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October 30, 2003

All of a sudden it’s really cold here!  Of course, I didn’t bother to check the conditions outside when I awoke and got dressed, so I put on shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops.  My teeth were chattering with the cold wind blowing me as a rode to my math section.  After lunch was my IHUM section, where we discussed Rousseau.  It was pretty funny because the girl next to me kept nodding off.  It’s really funny to watch a person in the process of falling asleep, and attempting to stay awake each time his or her head falls back or forward which jerks him or her awake.

After IHUM section I rode over to White Plaza where there was a bone marrow typing drive going on.  One of the Resident Fellows at Stanford has a daughter who needs a bone marrow transplant, and minorities are needed for the National Bone Marrow Registry.  Since I’m a minority, they were drawing blood at White Plaza to add to the national registry.  This was the first time I had ever gotten blood drawn, so I was a little nervous.  I have had an needle stuck in a vein in my arm – the last time was when I got put to sleep for getting my wisdom teeth pulled.  Anyway, after filling out my consent form, I got my arm swabbed and the needle was put in my arm.It hardly hurt, and they only took around 20mL of blood.  It was over in less then 30 seconds, and after that I got to eat a lot of cookies!It was well worth it, and I feel pretty good about myself.

  That evening a man named Donovan came to speak to Cedro in our lounge during dinner.  He came to talk about societal perceptions people have, and tried to prove how ridiculous they are.  He talked about body image, competition, the duck syndrome, the game, and the imposter syndrome.  The duck syndrome had to do with the idea of making yourself exaggerate or under-exaggerate your currently situation, like saying “I haven’t slept for the past 5 days,” or “I never study.”  The imposter syndrome had to do with coming to Stanford and realizing you’re no longer number one or the best at something.  He brought up some profound points but unfortunately, I had to leave early, especially when things were getting more interesting.

I decided to head to my chemistry outreach session, especially because I’ve been struggling in my chemistry class.  The session was helpful.The TA passed out a problem sheet that we worked on a little independently and then went over together.    About 30 people were there, a lot of whom I recognized.  Everyone asked so many questions thought, that we ran 15 minutes over!  A lot of the questions were actually kind of basic, which made me at least realize that I wasn’t the furthest behind, but of course, I’m sure the people who were asking the questions were also the ones who study a ton.  But, the session was helpful, so I plan to keep going to hopefully help my chemistry grade.

That’s about all I did today.The rest of the evening consisted of hanging out in Cedro with friends and talking online.Tomorrow is Halloween, but I’m not planning to dress up, especially since I don’t have anything to wear.I’m definitely looking forward to the evening.