!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11: The Results Show

And she aces the Dance Paper!

...and the Dance presentation goes awesome!
...and the monologue cold read was great!
...and the marine bio presentation went sort of well
...aced marine bio exam 1
...aced marine bio exam 2
...got the Jack Kent Cooke App Submitted

...updated the list of crap I have left to do into a new post

Updated 11/23/11

Start Living, That's the Next Thing On My List...

Marine Bio Test Questions(ASAP)
- 1
-12
-14

365/365 Performance 1 - 11/12

365/365 Performance 2 - 11/13

American History Paper (Due 14th)
-Topic
-Outline

-Draft

-Final draft submission

Marine Bio Research Paper Draft (Due 14th)

-Topic

-Outline

-Draft

Choose 3 Monologues (ASAP)

-Comedic - Liz Lemon/30Rock

-Dramatic - Nora/ Act III-A Doll's House

-Classical

Dance Research 20 min Research Paper Presentation Power Point (Present on 15th) Presented on the 21st

365/365 Performance Runthrough - 11/15

Dance 6 Questions Assignments (ASAP)

Q 1 : Summarize the lessons on Musical/Jazz Dance

Q 2 : What were the major influences of the Paris Opera within the field of ballet? What important innovations are seen in its history?

Q 3 : What were the major contributions of Russian ballet? What important influences are seen through its history?

Q 4 : Describe the impact of The Ballets Russe. Who were the major contributors? How did it influence English ballet? And who were the major figures important to the development of British ballet?

Q 5 : How did the NYC ballet begin, and what influence did Balanchine have on the field of ballet in the US?. How do other major contributors take part in the story of ballet in the USA?

Q 6: Outline the three periods of Modern Dance; Early Modern; the Modern Pioneers; Post Modern Dance. Who were the major contributors, and what did they do to contribute? Name the dances as well.
Turn it all in!

Dance Reviews (ASAP)

1 - Dusan Tynek (Notes/Need to write)

2 - ? 

365/365 Performance 3 - 11/16

365/365 Performance 4 - 11/17

365/365 Performance 5 - 11/18

Ruth Eckerd Hall Shift 12p-330p - 11/19

365/365 Performance 6 w/strike - 6pm call  - 11/19 


Ruth Eckerd Hall Shift - 530-730p

Graduation Workups - 11/21 

Marine Bio Chapter Article 15-20 presentation Power Point (Present on 23rd)

-Pick and Read Article

-Presentation

Marine Bio Research Paper Hard and E-copy (Nov 28)

Jack Kent Cooke Essays (Due by 28)

- 500 word limit - Narrative Autobiography

- 300 word limit - Identify one event from the 20^th century that is relevant to today’s challenges.  Apply a lesson from that event to a current challenge,.

- 300 word limit -  How different a person would you be if you had been born 50 years earlier?

Memorize Liz Lemon/30Rock and Nora/Dolls House Monologues (Nov 29)

Monologue Written Analyses

Marine Bio Seminar Attendance "Conservation Biomechanics of Sand Tiger Sharks (Nov 29th)

Marine Bio Volunteer Event Attendance - Invasive Plant Removal @ S. Gandy Park (Dec 3)

Transfer Application Essays (before Dec 1st *Did not have them done in time for Dr. Lyons' review, but I did get the rest of my applications and my reccomendation requests in.)

-Columbia GS
Autobiographical Essay (1,500 – 2,000 words)

-Common App

• Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below. (Short Essay/Long paragraph
• Personal Essay 
• Please provide a statement of 250 – 500 words that 
•  addresses your reasons for transferring 
•  the objectives you hope to achieve 

 -Barnard Supplementals (Short Answers, 4 lines ea)  

• What factors have influenced your decision to apply to Barnard College? 
• 1. What intrigues you about Barnard’s approach to the liberal arts and sciences? 
• 2. Transfer student and alumna Margaret Mead ’23 said, “If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.” 
•  How would you add to the fabric of Barnard’s community? 
• 3. If you could work for any organization or company which would you select and why? 
• 4. If you could plan and lead a semester-long college seminar what academic topic would you choose and why?

-NYU Supplementals (1500 characters or less per answer) 

• Why NYU? 
•  Regardless of whether or not you have an intended major or concentration, please 
• a.      Elaborate on your academic area of interest. 
• b.      How do you wish to explore that area at NYU's New York Campus? 
• c.      Please share any activities or experiences you have had that have cultivated your intellectual interests. Specify how they lead you to choose to study at the NYU New York. 
• d.      What intrigues you? 
• Tell us about one work of art, scientific achievement, piece of literature, method of communication, or place in the world (a film, book, performance, website, event, location, etc.) 
• Explain its significance to you.

Early American History Take Home Final (due 12/5!)

Three two page responses to choice of 6 questions.

Marine Bio Take Home Final (

Updated 12/2/11 

Intro to Dance Research Paper

Click to read.

First results...first apps...and a scholarship?

Dance midterm aced.
Early American History paper, "B".  A little disappointed, I really didn't put as much effort into it as I should have.  Getting an earlier start on the next one (read: now).
Also I found out about the Jack Kent Cooke transfer scholarship.  I working on my app currently.  The mere utterance of being granted enough money to actually afford Columbia with out taking out insane loan amounts more suited to my first mortgage, is a mammoth carrot leading my academic horse.  It's sad to see more than one Honor's Institute graduate, not be able to afford and subsequently have to turn down, a once in a life time acceptance.  It has happened.  Just this past spring in fact.
I'm starting to really get the nuts and bolts of the application process down, too.  Dr. Lyons' Transfer and Scholarship Workshop is less than a month away, and I'm just doing what I can, when I can.
The play is going...ok.  I'm still a little shakey on the one longer part I have, it's all there but it seems to blank out when performing it...I'm still calling line on it quite a bit, as we're technically off book already.  We open the day after Veteran's Day, but I'm not completely terrified.

I think that's a good enough update for now.

Surprise, Surprise...

Spring semester scheduling is done.  It's not as bad as I was expecting, but here's to nothing getting canceled.  I need everything I registered for, though I wish I had more acting curricula. 
It's so weird to plan the endgame of something that's been in the works for five years.  I don't know if that's because I feel I've finally found a balance between a social and an academic life for the first time in my life, or because I'm completing something and that's kind of a big deal for me, or if it's because there's no good reason I should be in this position, given my academic past.

Maybe....it's a little of all three.

Brittany's already been accepted to University of Kansas.  It's going to be sad to watch her leave the best friend space. She's been with me the longest, since before Honors, since Torregiante was drilling us on Pavlov and Freud and the imaginary audience theory in General Psychology.

So the schedule for Spring '12, my final semester is as follows:
- Honors Western World: Modern Europe
- Honors Public Speaking
- Honors Selected Topics in History: Irish History and Reveloutions
- Stagecraft
- Script Analysis
- Capstone Connections: Cultural Connections through Film

Classes this semester have been shaky.  Marine Bio is extremely confusing because the professor is extremely confusing, skipping around from topic to topic with no real syllabus.  Early American History is going well.  First papers of the term were due Tuesday. It was finished Tuesday morning at about 1AM. The assignment was to select a previously assigned primary source and analyze it. I wrote on Hakluyt the Younger's Discourse on Western Planting:

Click to Read

It's not my best paper ever, but it's not bad, well cited I thought.  We'll see how grading goes on it; I'll report on that when I get it back.  Performance Workshop is going great; the entire group has meshed really well for the most part.  Our play, Suzan Lori-Parks' 365 Days/365 Plays opens November 12th on the HCC Ybor Mainstage.  I'm supposed to be off book by Thursday..."or parts will be cut."  I'm not sure if that's normal or achievable, since the script order was just finalized last Thursday.  And then, there is Intro to Dance, that sweet little class I could  care less about.  It's kind of grown on me.  My term paper's is on Korean traditional court dances or Jeongjae.  It's a topic I selected my self, because of my interest in Korean culture, so I'm quite happy I get to explore a part of it academically.  

I thinks that's about it, with the exceptions of extracurriculars, but admittedly they need their own post to update them all. Which I'll do sometime this week. So with that, I close.  Have a good evening everyone.

Graceful Exhaustion

   My mind is mush, and I am truly worried.  A whole paper has gone unplanned in the stead of club madness and extracurricular obligations.

"I Put In Work, Did More Than Called Upon..."

Its been a day of prepping a lot of good work, just to be told its worth and useless.


I stayed up til 3am last night working on a powerpoint for Honors Marine Biology for a presentation on the chapter we're supposed to read...only to get to class and have the professor go a completely different direction with something that wasn't on the syllabus

...with out telling anyone.
...less than a week off chiding the entire class for not being prepared to 'lecture' on the assigned content.

Then I find out just now, that the Harvard Model United Nations qualifying position paper I've been working on since July, wasn't even read because too few people submitted overall and the evaluations we're cancelled.

That's a double whammy, because I'm the marketing chair, and I was delegated the campaign for HNMUN.  Ugh.  Whatever.  Birthday's on Friday, second installment of year 25.
Work's below as samples feel free to read/peruse.

Click for HNMUN Position Paper

Click for Marine Bio In-class Presentation

A Note To My 16 Year Old Self

At 9:10am the 2nd horrific part of the most defining moment of your generation has just occurred 6 minutes ago. You know no one directly, but you'll cry. Your world will see big changes, past generations will have no advice for, and future generations will never know an America without. 

Your family will fly flags and in a year or two when you side with a couple of outspoken country singers, some of them will condemn you. You'll move on, just like everyone, 9/11 will become a cultural reference point and vernacular. At least 10 years on, you'll be ok, working towards amazing things like planning to make that city home because being there felt like home. 

All in all, you will feel a loss with out reason, like so many. However, you will also feel insurmountable hope for not just your own country, but after taking time to learn about their adversities, for those on the other side of the extremism. The ordinary Afghans, Iraqis, Saudis, and so many others simply wishing for peace and realize, they too are fighting and recovering after all these years

There will be uncertainty, yes, but so far you will have the luxury of never feeling directly threatened, and will be secure in the knowledge that thousands of men and women, some familiar faces, some family, are stepping up to protect and serve daily, the country that for all it's political squabbling has managed to be a persistent sentry in the matter of foreign attacks and uphill battle guardians for those wishing for peace.

 

  The sub-title of this blog was, for a while, "following logic instead of rules."  It's a standard that generally holds firm and usually is in line with how things are done in work settings, academic settings, socials interactions and the like.  I don't subscribe to the notion that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, neither do I adhere to any sort of one size fits all bureaucratic notions.  I feel while many processes can be streamlined and automated, other, more serious endeavors, such as issues with schools must be handled case by case. Just saying...

Transfer Applications - Part One

So right on par with my advising from Ms. Urbizu and Dr. Lyons, I'm getting a jump on my transfer applications, namely the Common App and supplements.  A friend at the coffee shop commented I was starting to glaze over, at that point I had been there for 7 hours running on dollar store microwave chow mein and a tall green tea lemonade, a specialty of my barista, Dan.

Extremely long story short, When I started writing this blog back a year ago, visiting New York and Columbia were daydreams. A GPA and academic record possibly worthy of admission, were laughable afterthoughts. 

Not anymore.

Today they are realistic goals.  Achievable, very real goals with very real tangible results at the end of them.  I don't speak simply of the degrees or the job offers they may foreshadow, but of projects I will start...and finish.  Research I will do. Roles I'll play. Papers I'll write. Arguments I'll make. Change I'll inspire.
Tears of joy I'll cry when I do it.  The pride I will feel in 10 or 20 years, when a student of mine comes to understand a concept I've taught, because I had such a world class education.

The Honest Question

  This place, whatever this place is, is lonely...very, very lonely.  So much needs to be said if honesty's what we're aiming for.  Fuck the clever videos and song lyrics.  I want the life I've never had back. I guess you could say I live in fear of screwing up, it's one observation.  Really, though, it's so much more logical than that.  Life and a somewhat pathetic belief in fate, has made me a chess player in which every opportunity, every person met is to be evaluated as to whether they're the one with whom my story is altered.  When you're on your 2nd maybe even 3rd chance in life, you get really good at asking the intimidating questions up front, "seeing the moves" before they're made.  And, on the other side of that, is this insane honesty centuries of uptight sophistication and gender role ingratiation and social rules have left isolated.  To look at a person, at a friend, a co-worker, a stranger, a classmate...and wonder is this the person that's going to change my life, with out hesitation, is freedom. It's pathetic what we do to avoid that question, or worse still what we do to avoid letting ourselves believe the answer, if it's not convenient, if it doesn't fit how we need it to, if it doesn't work for someone else, if it's not right, right now.   We lie to ourselves and the friends, co-workers, classmates, and strangers.  We create a non-existent noble farce in keeping silent.  We save face.  We rescue the status-quo and for some short time convince ourselves how things are is how we want it.  That because we've staved off change, we've mastered life, in that aspect for a time, for a time.  But that's all we've done.  We have not progressed or moved forward or made a grand choice.  In denying the answer, or denying to answer such a simple and horrifying question we have become stagnant. It is in asking we live, and accepting the answers we are alive.

Summer Chem Aced!

  Grades are in and I'm on top again.  Aced Chem and Society. Wooooo!

 GPA Update: 3.692

I PASSED THE WWTBAM TEST!

So I am majorly geeking out right now, I attended the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire live audition this morning, AND PASSED THE TEST SESSION!

 

  We were told before tests were graded that if we passed we'd receive a postcard either way, if we were selected for the contestant pool or not. They came back in with the results and called us out by test number,  They had us do a personality questionnaire, waivers, and then had us interview with a producer.  I think I did really well with that.  I don't think I talked too fast. I was purposely trying to slow down...and I didn't talk over the producer very much like I tend to do when I'm nervous.  :D 

  So now I've got the whole day...I think I might go to the beach.

Wrapping Up The Summer - Part Two: Looking Ahead

  During today's final, I felt oddly at peace as I paced through the 50 questions.  Many of the answers came easily, much different from my last test, in which I sat aimlessly hoping for solutions to spring from some remote indistinct and dank corner of my subconscious.  Who knew that when you study and get your mind off stupid insignificant %@#%, you can actually do more than give your self a massive headache at test time?

  So that's it, no work left to be done, just waiting for grades.  Luckily, I'm plenty occupied with pre-season catalog and package sales at work, and club position duties, extracurriculars, and, oh yeah, the first stirrings on completing my transfer applications. 

  As for fall, I feel like this is going to be a quick few weeks off, with the number of books assigned for the semester. The book list for fall includes:

• Early American History (Honors)
• 1-ATTITUDES TOWARD SEX IN ANTEBELLUM AM. - Horowitz  ISBN:9780312412265
• 2-DEFENDING SLAVERY - Finkelman ISBN: 9780312133276
• 3-DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA - Detocqueville ISBN 9780312463304
• 4-ENVISIONING AMERICA - Mancall , ISBN 9780312096700
• 5-GREAT AWAKENING - Kidd, ISBN 9780312452254
• 6-JOHN BROWN'S RAID ON HARPERS FERRY - Earle, ISBN 9780312392802
• Marine Biology (Honors)
• 7-MARINE BIOLOGY - Castro, ISBN 9780073524160
• Marine Biology Lab (Honors)
• 8-ECOLOGY OF TAMPA BAY: A USER'S GUIDE - Ehringer, ISBN 2818450011020
• Acting II TPP-1111-15076
• 9-ACTING ONE/ACTING TWO - Cohen, ISBN 9780073288543 (Already own :D )
• Performance Workshop TPA-1290-15073
• No Listing (...yet)

  In other news, my birthday's just a couple months out, and I was thinking of some self gifting.  I think I finally want to get that bracelet tat I've been wanting for ages.  As I wrote to my grandmother after telling her about the great idea, "The song is "Question Existing" by Rihanna, who wouldn't generally be the first artist I'd consider scribing on to my skin, but the questions are timeless to me.  I can't ever see myself regretting these or being embarrassed to show them to my grandchildren."

Who am I living for?
Is this my limit?
Can I endure some more?

So, I checked my school email for the first time in a few days, and got floored this morning:

From :     Jack Clark
To :     Ami Fazchas

Hello Ami - hope you are having a wonderful summer.

Are you still interested in forming a theatre club? If so, would you be willing to be the first president?
I will be getting "all ducks in a row" for the club before Fall commences, and will send you the application form to sign if you are willing to be "the chosen one" for the Fall term.

Please let me know.

I have no idea what wrenches this throws into, the Arete/Honors stuff, the Hoffman/P:SS volunteer stuff, the actuall school/classwork stuff, or the work stuff; all I know is that my gut is screaming: "YESSSSSSSS!  TAKE IT! TAKE IT! TAKE IT!"

Oh man.  I'm gonna take this opportunity to update the fall "Whats on Deck":
Fall '11
☐ - Honors Early American History (Social Sciences Req. - 3 Hours)
☐ - Honors Marine Biology with Lab (Natural Sciences Elective Req. - 4 Hours)
☐ - Acting II (Dramatic Arts Elective Req. - 3 Hours)
☐ - Performance Workshop (Dramatic Arts Elective - 3 Hours)
☐- 15-30 hours a week @ Ruth Eckerd Hall

+☐- Arete Marketing Chair Work/Meetings/Volunteer work
+☐- Ybor Thespians Society Presidential Duties?
+☐- Volunteer work with Project:Shattered Silence?
+☐- Harvard National Model United Nations participation?

☐- Independent study of Elementary Korean

Wrapping Up The Summer

So I'm almost there, Monday is my final for Chem and Society. After ten weeks, I'm sure it wasn't the most informative class I've ever taken, but I think I may muddle out a low "A". I know I should be happy with that, but that kind of attitude leads to bad places. I should be concerned with what I've actually learned. All the effort in the world means bubkus if I've taken away nothing useful.

This is the essay we had to write.  A relativity small one this time, it was only three pages.  I got unexpected funny looks when I mentioned citations.  Apparently, no one else bothered going that in-depth.  :\  Hooray, for overachieving.  Click below to read it in full.

Dean's List

 

  Considering I haven't been on anything resembling an honor roll since I was learning to add and subtract, this is kind of a big deal for me.  I choked up when I read it.  And now to celebrate, with a little cut loose, poignant sentiment, Niki Minaj ladies and gentlemen:

I wish that I could have this moment for life, for life, for life
Cuz in this moment I just feel so alive, alive, alive

Getting There...

I aced my first Chem test. 91%, however, the few questions I missed were due largely in part to rushing; I made a number of simple mistakes.

There is another bit of good news though, our dutiful President Kelly, has decided to make me chair of marketing of Arete, HCC Honors Institute.

Just Around the River Bend - Pocahontas (1995)

Not too bad...

  Not as evil as I guessed, the first two Chem quizzes came back with a 10/10 each.  The first Chem test wasn't as brutal as I expected.  33 questions and multiple choice, I wasn't too perplexed.  There was a question that through me about converting Celsius to Kelvin; I could not remember the conversion factor for the life of J.J. Thomson.
  I expect an "A" on it.  Actually, I feel really great about it.
  The labs are also going well.  I love the practical side of it, the mixing and products gained; I love to bake, so that's not that surprising.  There is something infinitely cool about combining two things and getting something new, ask any kid who is face deep in a mixing bowl of reluctant cake batter and they will tell you making stuff from other stuff is great.
  Yeah, real deep, I know. It's freezing in here. *goes to get a hot chai latte*