Ratna writes

Walking back to my dorm after an extra help session for bio yesterday (where I basically had to admit to my professor that I hadn't understood a thing she's said over the last three weeks), I called a friend to tell him about the very humbling, almost humiliating, kind of hilarious experience. He made some sympathetic remarks, and when I responded with a classically Ratna, "but isn't this what it feels like to learn?!" he mumbled something along the lines of, "I guess..." My attention in class wanes as the week waxes, but a byproduct of this is that I also wax philosophical. It's almost laughable how lost I feel in some (all?) of my classes right now, and remarkable how okay I am with it. My little sister was talking to me last night about how high school sometimes makes her feel stupid, to which yesterday's Ratna responded the following: "I have purposely plunged myself into experiences designed to make me feel 'stupid' this se...

I've been making a lot of music with my amazing a cappella group The Opportunes recently, but I took some time this weekend to hit the "studio" with piano prodigy Sam Pottash, recording one of my favorite Elvis songs as covered by Ingrid Michaelson. Click here to have a listen!

Walking to breakfast this morning, I had the weirdest thought. "My cell phone case doesn't match my outfit." Completely random and especially odd because on most days, my outfit doesn't even match my outfit. But the thought crossed my mind, and I made a mental note to request Priya to order me a case more neutral than my bright turquoise one. I had received an email informing me of a package waiting for me in the mail room this morning, and, after breakfast with Javier, I hurried to the basement of the Science Center to check it out. Waiting for me was the most attractive and thoughtful gift I've ever seen -- a case for my iPhone. But rather than being composed of neutral colors or adorned with a brand name, this case is a patchwork of photographs taken during my gap year, of images close to my heart. Tierney Manning is my big sister, one of many amazing female role models I'm blessed to know and have spent time with during the year. When I called her...

I would usually be displeased and/or confused waking up and showering at 6:40 on a Sunday morning, but today was an odd sort of exception. My sleep stirred to unimaginably raucous chanting outside my room, of "RATNA IS AN OPPORTUNE! RATNA IS AN OPPORTUNE!" I opened my dormitory door and was at once drenched in champagne and noise. Back up -- what's an Opportune? I've spent the last week auditioning for various a cappella groups, preparing an excerpt from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah  for my short solo audition the first night, different assigned songs for nights two and three, and finally, after much sleepless deliberation, The Chain for my full-length solo yesterday. At each of these audition nights, we were also taught our parts in a fairly complicated background "block" which we were to spew out again after a moment's practice, leaving my mathematically inept mind in a tizzy (music notes are just numbers!). The process was at times nerve-wrac...

I wish I could write daily and tell you guys how the move to college has been the most beautiful transition of my life, but the rampant socializing and sickness that are so quintessential to my existence tend to render this intensity of writing impractical.  Everything is great. This week is Shopping Week, which sounds like we can all run around and take whatever classes we want for a week with neither homework nor responsibility, but actually ends up being mayhem as very few of us currently know what we're doing with our lives...or our semesters.  I do think I know what I'm taking, and my schedule is looking like: -- OEB 10: Foundations of Biological Diversity An integrated approach to the diversity of life, emphasizing how chemical, physical, genetic, ecological and geologic processes contribute to the origin and maintenance of biological diversity. Topics to be covered include the evolution of metabolic pathways, multicellularity and structura...

And so comes to a close this crazy journey. Thank you so much for accompanying me along the way, whether it was by training me, teaching me, advising me, "socializing" with me, talking to me, listening to me, or simply by reading along. I am reminded each day, by something or the other, how happy I am with my decision to have taken a gap year. The incredible trips I made and people I met seem to weave themselves beautifully into my every experience, and I couldn't be more thankful. So thank you, friends, and thank you, planet, for my 365 gap days.