Senior Year Dorm!

Many of my family friends have asked me how I manage to stay away from my home for so many months, and I will admit, it's incredibly hard. A lot of things that really bothered me my first year here really had to deal with how my environment wasn't really as warm as it could have been. While it's still difficult to spend so many months away from home at school, I've found my dorm to be a little spot of my own in this giant campus.

I've lived in my dorm suite for three years, going on my fourth. The last two years, I've been in the same room, lovingly referred to as the Annex by my roommate and I. My room is separated from the other rooms in our suite because we're right next to the elevator. It has its perks... kind of.

This year, the room is wonderfully decorated-- at least by my standards. It's been a cross between how I had it the last few years, and something completely new.

So to start with the bed:

Every room in Stony Brook comes with a desk, a bed, a small drawer set, and a big one. This is the first year where I didn't have a drawer thing in the closet, but we'll get to that later. 

Unfortunately my room doesn't have an AC, so I can't really keep a comfy big comforter on my bed because I can never use it. (Because even during the winter, the heat is turned up so much, that it's still too hot!) So I opted for a light quilt for the past two years. I sleep in a pillow fort so I have a bunch of pillows near the head of my bed. 

The main wall has 58 pictures of myself with my friends who I love the most. It's so eye-catching because it's the first thing you see when you come into the room. The pictures were put up using poster putty, and I highly recommend using that! Sometimes the pictures will come up if you didn't use enough of the putty, but none of them have fallen down. My whiteboard is also there on the side so I can work out my mechanical engineering class homework and calculus problems. 

Next is the desk: 

I upgraded to the big tv that I had in my bedroom at home. It's definitely better than my old tv from last year because now we can utilize the whole room! I have my desk supplies and books on the side, and my schedule pinned up. I obviously have a dalek, a stem cell, and an AIDS microbe chilling near my fan for fun and my arsenal of body scents and perfume for fun? I find keeping my desk with minimal stuff on it really helps keep it clean, but we'll see if it'll last! 

This is the side view of the desk. As you notice the drawer set is below my desk, which has cleared up so much space in the closet! The best thing is the drawers open so nicely there, and it keeps things so much more organized. I have all my school supplies in my drawers so I don't have to have it stored anywhere else. There's also my emergency flannel for late night fire alarms, which are sadly very common. 

One of my favorite things is I have my fridge out in a more prominent location. Instead of leaving it empty, I filled it up with more photos, and fun magnets. The letter magnets are actually elements from the periodic table, which definitely fit in my alley of science-y geek. 

Closets are always the hardest part of the room to keep clean. This year I have so much space in there, it's going to be tough to just throw a million things in there and keep the door closed. I invested in some hanging closet shelves for my shoes and clothes and extra bed sheets.

And there it is, that's my side of the Annex. 

If you're a college student reading this, here's some things that I definitely recommend. 

1. If you're living in a dorm without an air conditioner, make sure you get a box fan! Since the Annex is in this weird alcove where the there are two walls blocking air flow, my room gets incredibly hot. Having a box fan helped so much to keep the air circulating and room feeling immensely cooler. Box fans are not too expensive, and it's definitely something you will be using year round. 
2. For laundry, I really recommend Tide pods. They don't take up too much space, and they work amazingly. 
3. Regardless of whether you live in a room with access to a kitchen or not, a water filter is a must. While it's easy to buy water bottles, a water filter is going so much better. If you ever feel like making ramen, you won't have to use sketchy dorm water to make it if you have filtered water instead!
4. Lighting in dorms are horrible. I hardly use the dorm lights because the florescent light often gives me a headache. For lighting, I've used a desk lamp and tilted the head back so it illuminates the whole room. It gives the room an ambience that is perfect for watching some tv and relaxing. 
5. Play around with your furniture. You might be surprised with how you can make things work!
6. You can use over the door hooks for other things in your room. I used one in my closet for my towel, and another is hanging off of my desk for my bag. They're pretty sturdy for things that a command hook can't handle. 

Best of luck to any people in college this semester! 

Voldemort Appeared in my Cheesecake and other things....

This summer has been a conglomeration of trying to figure out what I'm going to do after I graduate college, working out, reading a ton, and occasionally visiting a couple of friends here and there. What I love about the summer is that it is continuous stretch of relaxation and peace, but sometimes it does feel a bit too long. Blogging seems a bit redundant at that point because I'm not doing much of anything.

College me is a lot more exciting than summer me.

Regardless, I'll keep updating with books I've read this summer. (I'm working my way through Bossypants by Tina Fey, and picked up a couple of plays that I've been meaning to read for a while.) And some other silly stuff.

As for the most exciting and possibly downright disturbing event of the summer so far:

Voldemort appeared in my cheesecake.

Creepy right? Well, I've got a glorified stick that I've fashioned into a wand. If Voldemort shows up, I can just stab him with that I guess. 

That's it for now!

JT!

My laptop, the Glitterati for those of you who've seen it, is now dead. Which isn't exactly why I'm posting this song by JT... I got a new MacBook (Bonafide Apple snob here!) It's exciting cause I'm learning how to use it, and I paid for it with my own money but it's a bit strange because I don't really have any money now.

Oh well... this song's been stuck in my head all day, and it sounds marvelous on my new speakers! I can't wait for my music to transfer over, maybe I'll listen to some Decemberists or Muse... or more Justin Timberlake.

I can't handle his music right now. It's too perfect.

Best,
Sheillster (haha I haven't signed off like that in ages!)

What I've Been Up To...

This semester needed a bit of getting used to. While I complained about taking six classes last semester and the amount of stress I subjected myself to, this semester has been just as rough. Here's a small conglomeration of (mostly instagram-ed) pictures.

Orgo Studying

German Studying

Starbucks addiction drinking

Biology Lab...ing? 

Luckily, some things are looking up! Spring break is in... a week? (YAY!) Although I still have to get through this week, which includes group projects for BME, a town hall meeting in the works at work, and more studying as always. (Which means a lot of Starbucks in the near future as well!) 

Hope your March has been going well! 

-Sheilly

Friday Lists: Books!

When I was in middle school, I used to attend all of my mom and dad's Indian community get-togethers. They usually comprised of pujas, housewarmings, birthday parties, dinner parties, music parties, etc. At every get together, I never had any people in my own age group to talk to, because either everyone was much older, or significantly younger. So these parties weren't necessarily too much fun for me.  

So I took books everywhere with me. My parents spoiled me, and got me as many books as I so wished, and I cannot be more grateful for this fact. While I had an iPod, my own laptop, and later a fancy new phone, my mom and dad spoiled me more with books than with anything else. (Well, maybe with clothes too, but that's something entirely different...) The one thing that I've learned to do now is to always keep a book on me, in case I'm in a position where I can get easily bored. 

However, since college started, my reading list has grown larger and has not diminished. For every one book I read, I add three books to the list. It's absolutely ridiculous! And I find I often don't read as often as I used to simply because of my brain getting over worked during the semester with studying. (I swear, this totally happens. This winter break, I didn't write as much I as usually do, only because I had to do a 25 page behemoth essay, and the sight of my keyboard made me want to gag... well maybe not, but it felt like it!) However, my new year's aspiration this year was to read more, and I am sticking to it! I just finished reading some more Camus (The Fall) this week, as well as reading my Genetics textbook for fun. 

Anyway, for this Friday list, I'll share with you some books that I currently have on my "WANT TO READ" pile, and as always, please do share if you have any books you would think would be fantastic for me to read as well! 

This section's the fun list, because it's mainly light-hearted, fictional, not too serious stuff.

This is a group of biology/scientific books that I'm waiting to get my hands on. Some of these books are some that I've wanted to read for a while, and others are some that I've heard about in passing and really want to know more about! :)

--Sheilly

3 Things

I usually do pictures for these posts, but I just needed to have this song here. I don't know why, but this whole week I've been going on YouTube to hear this song far too often. It may be because I saw the episode of How I Met Your Mother with this song just the other day, and it's reminded me of the sheer catchy-ness of this song.

I finally finished my Christmas shopping! And by that I mean, I finished it for my college friends! I've decided to make some cookies and give them in tiny boxes to some people, some bracelets and earrings I've made, and my roommate gets some rather silly things I've found! The bag up there just screamed to me, despite it being a Valentine's Day bag, I thought it was perfect for her!!!

I got my Genetic Engineering book! I got my Genetic Engineering book! I got my Genetic Engineering book!

Sorry, I'm really excited for this class, and looking through the textbook is even more exciting. I had it shipped to my house, and when I opened it, my dad said I looked like a kid at Christmas. I'm already on chapter two... :) 

-- Sheilly

Thoughts on Fall 2012

This semester is finally over! If I ever sign up for more than five classes, someone please... punch me right in the face. This semester felt like a good slap in the face, with the amount of work I was  doing! While I've expressed some concerns before, I can't help but feel happy about this semester. It was stressful, so incredibly stressful, but the payoff was so nice.
Getting those good grades almost feels like Christmas came early, and Santa knew exactly what I wanted. But it's not like someone just handed me the grades, but rather I worked hard for it, and that feeling makes it that much better.
Am I gushing? I feel like I'm gushing!

At the end of every semester I always reflect, thinking back on what I could have done better or what I really wish I spent more time on while also considering what I did that was fantastic. I think it's a good balance, finding something to achieve while also acknowledging what I did so well always motivates me more for each semester.
Some of my favorite things from this semester// things I've learned:

Learning about Radical formations in Organic Chemistry. Are you ready for a nerd-gasm? Good. 

Radical reactions are thought to be the basis for many forms of cancer, because these reactions are spontaneous and can not be controlled. Like cancer cells dividing uncontrollably, once a radical reaction begins, it will not terminate easily. To explain the process, atoms have electrons in a space around an atom. When these electrons are stimulated with energy like heat or light, they will start to move around more, and will leave the atom. Atoms do not like to have an incomplete shell of electrons, so they share their electrons with other atoms to keep their shells full. In a radical reaction, two atoms share electrons that get excited, and  break apart, causing each atom to seek more atoms. Since atoms don't like having incomplete shells, they will look for other electrons to share, and will attack and bond with other atoms. This is what is being shown in the picture above! Okay, I'll stop now. 

Die Blaue Blume-- German for the blue flower. Way before the modern meaning of this colored flower, the blue flower represented "what people look for, but could never be found." It symbolized love and desire, and the quest to find it. While I can't say that the Romantik period was my favorite, I do love this symbol that they chose. I think I've never seen a blue flower yet, and the way it's worded... well why don't you read it? 

"Nicht die Schätze sind es, die ein so unaussprechliches Verlangen in mir geweckt haben, sagte er zu sich selbst; fern ab liegt mir alle Habsucht: aber die blaue Blume sehn’ ich mich zu erblicken. Sie liegt mir unaufhörlich im Sinn, und ich kann nichts andres dichten und denken."

In English: "It was not the treasures that drew me in so unspeakably, he said to himself. The blue flower was what lead me away from greed, and was what I seek. She is stuck in my head, and I can not think nor write of anything else."
Isn't it pretty? 
There were so many wonderful things in German literature, and while we did get through so much of it, there is always so much more to be explored. I'll definitely be checking out some more German poetry in the near future, even if I'll be reading it with the world's biggest German dictionary next to me...

More Orgo! Who's really surprised? I guess this is not necessarily something I learned but rather became more confident in. At the beginning of this semester, doing a synthesis problem scared me SO much. I was terrified at the thought of needing to know endless amounts of reactions, and knowing exactly where something would attack. I can't say I'm a master at it, but right now I'm not as afraid of these problems as I was at the beginning of the semester. The lesson learned here was to keep working through it. There's more than one solution to every problem, and some are easier than others, but it's not terrifying at all. It shouldn't be. So going into the second part of orgo, I know I can conquer it. I'll study this break, and I'll keep plowing ahead. Which leads me to the last lesson/photo...

If there's one thing I'm guilty of, it's finding life lessons in the show Scrubs. I take it to an extreme, that is probably not what the writers or creators of the show intended. (Sorry!) That being said, this was the first semester where I didn't do my usual ritual of rewatching all eight seasons of the show in a semester. It's weird, because I've done that since the very first semester I've been here, and I've missed it. There have been so many instances where my life has coincided with something happening in that show, and all of a sudden I know exactly what I need to do. So I guess I learned that I need to rewatch Scrubs every semester of college now. (Is anyone else saying weirdo right now? Because I know in my head, I am!) 

Anyway, that brings me to the end of this semester. I'll be heading home for the holidays tomorrow, with my car packed with multiple bottles of nail polish and an organic chemistry textbook. To anyone still charging through finals, good luck! To everyone else, thanks for reading! -- Sheilly