Interesting Conversations

I woke up latish, which meant I had to go straight to classes and get no breakfast. In global studies we watched a movie about telemarketers and the training they have to go through. I felt sad for these trainees because they were college graduates and had to go through intensive personality-altering training and yet the company only accepted one person out of 15. I had to stop by Dean David's office to show my presentation information. He said that I had to keep my presentation within 10 minutes and that I had good info, which was a nice morale booster. In the garden lounge I got some studying done for history before having lunch with Elyssa, Jeff, John, and Jonelle. I joined Professor Ringrose later on, and chatted with him while asking some questions about the midterm. After that I worked an hour or two longer before realizing that I was actually done with my studying. I had all the info I needed on my study guide, which we are being allowed to bring. So I relaxed for a bit and watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother with Ben and Megan who had joined me shortly before. I also tried to submit my independent trip request form for China, but the site once again was not working. At dinner I had another interesting conversation with Balaji about his personal life, his personality, etc. Aaron asked him lots of questions about his background and family. That's one thing I've noticed in Aaron, and others on the ship, is that he always takes an interest in people and keeps his mind in the moment (in this case, in the conversation), which allows him to come up with more questions and be more interactive with people. One thing led to another, and I later found myself with Aaron, Tony, Matt (Singer), and Jason in Jonelle's room, where we had some rather interesting conversations about Japan and teen culture there. I always knew that Japan had some of the craziest vending machines, but apparently there are ones that sell used ladies underwear.... WHAT???!!! Japanese people are so ... interesting. The conversation continued in Jason and Tony's room, and around 9 I went to the Hip Hop Dance Workshop (which was being taught by Cicero, one of the RAs). I had a lot of fun dancing and learning the moves, and it really reminded me of Freshman Sangam Dance Practice back at UCSD (which made me a bit nostalgic). I did a little bit of work afterwards before heading back to my room. I also canceled my part with the "Lip Singing" performance, because I felt like I was not up for doing that and on top of it I probably would not do it justice. The midterm tomorrow should be fine, and that's kind of what is scaring me. I'm not worried (that tends to scare me, because I tend to stress out before tests) about it because we are allowed to bring an outline. And that kind of made me realize that I've gotten less scared of things while on this trip.
-Nimish
October 19, 2010