The Bachelorette

I graduated today! I am now the proud owner of a Bachelor of Arts with Deparmental Distinction in English and Honors in the Liberal Arts from SMU. This is so awesome! It has been such a long journey these past four years, full of ups and downs, but I am proud to say that I made it through, and I did with the support of my family and friends. Congratulations, Class of 2006!!

DC Rocks!

'Nuff said. Oh, and they have a great chelokababi.

BU/Columbia

I got into Boston University and Columbia! While its very exciting to be accepted, I really think I'm going to go with Georgetown unless I get into Tulane - at which point I will be stuck with a tough decision. I wish I knew someone going to these schools so I could ask them about it or room with them, but alas everyone I know is TX-bound. I got the official Georgetown acceptance in the mail today and my deposit is due this month! I can't believe I'm gonna go to such a top school. It's so exciting!

What Your Face Says

What Your Face Says

At first glance, people see you as down to earth and reliable. Overall, your true self is passionate and physical. With friends, you seem logical, detached, and a bit manipulative. In love, you seem mysterious and interesting. In stressful situations, you seem cheerful and optimistic.

What Do People Think Of Your Face?

Georgetown

I got into Georgetown today!! This is like an Ivy League school! These acceptances just keep on rolling in, and it is a welcome relief. Everyone says that Georgetown's program is the best, but I don't want to just fall for the name. I have to make an informed decision. But still, it's Georgetown, and how cool is that! The even cooler thing is that I was complete yesterday and got accepted today...a 24 hr turnaround!

Christiane Amanpour

I met Christiane Amanpour today! She's at my university for a lecture and held a student forum before the lecture. I got in line to ask her question, but I was too late. Then I met her right after, and I spoke Farsi with her and I got her autograph and we talked and it was soooo coool!!!! I can't believe I met the most powerful and succesful Persian woman in the world! This is so empowering. She has been such a role model for me over the years. She's amazing, and I met her. I can't get over it.

EVMS

I got into the MS in Biomedical Sciences Medical Masters program at Eastern Virginia Medical School! OK, now I am in a position to the choose (yay, power!), but I'm also worrying that I'll pick the wrong one. This program lets me take med school classes, and I won't have to retake the ones I make an A in when I go to med school. The school is in Norfolk, VA, near Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown. Thanksgiving must be big there.

Chicago Hope

I got into the Biology MA in Medical Sciences program at Loyola University Chicago! I'm gonna be a master! Here's a pic of the Lake Shore Campus where the classes are held.

Musings

I can't believe I've seen so many bands and gone to these fun concerts lately! Music encounters over the past few weeks have included:

FALL OUT BOY - Signing at Wal-Mart Grand Opening

THE CRIBS - 3/31 at Nokia Live!


FRANZ FERDINAND - 3/31 at Nokia Live!


DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE - 3/31 at Nokia Live!


PUSSYCAT DOLLS - 4/7 at Smirnoff Music Centre


BLACK EYED PEAS - 4/7 at Smirnoff Music Centre

Fall Out Boy

I met Fall Out Boy on Friday! They made an in-store appearance at the new Wal-Mart Supercenter and I was in line for an hour to meet them. I bought their limited edition CD, and they signed the front. I got a great pic of one of them, but then their bodyguard yelled at me and said "put the camera away." The thing was, I had used my cell phone so I acted all innocent like "what are u talking about? This is just my phone" haha. They were nice guys and of course their music rocks. I also got a poster and some other stuff while I was there. When I got to my car, I saw that there was something on my windshield. It was a scratch-off contest piece, and I saw that I won something. I called the number and I won a trip for 2 to one of 80 destinations! What a great day!

Take the quiz:
What clothing store are you?

Pac Sun
You like the cute stuff...you like the beach look and a style thats all you own!

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

I don't really like the result for this one cuz I don't like being called stupid, but I took it twice:

Take the quiz:
What teen celebrity are you?

Lindsay Lohan
you are a stupid red head

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Take the quiz:
wHiCh OLSEN TWIN r u??? (((pix)))

M a R y - K a T e
wOo-hOo! ur a wild and crazy cutie who know's how to par-tay! u like guys, but not tOo much! ur really smart and really slim (hope that last one doesn't become a problem!) lol

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Again, boring results:

Take the quiz:
***~*~*~****What magazine are you? Time, Vogue, Seventeen, etc?

People Magazine
You are someone everyone can count on for good advice and information. You know whats right and wrong from everything to gossip to restaurants to shopping.

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Take the quiz:
Which famous blonde person are you most like?

Britney Spears
you have a sexy style, but sometimes you can be laid back and not look as sexy as you can be....

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Your Star Wars Pickup Line

"You will go home with me. It is unavoidable. IT IS YOUR DESTINY!!"

What's Your Star Wars Pickup Line?

Which celebrity hottie are you?

Take the quiz:
Which celebrity hottie are you?

Jennifer Aniston
You are a classic beauty! You know what you want in life and your not afriad to go after it. You're life is a fairytale. You want the happily ever after, and aren't afriad of the future. You're sophisticated and conservative. You're smart, loving, caring, and everyone loves you!!

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

Your Flirt Quotient

You are 47% Flirt

How Much of a Flirt Are You?

What celebrity bootay do you have?

Take the quiz:
what celebrity bootay do you have? (girls only)

J-Lo
Youre booty has a continent of its own and gets you lots of attention.

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

When I retook it I got this:



Take the quiz:
what celebrity bootay do you have? (girls only)

Lindsay Lohan
No one really notices your butt because you dont know how to show it off.

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

Who's Your Instant Star boyfriend?

Dang it, I wanted Tommy! Oh well, I guess Jamie's more stable anyway.

Oscars 2006

I'm so glad that Reese won the Oscar for Best Actress. She's a triple threat: a Harvard lawyer, a doctor, and an Oscar winner!
She's so cool. I love how she used that June Carter quote: I'm just trying to matter. That's so true. We just want our lives to have meaning, no matter what we do.




On the law school front, I went to a Pre-Law Forum sponsored by The Princeton Review. I sat in on a mock first year law school property class (the case had been emailed to us a few days before). The prof was a woman and I found the class and the way that she presented the material to be so enjoyable. Later we had a panel of reps from SMU, TX Wesleyan, and Berkeley law. The thing that really got me was when they said what qualities they wanted: analytical thinking and problem solving. Those were the exact qualities I had been writing about in all of my med school secondaries - finally, here is an institution that would appreciate those qualities!

I think I would be happy as a doctor and as a lawyer. I like them because it will let me help people using research and intellect, and they play up my skills. Hopefully, I can get into an SMP and then later apply MD/JD. That way I can be sure that I have no regrets about giving up on my dream of med school or regrets that I let a great field like law go unnoticed.

Hena

Here's a video by Cameron Cartio, a Persian guy who grew up in Spain and Sweden, and Cheb Khaled, the father of Rai, a French/Algerian musical fusion. Cameron sings in Farsi and Cheb sings in Arabic. Enjoy!



Video code provided by www.Bia2.com

22nd Bday

Today's my 22nd birthday. I got a whole bunch of birthday greetings on my Facebook wall, which was tyte. I thought my birthday would be more eventful, but we celebrated more over the weekend. You know, I miss how birthdays were really big deals in grade school. Everyone's bday was on the bulletin board and you brought cookies to class and people would sing. Now it's just like any day. You can't really tell ppl in class that it's your bday, cuz that's just weird. So you have to rely on Facebook to tell everyone. I hope my 22nd year on this earth will be better than my turbulent 21st. Geez Louise, talk about your emotional roller coaster. I thought it would be a good time to let y'all know what I've been up to lately:

I took a practice LSAT two weeks ago and scored a 158. Not bad, it was so good that I think I'm gonna take the real thing in a couple years and apply to some MD/JD and DO/JD programs, as well as straight-up JD. I think law is pretty cool, and it let's me use the skills I've honed as an English major to help people.

I took a practice DAT last week and scored a 14. Yeah, not so good. I had no idea the DAT covered botany and that they used science passages in the reading comprehension. This test was a lot harder than I though it would be. I have to give mad props to the pre-dents and apologize for dogging on the DAT all these years.

I want to take a practice GRE at some point and take the real one before the BIG CHANGE in October. Hopefully I'll be able to find one now that the Kaplan Test Drive is over.

I'm still waiting on 6 out of state med schools.

I'm applying to Special Masters Programs. Hopefully, I'll get into one of those. If not, hello second Bachelor's...and no, it won't be as much fun as The Bachelor in Paris.

I'm gonna try to devote more time to my neglected blog. I'll try to use cool colors and spruce it up with pics.

Skin

I have to agree with this. I have definitely been able to identify with this song with all the pain I've been through lately. I'm looking for solutions, but I just want to hide away a lot of the time. I keep going to workshops and meeting with advisors, but I just...well, let's just say that "Skin" certainly hits home. I hope everything will work out in a couple years.

And We're Back!

OK, definitely update time. I have begun my last term at SMU, yes! This term I'm taking:

• 18th Century Lit - the prof calls it Sex and the City in the 18th century; it seems like we're going to be reading a lot of old porn...I'm serious
  
• Seminar: Novels of Manners - I'm the only undergrad in a room full of Masters students
• Minority-Dominant Relations - we watch a lot of movies about how minorities in the US are put down by The Man...tell me something I don't know
• Abnormal Psychology - people are crazy...again, tell me something I don't know
• Power Yoga - Finally, something I don't know!

That's right, I have no science classes! I'm finally going to have a nice, normal college term where I can relax and have fun.

9 days till the match...I'm totally freaking out, and I hope I get in.

Winter Break

So today's the last day of the Fall 2005 term. I took my last final, Earlier Romantic Lit. Since it's Saturday, there was no one to watch my sis, so she came with me to the final. She was disappointed cuz I told her how my prof always wears a bow tie, but he didn't today. And he wore a sweater vest instead of a jacket! Wow, he really does get casual on Saturdays. It was nice having her sit next to me reading The Bell-Jar while I took my final. The final was like all Wordsworth, and he didn't have a single Jane Austen question on it! Then my sis and I had fun at Northpark (they had ballroom dancers!) and at Mockingbird Station.

So far I know I got a B in Biochem (although I did make an A on final), an A in Dante's Poetic Vision, and an A in Health Psychology. Access is down for maintenance until 8 pm tomorrow, so I won't know until then what I got in Seminar: Literary Theory or Earlier Romantic Lit. Now that I don't have classes, I don't know what to do to occupy my time. We'll just have to see.

Queer Theory

Last email:

Dollimore’s essay chronicles the perception and definitions of perversion throughout history. He begins with Freud and Foucault’s definitions of perversions, which are both in regards to sexual perversion, commonly known as homosexuality. Here, the idea is that perversion is the natural state, while normality is the result of repressing our perverse selves. To better understand the controversial nature of Freud’s statements, Dollimore turns to the first appearance and use of the term in literature. St. Augustine defines perversion as “turning away from God’s path.” Incidentally, in the 1300s, Dante would use this word again to signify the “turning away from God’s love.” For Dante and St. Augustine, perversion equals sin; it is not the resulting action that is the sin, but the act of turning away from the straight path. Dante considered sodomy to be a sin because it was a violation of God’s nature. In the sodomy circle of Hell, Dante places his professor Brunetto Latini, whose sin of sodomy is magnified by the fact that he persuaded his students to partake in sodomy with him. Dante’s condemnation mirrors St. Augustine’s remarks that the magnitude of perversion is based on “the innocence of those being perverted.” Thus, Latini taking advantage of his students merits his placement in Hell.

On page 17, Dollimore says, “in its splitting the natural produces the perverse as a disavowal of itself and as a displacement of an opposite (the unnatural) which, because of the binary interdependence of the two (the natural and the unnatural), is also an inextricable part of itself.” Interestingly, this is the same language that Silverman uses to describe women in films. Like Silverman, Dollimore places women in the position of the perverse, a tradition he claims began with Eve. Dollimore seems to be using the same tactic as the ethnic studies literary critics by appealing to the Feminist literary critics and white women in the case of Desdemona. He aligns the plight of homosexuals with those of women thereby connecting the two groups as victims of the label of “pervert.” He presents the struggles of the two groups as trials that all “perverts” endure, which in turn takes away the stigma attached to pervert by making it an arbitrary term oppressively attached to women and homosexuals by patriarchy and ideology, respectively.