Hi everyone! Today is July 7th and it is Beulah's birthday! Happy birthday Beulah!
This morning, I actually woke up on time (miraculous, isn't it?) because I had a plan for the morning before class! Michelle and I were scheming about how to celebrate Beulah's birthday last night. We reached a consensus to get her something and present it to her before class. Since Michelle and Beulah dorm together in the same suite, Michelle stayed back with Beulah to distract her and make sure she's not awareof what we're doing, while I went on Broadway and looked for possible gifts in the stores near campus. First, Iwalked into a bakery that Michelle had looked up, but I decided the line, which curved twice due to length, was way too long. Instead, I went to the supermarket right across the street and befriended the cake section. There were so many selections, so I called Michelle to help me with the decision. At last, I bought the cake and headed back to campus, all energized and excited about surprising Beulah! However, we encountered a problem. Michael and Jamie's class starts at 9am, which is an hour earlier than the American Presidential course. By 8:50, Beulah and Michelle were still in their dorm and Michael and Jamie needed to go to class. We decided to postpone the presentation until lunch time. So, after lunch, I sneaked to my dorm to get my "wallet," which in this case is a cake? I didn't even understand plan when I first heard it! Anyways, long story short, I got the cake out of the fridge in my suite and brought it down to John Jay, where we the other 4 students in our ILC program along with some of Beulah's suitemates and her sister to sing happy birthday to her and give her the cake. Beulah was pretty surprised and happy! Mission accomplished.
In class today, we had Sam Aroraas a guest speaker. He did a presentation about presidential campaigns: "Winning the White House -- Presidential Campaign Organization, strategy, and Tactics." It was really interested and, at times, it indirectly touched bases on my research topic about the effects of media on the presidency. He was very engaging and encouraging, and has a great oratory skills. It was quite fun sitting there in 603 Hamilton and I couldn't believe that 2 hours passed by so quickly.
Speaking of the presentation, the coolest thing happened today! Sometimes at night, I would wonder what my classmates from last summer's program are doing, and if I would somehow bump into them while I am at Columbia. I was sitting the lecture hall this morning, perfectly aware that another class will be joining our class. A few minutes before the presentation began, a fellow Hotelie from the Hotel Operations Management course I took last summer at Cornell University walked in! ... And I happened to be wearing my "Ithaca is Gorges" shirt today! Coincidence or fate, whatever it was, it was amazing! I hadn't heard from Yoo-Nah except via Facebook and it was so great to see her and catch up briefly. What a small small world we live in!
Overall, today has been great and much much better than yesterday. I feel a bit better about my research and outline after speaking with Dr. Z yesterday afternoon. But for now, it's back to the books!
Sadly, my camera's memory card decided to be filled at the most convenient time! :( Sadly, I didn't get to capture the surprise in video, but here's the brief part that my camera was able to get:
Note: There were actually more people outside who kept Beulah entertained while we were getting plates/forks and waiting for others to show up.
Terrific blog. We'll do another celebration tonight at 5.
ReplyDeletedude you guys were awesome! :-)
ReplyDeleteYueming,
ReplyDeleteThat was so cool of you all to take care of Beulah like this. I'm sure it made her day.
You've heard me say this time and again but we try to learn as we go. Every time something goes wrong we try to figure out how to prepare our group so the problem isn't repeated.
In this particular case, I would need to lecture our kids about the benefits of downloading their photos onto their computer's hard drive and then formatting the card to free up the space.
Back when we used film I would tell people that the film fairies would turn nasty on us if we ever left a roll of film in the camera over night. The idea was to shoot lots of photos and always finish up the roll of film in the camera. When I'd talk to people who would tell me at Christmas that they had 4th of July photos on the roll of film in their cameras my heart would briefly stop.
Even today we have the same thoughts about the cards we use in our cameras. In my camera case I carry cards with a combined capacity of 208 gigabytes and I download the images the same day I shoot them so the cards are fresh when I repack my case at the end of the day. [Even with the high res images I shoot and their large file size, that's still more than 9 million images]
So, when that great event comes up, I never have to worry about running out of space on my card.