11:13pm

Senioritis

I'm experiencing an incredible bout of senioritis. It's quite awful and I'm afraid there's no hope of recovery.

There are only three weeks left of the school year and I'm beyond ready to be done. Only three weeks and summer will be here. Only three weeks and I'll be done with homework at 2am. Only three weeks and I'll never be at a junior college again. Only three weeks and I can officially be an ARC alum and UCSD student. Only three more weeks.

It seems impossible to stay focused on my homework. It's so very difficult to care about these remaining three weeks. Today the sun was deliciously warm again and my chem classmates and I lounged in the flowering grass to write our our pre-labs instead of sitting, holed up in the library. We must have looked a sight; sitting together with our bare feet, lab notebooks strewn about in the grass, half-heartedly working on enthalpy and thermochemistry as we blew goose-calls with grass blades. Chem hippies. We're quickly losing our concentration...which is bad. These last three weeks are crucial!! We've been studying for 13 long weeks, we can't give up in these last three weeks.

After these three weeks are over, the next time I'll be a student will be in San Diego. Paradise. A UC of my very own.

Three more weeks. But these weeks will be bittersweet; I'm savoring my last weeks with dear, dear professors who I've spent the last two years with. I'm loving my friends and our strange quirkiness. Even the late-night homework sessions are fun in a nerdy way - I love getting a text at 1:30am to see if my chemical reaction was endothermic or exothermic. It's kinda fun to celebrate the completion of calc homework with friends at ungodly hours of the night. I'm going to miss ARC, as much as I can't wait to be at UCSD.

So, there's only three weeks left. It's a weird mix of nostalgic senioritis.

Complementary Colors

445 nm, 575 nm, 680 nm

(Blue, yellow, red)

No more nothing

I really can't handle being alone with my thoughts.

I'm discovering, begrudgingly, that I'm addicted to busyness. It's my drink. My escape. If I can just stay busy enough, focused on an almost dizzying amount of activities or responsibilities, then I'm safe.

Well, it's Spring Break and there are no classes. No MUN. No work. And I'm housesitting. Alone. In the quiet. And it's really not so good.

It's really late now and I can't sleep. I lie in bed angry and tearful. Brilliant, witty comebacks spring to mind and I whisper them to the pillow beside me....but the words come years too late. Already, half a dozen poems have flitted through my mind, but I haven't the strength to write them down. I just think them and keep them on my mind's page. They're angry, hurt poems and it's probably good they're not written down.

I love the quietness of Spring Break, I love the ability to breathe and just sit and do nothing. But I need school to start again.

180 Degrees South

Can this be my life? Please?

Model United Nations

I'm finally crawling into bed with blistered feet, sore back, and weary mind. We spent over 15 hours today in committee debating, negotiating and working with difficult personalities and I'm beat. It was an incredible day and I had an absolute blast, so I really can't complain. For some reason, passionately arguing about the rights of internally displaced people or refusing to back down regarding the necessity of safe drinking water is really fun, even if it's just a simulation. As a Permanent Representative, I'm not on an official committee, bur rather am in charge of seven "Zambian" delegates who all have free reign to ask me any question at any time. Literally. I spent over 15 hours today writing speeches for them, researching for them, making coffee for them when they had to be in committee past midnight, siting in for them so they could go to the bathroom or smoke a cigarette in stress, drove them to get lunch, and hovered around in case they had a question on policies or foreign relations. My phone was vibrating off the hook all day long today with texts or calls for help.

Additionally, the vice president of ARC was here today, so it was partially my job to entertain, inform, and impress the socks off her so we can get increased funding next year. Thankfully, she left conference incredibly excited about what we do - hopefully she'll spread the word.

Today was so very long. Fifteen hours of committee does things to a body. Andrew, goofy, brilliant Andrew (he was president last year) was so exhausted Professor Collihan gave him a powerful caffeine pill which, on top of his strung-out nerves, made him jittery and spastic. Clara withdrew into exhausted, moody silence around 6:00pm and when I got back from taking a group to In-N-Out, she looked ready to fall apart. Molly *did* fall apart around 10:00pm and we retreated to the bathroom so no-one would see her tears. People were snapping left and right. It's the third day of five, people are exhausted, pushed to their physical mental limits, their brains have been in top-gear for three days straight, and they literally have to perform all.day.long.

I look around at the excited college students walking around in sharp business suits and high-heels, giant dark bags under their eyes, giving rousing speeches filled with political brilliance and solutions to controversial global problems. We're rather strange. We spend five long days in committee with people we've never met, negotiating problems from the point of view of a country we spent a year researching, thinking so critically it hurts, and living on granola bars and multiple cups of coffee.

As president of the Model United Nations club this year, I was a little nervous going into conference this year. Were my delegates prepared? Did they know what to do or expect? Would they stay in character and accurately represent their countries? Would they be active members of the competition? Had I done a good enough job getting them ready?

As the days progressed I only became more and more proud of the wonderful people I call my delegates, and my dear friends. They did such an incredible job and we showed-up the 4-year universities who love to snub us for being JCers. We were on all the speaker's list, continually shook committee with our radical views or leading policies, were commended on our high quality work and were especially recognized by Dr. Nancy Roof - a regular speaker before the UN and founder of the award-winning Kosmos Jounral.

The Model United Nations Club of American River College

The PRs; Molly (France), Me (Zambia), and Andrew (Iran)

Tomorrow we start again at 9am sharp, which means I'll need to have my delegates fed, pep-talked and ready to go around 8:15ish. Tomorrow is going to be intense and exciting; the committees are on the verge of passing resolutions which means it's down to the final polishing and editing. So fun!! People are starting to get to know other delegates well and I can se friendships forming even within my delegations that I haven't seen before. It's exciting to see the growth in the younger delegates and the thrilled light in their eyes when they emerge from committee. Their eyes sparkle as they recount their moving speeches or the fact that they exposed another country's internal governmental corruption and called them out for it. It's an exciting place, MUN. Yes, it's a simulation and therefore ultimately fake, but you feel so important debating these topics. You feel like you're making a difference, you're standing up for the voiceless masses, working to be an instrument of change in a desperate world. I know we're not really, I know I'm not really a delegate from Zambia, and yet this is so invigorating, rejuvenating, and inspiring. MUN teaches you international responsibility, the fascinating interdependence of the world, and how to navigate through frustrating quagmire's of bureaucracy. It's incredibly fun and oh so very addicting.