Maame's College Extravaganza: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT and Harvard are in the exact same city, which makes Cambridge Brain Central. Because they're within the same city limits you'd think that I wouldn't go over location again, but you guessed wrong. Harvard is right in the 'downtown' area of Cambridge, right across the street there is a Panera Bread. MIT is past the downtown area, but not by much so you're not in the outskirts. Still, people are driving faster because there's less traffic and no one parallel parks at MIT because there is a huge parking garage right next to the campus.

MIT's campus is very metropolitan. Unlike Harvard, there are no gates, there is just a street where one part is MIT and the other side is not. The buildings of MIT are not very beautiful, I'm sorry it had to be said. Many of the buildings reminded me of the Grand Budapest Hotel after Zero took over and it was falling apart, not that MIT is falling apart, but it's the same kind of 1960's/1970's minimalist architecture. I'm not really a fan of 1960's/1970's minimalist architecture. There was one building, across the street from the Alchemist, that was truly breathtaking. The building that held the Admissions Office, one of the Maclaurin Buildings, was huge, with "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" (with "u's" as "v's") etched into the top of it. Being surrounded by a failing Grand Budapest was initially off-putting, but I decided to give the campus a try because it was MIT.

The real magic of MIT comes from the people involved, I think. Everyone I met there was extremely nice and informative, especially Tamika in the Admissions Office. After touring the school I had some lingering questions and she answered all of them really well without making the school seem daunting. In the bookstore the lady at the register was telling us all about the binary behind the new MIT shirts (every letter is made up of its own binary code).

My favorite part about my visit to MIT was how it wasn't just mine. If you're unaware my dad deals with computers for a living and my little brother took after my dad's keenness for motherboards and what not, so it was a family trip. When we went to the bookstore to look at shirts my dad and my brother were laughing at everything (that didn't include calc because my brother is 13). MIT was where my family had the most fun overall experience, and even though I can't put them in my suitcase if I were to be accepted, it's still nice to know that they enjoyed their time.

Now for the serious stuff: Snapchat filters. MIT's filters looked exactly like what a school for tech nerds would create. I didn't love them, but they made a lot of sense, so for that, I give MIT a 7/10. Nowhere close to the level of my hometown, but still very original and very MIT-like.

Maame's College Extravaganza: Harvard College

I've been in love with everything Harvard since I was about five years old when my dad and uncle were talking about great colleges (I don't think I'll ever forget that day in Albuquerque), anyway I've never stepped foot on the campus in my life. Everything I know about Harvard comes exclusively from the Internet: whether that be from Gilmore Girls via Netflix, Youtube videos or Harvard's virtual tour. If there has ever been a single school that was a must see in the heart of Maame between 2003 to now, it would be Harvard.

Cambridge is, for starters, beautiful. Everything about it is completely wonderful. I'm still not sure if I'm saying that because I've romanticized the entire town for so long, or if it truly is breathtaking; I think it's a bit of both. Cambridge feels like my hometown--remember, I'm the kid that packed the same home lunch for years, so I'm a fan of normalcy. I will admit there is one disparity: the roads are very narrow, and I was always convinced we'd hit something, even though we never did. Still, I enjoyed my time. Everything there is brick, on Massachusetts Street, I mean, which is a lot like Massachusetts Street in my hometown. The people are friendly, the sidewalks aren't very dirty, and bikers do whatever they want all the time.

Everyone knows how I feel about Gap--short story: I love the Gap. Anyway, literally steps away from Harvard Yard is a Gap store and an Urban Outfitters (even though I don't really shop there anymore, it's good to have choices), plus an Anthropology (I'm not sure I can even afford that, especially as a student, but again, it's good to have options), along with an American Apparel (I really can't afford that, but I can take pictures of cute outfits in the dressing room and dream).

Harvard itself is beautiful, as if that wasn't already obvious. Harvard Yard is smaller than I expected, but Harvard isn't really known for its high acceptance rates or anything, so it's understandable. Everything around Harvard Yard is made of brick, or at least some sort of stone. We went on a guided tour, so it included stories of different buildings, which really pulled everything together to know that a certain pile of bricks once housed George Washington or another was on its third try at being a building. The college is pretty spread out, there is the main campus on Mass., but it branches out throughout Cambridge, with every building looking distinctly Harvard-esque.

The worst moment of my life happened when I identified a Harvard student, from some obscure, exclusively Harvard video from Youtube. I'm sure he was weirded out, but I was on a high from the Cambridge air, and Yale students were in the room next to me. I was very easily knocked off of this pedestal when my mother asked for a picture, which I refused before he could even accept or deny because I am most definitely not a creep.

While on tour, we stopped at the "John Harvard" statue. I put this in quotation marks because John Harvard is not the one immortalized in brass, it's actually some rando that was related to the President of Harvard at the time. Another nugget of information: our tour guide said they call it the "Statue of Three Lies" because John Harvard isn't pictured, the establishment date on the statue is wrong and the founder's name is wrong. The "John Harvard" statue was created by the same man who did the Lincoln Memorial, so maybe he was a bit preoccupied at the time, but still, poor work, man. I saw a Youtube video where a bunch of kids got so drunk they allegedly peed on the statue, but I still got in line like everyone else, and rubbed the statues stinky, pee stained foot. It's supposed to help you get into Harvard, I guess only time will tell if I even have the gall to apply.

The filter options at Harvard are very nice, again not as good as my hometown, but Harvard isn't home to the most artistic people. I'm trying very hard to not let my sweet disposition for the school affect my scoring; between how the many filter options, and how certain buildings had their own filters, I'm giving Harvard a 7.5/10 for its Snapchat filters.

My next stop was MIT, which I will discuss in its own post at a later date. After we leave the Boston area, we'll be headed for the Big Apple.

If any of you have been to Harvard feel free to tell me what it was like.

Maame's College Extravaganza: Cornell University

This summer I’m embarking on my giant college tour trip, my parents and I are taking the East Coast by storm from Ithaca to Boston. This has been, by all means, an Odyssey to get here (Mr. Rabiola would be so proud). We drove because, well, I don't really know why we drove. Still, we drove. It wasn't a bad trip, but it was the longest we've ever taken as a family. I like long car rides because it allows me to do my favorite things: listen to music, eat, and read. It's uninterrupted time to relax for me because no one ever tries to make me drive. I assume as I get older this relaxation period will turn into something very different when I'm the one driving for twenty hours and not reading "Americanah" to Laura Mvula's album and a bag of Oreo Minis. Nonetheless I still read some 300 pages of one of my first fiction books written for adults in the driving period. I've also memorized all of "Green Garden" both the studio and the Metropole Orkest (I prefer the latter version, but only marginally).

As I embark on this journey I find it best to describe each place we stop, or at least the interesting ones. My first stop was Cornell University to

1. Visit my sister; and
2.  Go on a tour of the school

Ithaca, NY is in Upstate New York. I'm from Kansas, so when they say it's flat, I always think about how my hometown has huge hills that are scary to walk up, and then I came here and I'll never think that again. In Upstate New York everything has a slope. In Ithaca if you look up from pretty much any point, you see rolling hills, maybe mountains, for miles. It's really beautiful when you don't think about how somewhere in the rolls and rolls of forestry hills exists a few packs of bears that are very prepared to steal your Tim Hortons.

On the way to the cabins you have to go through a dramatic ride through Upstate, and just before you reach the Arnot Forest you're so close to the forest that you can see individual trees. The trees in this area are very thin, but very tall, like a teenage boy with a pituitary gland imbalance, and the roads are always raised up by about 10 feet, unlike in Kansas. So, you can't really swerve around on the roads, unless you enjoy 10 foot car drops onto the family of bears that still want your donuts.

Ithaca itself is a lot different from what I expected. My parents told me it's just like our hometown: that was a lie. Ithaca is very much a different city. It has a vibe to it that I've only found in the East Coast (this isn't my first rodeo in the East Coast please see 2008 and 2010 of my memory for more details). The roads are narrow and the rent is very high. When you pass single family homes, more than one family lives there. The people are very similar to my hometown, I'll give Ithaca that.

It's probably because they're colleges of similar sizes, although my hometown doesn't house an Ivy. Wegman's is a grocery store that's always packed with people because of its many organic options. My hometown just opened its third organic grocers. Ithaca feels smaller, I think it stems from how different the college town area is from everything else.

I've enjoyed my time here, in Ithaca I mean. There is an avid Amish population, which really excites me because they've always fascinated me. The Snapchat filters for the city aren’t half bad, but nothing in comparison to my hometown. I'll give their filters a 6/10. My next stop is Boston to tour the plethora of colleges that exist within the area. 

Let me know if any of you have been to Ithaca. How was it for you?

Food

I like the foods that I like--I wouldn't say I'm a 'picky' eater, I just don't like a lot of foods, but I really like a few foods. This situation creates an atmosphere of longing and repetition. I've been waiting for my favorite foods to show up and chowing down since as long as I can remember. In pre-school I distinctly remember sobbing the day I had a doctor's appointment that ran late and made me miss my favorite lunch: meatballs.

As I've gotten older and started working the waiting part has kind of disappeared because I can just buy the foods I like. Here is a list of foods that I have arguably become addicted to:

1. 2012- Snicker's Ice Cream Bars
• Once a day, everyday for around a month I would walk to the Walgreen's by my house to buy exactly one Snicker's ice cream bar. 
• "Maame, what is this? Why didn't you just buy them in bulk, like, once a week?" Good question: I have no answer, I was a stupid tween--MOVING ON! 
• When I ran out of money from my babysitting gig and could no longer afford the ice cream bars I can honestly tell you that I had withdrawal symptoms.
•  Like a crackhead in prison, I was forced to move on.
2. 2013- Pirate's Booty
• Every week for 2 months I would buy exactly 2 bags of Pirate's Booty (2 for $4) from Dillion's and spend the whole week eating them
• One day as I was eating a bag, I realized that I had out-eaten them. They stopped being a treat, so I stopped liking them.
• A crackhead sees the light again.
3. 2014- China House
• Before an orchestra concert, after school on early release, after pay day, or when I felt like it I was at China House ordering sesame chicken, light sauce, pork fried rice and crab rangoon instead of egg rolls. 
• The only reason I stopped eating China House was because, well, actually I had it like two weeks ago, nevermind I still eat there. My addiction to Chinese food hasn't gone away.
•  I guess you could say I'm weaning myself off of it in the same way doctors wean crack babies off drugs; it's a gradual process.
4. 2015- The Waffle Iron
• Gourmet (?) $10 waffles that are literally burning a hole in my bank account and I still haven't stopped. 
• If you're a true fan, you'd know that since I was 5 on our family trip to New Mexico when I was first exposed to waffles, I've loved them. 
• A few months ago my friend Jessica, who is a true friend and a true fan, took me to get fancy waffles because she knows how much I love them and that's when it started.
• It's like I'm a crackhead living in a crack house.
• This is such a problem because I refuse to stay in my hometown forever, which means that I can't go once every other week like I'm doing now.

Me the year of the infamous doctor's
appointment, smiling through the pain.

I've worked at the same fast food joint for over a year now, and nearly everyday without fail (until she fell ill) this woman would walk in around 2pm and order a diet coke and two ice creams. It was like clockwork, we could always expect her. One thing to note about me, is how self conscious I am, especially when it comes to food. I hid my Snicker's bars, I tried to play Pirate's Booty off as just a snack and I physically cannot eat alone. 

The problem is when people point it out. Don't remind me that I've had the same snack all the time, don't look at me when my friends don't show up for lunch--just leave me alone until I'm 24 and have better self confidence as a result of my glo up and college degree. 

I'm not even going to say which restaurant it was because I'm so disgraced, but I made a misstep and was called out by a worker (who knows me because I'm always there) because I should know better because I'm literally always there. It was the most horrific moment of my life because I realized I'M THE LADY THAT WALKS IN A 2PM EVERY DAY AND ORDERS TWO ICE CREAMS AND A DIET COKE.

I've been trying to figure out the point of this post for a little over three hours and all I can come up with is that I really need to hurry up and turn 24 so I can have a masters degree and look so good that when people look at me funny for ordering a Chipotle burrito bowl with a tortilla on the side I will not care.

Either that, or I just hyper-analyze everything, especially when it comes to food, and I really need a chill pill and some more self confidence.

It's one of the two.

Summer

Summer vacation has always been a hotbed topic for me (pun intended). As a little kid I hated summer, I thought it was awful because of how much I loved school and, summer is, well, the opposite of school. I was actually jealous of the kids who had to go to summer school. I think everyone pretty much thought I was a dweeb-loser-nerd.

Either way as I got older, summer wasn’t that looming three month gap of nothing but rather a much needed relief: my driver’s license, car and expendable income from my job also added to my change of heart. 

As a youngster May to August consisted of two weeks of TV, church camp for a week, math camp for a week, 2 more weeks of nothing, another church camp, nothing, sleepaway camp, more nothing and the finally the next school year had begun! I hated the nothing parts of summer: I’d countdown to each camp date and once they’d end I’d wait anxiously for the school year to begin. 

I like being involved with something and being bored makes me physically ill even now. I’m not joking, I feel sick when I have nothing to do--or maybe just anxious, I’ve never really looked into it. Back to the point! Imagine a bone skinny, 5’5, 10 year old walking around her backyard trying to figure out how to read most comfortably in a tree. Now imagine that same dweeb-loser-nerd inside with a school size whiteboard writing and solving the longest long division problem possible just for fun because she finished all of her workbooks. That was me and it wasn’t a good look. I did everything in my free time: I wrote a blog, I rode my bike, I watched copious amounts of Doctor Who, I read Wikipedia articles for fun, I finished every workbook my parents bought me, I read every Abby Hayes book published to 2010 (and racked up a huge library fine because of it). I even learned how to make my own powerpoint transitions just to know that I could. 

Last summer was similar but different. I’m a bit taller now and I don’t weigh 92 pounds anymore. I spent my summer months volunteering all over town, babysitting, making fries at Wendy’s and pre-studying (pre-studying is when you read the AP textbooks over the summer so when the school year starts you already have an idea of what’s going on). I was never bored last summer, because there was never time to be bored--but there was no pressure and I didn’t have to use my brain. That’s where the break part comes into play: there’s no pressure to get an A on a Calc test or be awake by 6:30. 

Here's a picture of me in July '10, wasting away at a movie.

Summer '14 was a lot different in the way that it was the first summer that my sister was gone. I mean, don’t get me wrong she’s been to camps I didn’t go to and she got to tour the East Coast when she was 12 but I always knew that she’d be back for the school year and summer of 2014 was the first year when I knew definitively that she would not be returning. She didn’t die or anything, she just went off to college early to get some credits out of the way but still. That’s why I’m really glad I was so busy. There wasn’t enough time to sulk around feeling sad because there was a hospital patient who needed to find the Family Health Center or a Calc book that needed highlighting--I appreciated that. 

I think my point is that I’m kind of like squirrel, I need something to do at all times because my mind moves so much and I’m interested in so many things. I have no idea what I’ll do this coming summer--I have some camps lined up and volunteering in place but it’s worrisome. This is potentially my last summer at home because I don’t know what summer college I could go to or if I’ll take a senior trip. It’s my last summer to make count, college wise. I think I’m a little crazy about looking as good as possible to colleges, but I’m not going into the college process blindly. Summer is a time where I need a ton of things to do for my crazy brain to flourish so that it stops being so crazy. 

With my final AP test finishing today at noon, I can see summer in the horizon: summer looks beautiful and bright and happy, but a little bitter sweet. I have one more year of  high school and then I've done it, I will have graduated. I'm ready for the age of the free--I'm ready for summer.

Running

I really like the idea of exercise, especially running. The other day on a school trip my friend and I realized that our hotel had a gym. Mind you, it was a measly little trashcan of a gym with two treadmills (one of which didn't even have a phone holder), a stair stepper, a bike and some weights in a fairly small and musty room. But I didn't really care because putting on my exercise clothes and turning on my running playlist was enough for me to feel like I was in an episode of the Carrie Diaries, even though I was cursing myself with every step I took and also the part where I was not Carrie. No, I was one of her cool friends that live in the City that also happens to work out even on vacation and ultimately steals Austin Butler's character away from Carrie because of her toned physique due to hotel gym exercise. But the reality of this physical blasphemy didn't involve me being a man-stealer but rather a dream crusher.

I don't think people understand that even though I look like I haven't sweat in 13 years, I am actually a pretty athletic person...or at least I used to be. I played basketball all throughout elementary and middle school, tennis on the side and soccer over the summer just for fun one year. I don't hate sports. I like basketball because you have to do minimum three things at one time: set your feet, don't stay in the paint too long, get open, screen, remember the play, just kidding it fell apart, rebound. whatever, I'm getting dramatic you get the point. And with tennis it's a mental game of where you want to hit the ball, how hard, if you actually want to chase after that ball that's going to fall in the opposite corner, how are you going to unlock your inner Serena Williams. As for soccer, I have no idea I was awful at it but it's fun to watch. And sure I had to run to condition for those sports but it never really grew beyond a lull of hatred because I knew there'd have to be a point where we'd get to the good part where I could use my brain. Track was a different story.

Every time I move my legs faster than walking pace I crush my own dreams because honestly I just don't like running just to run. And I especially don't like running around a track aka the lost chapter of Dante's Inferno. I talk to people about why they like running all the time because honestly a little part of me wished I actually liked it and I'm always kind of hoping someone's reason will become my own; however, I am not a sponge so I can't absorb their reasons. Back to the point: I've heard that it relieves stress, it calms people down, it let's them think--essentially running is a poor man's Netflix and popcorn.

This is the only picture of me doing anything track related,
fake smile, ugly uniform and bad hair intact.

The only reason I started running was because my arms were pretty much the same size as my legs starting middle school--I was an actual twig and I read somewhere that you can get less bony legs from running, so I did. But after 7th grade I went back for the 8th grade season to hang out with friends (my legs weren't a huge issue since I stopped being 95 pounds). In 8th grade I was convinced that I would learn to love running if I did it enough, so I kept doing it. I'm pretty sure I got the idea of this do-it-til-you-love-it" mentality from an NPR segment where this man joined the army and ran all the time and one day it stopped being a chore. I am not the man from the NPR segment. I am 17 years old girl with long legs that I use for nothing except for exclusively owning capris (not by choice).

I find running very boring and I don't like having to go through my own thoughts while my throat burns. This is my thought process when I run:
I really just don't get it: am I supposed to keep doing the same thing the whole entire time for nothing? Isn't that what babies do? They want to play peek-a-boo over and over again, and just like peek-a-boo this got boring after the first minute. 

I recently stopped feeling the shin splints and muscle pain I acquired from my fantasy man-stealing and a couple things I know are true:

1. I wanted to break that stupid treadmill into pieces
2. Afterwards I was really surprised that I:

• A) actually finished; and
• B) didn't pass out afterwards
• C) even thought that running would be a good idea

Long story short: no matter what I do I'm going to hate running, it's in my blood, it's in my brain, it's in my heart and I can't change that. My best options are to stop watching reruns of the Carrie Diaries and get over my Henry David Thoreau-like attitude of falling in love with the ~idea~ of things and get real for a quick minute.

Great Expectations

I have an issue with expectations: I always place mine too high. It really doesn't matter who I have expectations of, a crackhead, my parents, a rando, a good friend, literally anyone except for myself and it's becoming a problem. I don't think that I lack confidence, I've actually been working really hard on building that aspect of my life, I think it's more that I push myself really hard so when a teacher says the class "struggled" on a test or something of that nature I look to myself before anyone else: which brings me back to expectations.

There's this new show called Child Genius on Lifetime, I think and it's really interesting. Basically really important people (the proctor is a former astronaut) make a bunch of little kids stand on a podium and answer questions that are really hard. I know it sounds bland, but I root for some of those kids as if they were my own blood (YEJI I'M ROOTING FOR YOU!!!). I'm getting off topic. Anyways, they have a gifted education specialist who has little confessionals where she discusses how most gifted kids tend to act.

This is Leland Melvin, he's the proctor of Child Genius and has the hands-down best portrait I've ever seen.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything but I tend to relate to what she says because I was, still am whatever, a gifted kid. But on the latest episode she said how a lot of gifted kids have really high expectations but tend to downplay them in order to cushion the blow and that's when it hit me (pun intended)--I DO THAT ALL THE TIME.

Okay let's share some secrets: last year I applied to be on this teen panel and it was a very intense process of lots of recommendations and applications. I kind of had it in my head that I was a pretty great student: I tried really hard and took difficult classes plus I had the grades to prove it, so when I got my rejection email I was devastated. I'd been checking my email vigorously all week in hopes that they'd tell me to pack my bags because I had been chosen, but instead I got a short email about how it wasn't a me thing, it was a them thing and how "many exceptional students applied" and that this rejection "shouldn't discourage me". I got off my shift at work, sat in my car and cried for a solid 10 minutes probably. I hadn't really spoken about it in depth because even though I ~thought~ I was going to be chosen, I didn't want people to think that I ~thought~ that I was going to get it and I didn't want myself to think that I ~thought~ that I was a shoe-in. It was a huge mess of getting my hopes up and then squishing them down just for them to rise again until finally, concretely they fell.

That's what worries me. I've already taken the SATs for the first time and then Subject Tests in May, plus AP tests in May, plus the ACT that's still looming and then the huge elephant that is college applications, I can't help but think in the back of my mind that I'm going to have high expectations because I put a lot of effort into everything, only to have the same fluctuation in my mind that could very well result in the same rejection template with different words printed where the parentheses once were.

I've been trying to keep myself balanced and stay positive. I know where my mind tends to lean towards and I know how it affects me. I'm not trying to be a Debby Downer, but sometimes you have to hope for the best but expect the worst and that took me a while to figure out and I'm not sure I have the balance quite right, but I can only hope that over time it won't be so hard to think that way.

I always have issues making points with my posts, however, this one for me is very straightforward. Having high expectations isn't always a bad thing but it's a balancing act. I'm only 17, so I have a lot more to work on but I went from a 12 year old who was scared of criticism and failure to a teenager who is more confident and comfortable sharing her work with everyone and now always expects some sort of response no matter how good or bad, so I'd say I've come a long way.

I may not always show it, but I tend to get very anxious and nervous when I really want something, but now I know that everything can't always go my way and I can only hope that when my time comes to "glo up" I'll be ready.