Ratna writes

I had a moment today when I couldn't believe that around this time last year, I was roaming the streets of southeast DC alone daily, looking for inspiration and education and adventure. I was so unafraid of being alone and became so good at it. Well, where I am now, one doesn't have to go looking for education and inspiration. Now that it is literally at every corner, I'm already feeling like I won't have enough time to learn "it all." I don't want to concentrate in anything -- if it were possible, my education would consist of an infinite number of lectures on an infinite number of topics. But until I've designed that "Everything" major, I'll continue to vary my course selection salad as much as I possibly can. This morning, my math and bio professors breezed so quickly through the material that it was literally risible (though perhaps I shouldn't have been the one laughing). My seminar on climate change makes me think about m...

I'm running a little low on sleep but I really want to write about my day to "memorialize" what has been the best birthday I can remember. It started last night with dinner with my wonderful peer advisor Allie Pace and a phone serenade from Nizar's a cappella group, Naturally Sharp . I returned to my dorm around 10 to an explosion of my twin Kirin, accosting me with chai and donuts and Nic and love, which lasted the rest of the night. The wonder that is Reylon came over shortly before midnight, along with a trickling in of awesome Greenough hallmates, who made too much noise for a good while as we awaited the countdown to midnight. Javier, my Colombian brother, made an artful entrance with "It's a girl!" balloons and candy imported all the way from South America for me. Ayyy! Our gang complete, we enjoyed Kirin's delirious spoken word recitations with raucous laughter until a perfectly in-tune serenade at midnight, before Sophie went ...

Although I totally knew it wouldn't be feasible for me to blog daily from college, it really pains me that I can't. I am loving  my time here. Loving it. And I truly wish I could share it with you all everyday. But although I can't write daily, I thought I'd check in today to describe what's been one of my best days here so far. The day started with breakfast with Kirin Gupta, my Indian gap year-taking twin on campus. We got to exchange notes on the "first year of college after gap year" phenomenon, as well as exchange both general notes on our academic interests and expressions of our undying love for one another. Always a great way to start the day. On the way back to my dorm, I purchased some organic kiwis as a birthday present for my kiwi-loving roommate Eliza Chang! I arrayed these on her desk before walking down to the river in today's 70s and cloudless weather. Taking place today was the Head of the Charles Regatta, the world's larges...

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...