be short and hopefully sweet.

My brain is fried from all the studying I have done today- a few hours here in Uris Library, a few there talking to my TA, and the countless others in my room or on the lawn- and not just today. (That was only the last-minute cramming) Hopefully I have done all I could to prepare myself for tomorrow's exam, and will give a lengthy account tomorrow after all is said and done. For now, I am going to attempt to sleep and preserve all the knowledge I have just inhaled.

On a happier note, I did want to quickly mention how today was a lovely day that included an early celebration of Teri's birthday, which Jobel had cleverly ordered a backwards cake for. My study group said their fond farewells, and the weather on campus was not nauseatingly hot. Should be a good sign for tomorrow! All it takes is a last effort and I can imagine that when I put all my energy into my exam tomorrow, I will spend the rest of my day resting and taking in as much of Cornell as I can before Saturday, the fateful day of our departure. Goodnight everyone.

Madness

This has been one of the busiest, most chaotic nights I've experienced in a while, especially considering its summertime.

The pressure is on with the group report due in a few hours time. Right now, everything is a disorganized jumble, not quite different from the state of my mind right now. I really hope I can get our group's work up to par. If only we shared equal personal obligation to this assignment!

After attending the midnight Harry potter premier a night of formatting, editing, and data inputting awaits. While many were left blubbering about the end of their childhood, I have more important things on mind, including regretting that I spent so much time going to the theater, when it was smarter to stay home editing. I had no idea how much restructuring I implement into the final report. It's going to be a very late night.

This Might Hurt

Yesterday’s title turned out to be pretty accurate, although I’m really starting to wish it wasn’t. While I played off today as the “last day of stress” in my last blog, I didn’t really comprehend just how much stress you are under the day before a final that will completely make or break your grade in a class that has been the sole purpose of your existence for three weeks straight. I have made attempts to relax, most notably a three hour nap immediately after class, which will definitely help me be as alert as possible for tomorrow’s two hour test. One of the most calming things that have happened to me was an e-mail from my mom I received yesterday. Although at first glance it seemed like an e-mail threatening to disown me if I struggled on the final (which I don’t think I will but there was a lot of material to cover so I can never be sure) I’ve been told it was supposed to be a reassuring message, and it has really given me confidence heading into tomorrow’s final, since I know I have the full support of my family, and on an even larger scale, the ILC as a whole. Once again, I’m grateful for this opportunity, and I hope I can represent my school district tomorrow as well as I have been trying to this entire trip.

Perfectionists Never Reach Perfection

It is hard for me to believe that tomorrow will be our last day in class here at Cornell. Walking into the lecture hall, I knew that today was a no-game all-work day as with only a few words from our professors, we were whisked away into the computer lab with our groups to work on our final report.

I have to admit that our organization was haphazard and it was rather unfortunate for me to miss valuable office hours time yesterday because of my ailing illness. With barely anything done, we all got straight to doing business and work on our report. However, as communication has been spotty today, we only managed to get one major section out of three thoroughly completed. But because I was too paranoid in thinking that we didn't have enough content already, I spent the entire day cleaning, revising, and checking up on the section to make sure that it was as perfect as it could be.

Little did I know, I was wasting valuable time that could have been allocated to focusing on getting the other parts done. Sometimes it is better off to swallow a pill and actually make sure everything is complete instead of going through each nit-picky thing.

At lunch, however, it was nice to unwind to the birthday celebration of Terilyn. It was pretty clever to see that "Happy Birthday" was spelled backwards as a reference to the "backward pronunciation" game I hear Teri play often.

The birthday cake spelled backwards.

But once playtime was over, it was back to work and all I could think of is why did it feel as if we were missing something important in our report. Not that everything that should be included isn't important, but sometimes we can't help ourselves but think that there is always something that needs to improved upon and that it probably should be.

Our group is significantly behind, but with the final curtains closing tomorrow, we should be able to throw our all into this and conclude the program with not a fizzle, but a bang.