Well, I'm officially well into my time at UW. I've just finished up Fall quarter of my sophomore year. A lot has happened since my last reflection...over the summer and over the last quarter. Academically, last quarter was a major success. I absolutely loved a couple of my classes. Neither of them were Honors classes, but they felt like Honors classes because of the level of critical thinking that they entailed. I took Nutrition, Environmental Health, Biology 180, and a Sociology class on drugs, law and society. Both biology and sociology mimicked that Honors feel. In addition to my classes, last quarter was the first that I really loaded on the extracurricular activities. I have continued doing my internship with Ink Aleaga as Campus & Community Engagement Assistant. At the beginning of the summer, I started working at Starlight Children's Foundation. They asked me to stay on during the school year as a paid employee. I ended up working at Starlight for about 6 hours per week. Also during the summer I picked up a blogging internship with the Sustainable World Coalition. I blogged about sustainability and the environment, and found that that material went hand in hand with my Environmental Health class. During the summer, writing blogs was no problem, but once the quarter really started to get busy, I knew that I would not be able to continue writing blogs into Winter Quarter. In addition to these activities, I started working in the UW Division of Public Behavioral Health & Justice Policy. I am currently doing data entry and a bit of analysis. Next quarter, there is opportunity for me to really expand on the internship and start working with social science research programs such as SPSS. To top it off, I began a seasonal retail position at ivivva athletica (lululemon's little girl's line) right in the midst of dead week and finals...you could say it was a stressful couple of weeks. But break has been great, and I've really enjoyed my time working at ivivva. As I'm becoming more confident in myself and the track that my life is on, I'm drawing closer to certain people in my sorority and in other parts of my life that reflect my same values. This was a struggle for me last year because for the most part in my sorority I felt like I didn't fit in, and I wasn't about to change my lifestyle in order to do so. This year, I've made a few really amazing friends in my house, as well as met many people outside the Greek system. Even though winter break has been fun, I am already so excited for next quarter. I'm taking Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Health Services, and the second intro Biology. It's going to be a busy and packed quarter, but after last quarter, I'm ready for it. |