All Good Things Must Come To An End

Thursday was essentially the busiest day of the program, but at the same time it wasn't busy at all. It's a strange dichotomy, I know, but it makes sense to me at least. Our final few hours of class were devoted to two things, going in depth with Monte's research, and continuing our discussion of body image. The second is a lot easier to explain than the first was, since she went into such great detail. It gave me a lot of insight into the world of an anthropologist, which I think I might start considering as a possible career choice (at least a minor in anthropology?) She explored the relationship between the economy of Brazil, and the education of the children that live there, as harvesting Acai makes it very different for children to attend school. There are child labor laws prohibiting them from working, but when the welfare of the family depends on the children working, many families have no choice. In the final few minutes of class we watched a speech that Angel had presented to her school district a few years ago about body image. It showed some deeply personal parts of her life, and I was so glad that she shared that with all of us.

We wrapped up by writing evaluations of Zach and Monte. Afterwards, Monte took me aside and told me to keep in touch, since she "expects to hear great things" from me, and wants me to keep her updated. The final ceremonies were to be held in Wyatt, which was convenient, as MHS is held on the second floor of Wyatt. After saying my final goodbyes to Monte and Zach, I trekked up a few flights of stairs and walked into the rotunda. During the ceremonies, Rosie, Rachel and Dr. Dunn all made speeches to VSA as a whole, and the heads of houses made speeches to their respective house. I know that I may sound biased when I say this, but I do believe that Victoria's speech was the best. Something she said really stuck with me. She told us to "Choose people! If you are stuck between getting to know your roommate a little better or an extra hour of sleep, choose your roommate." As well as a few other situations in that vein. I hope that I managed to choose people as often as I could during my time at VSA. 

We were dismissed to clean up our rooms, so that we would not have to during our evening activities. Sofi and I discussed how strange it was to be stripping the room of everything that made it ours, and I felt this more profoundly, as Sofi has already unpacked by the time I had arrived at VSA that first afternoon. Seeing it look so bare was a bit of a shock. The masquerade came upon us quickly, and Gwennie and I both had our hair intricately braided by Victoria (sadly, I did not take a picture. Just imagine the prettiest braid that you have ever seen on someone, and this one was a hundred times better!) As the night came to a close, I reflected on all the wonderful people I had met and managed to say my goodbyes to them in case I did not see them the following day. 

I am glad that I did that. The next morning, our friends from Philadelphia left before anyone told me their departure time. One of the bright sides is that I mentioned Speech, which I am the team captain of at my school, and found out that Taylor, one of my proctor group members, would be visiting a tournament in Berkeley during the school year!  I found as many people as I could to wish them a wonderful year, and Jenny practically had to drag the cohort out of Hank so that we could arrive to the airport in a timely manner. I don't really know if it has hit me yet that I probably won't see most of the people I met at VSA any time soon since we all grew so close, but I am glad for every moment of this experience.

I know that everyone else used this picture, but I love it!
When you have spent an average of 15 hours with someone every day for three weeks, it is hard to say goodbye.

Bittersweet Goodbyes

Thursday was a very busy day. It was the last day of class, and the last full day of VSA. In our last few hours of Knot Theory, we talked about careers for math majors and mathematicians, and what companies are hiring them. Most are related to statistics, computer science, or engineering, but there's a huge variety. (There was also that one kid who suggested "starve" when asked what mathematicians do.) We also filled out evaluations of our teacher, TA, and proctor. After class was the closing ceremony, a bittersweet occasion for everyone. The directors and heads of Houses gave short speeches about some of the memorable events in the past three weeks, and there was a short slideshow at the end with pictures from throughout the program.

Open Mic at Coff-V House

A different kind of knot

Everyone was dismissed to their rooms to pack before dinner so that they wouldn't have to stay up later doing it. After dinner was the dance. Technically it was a masquerade ball, but since masks don't really work with glasses (and a lot people didn't want to wear masks anyway) for most people it was just a dance. Before the dance, Victoria (Hummd's proctor and the head of V House), braided my hair, and it turned out amazing. (Conner, who was in my Knot Theory class, remarked that it looked like a knot.) I'm not really a dancer, and when I twirl I tend to almost fall over, but it was fun anyway. (I'm not the only person who can't dance, so I had fun failing to dance with other people.)

After the dance was the last proctor group meeting, during which we talked about, instead of highs and lows of the day, our highs and lows of the whole program. My low was probably the dining hall food, but there were too many highs to pick one. Finding the egg with Miranda and Hummd, going to Jeni's ice cream, making friends in Knot Theory, the scavenger hunt, learning about graph theory, Coff-V House, dancing in the rain...

Soon enough it was Friday morning, and though it seemed as though we'd only arrived a few days ago, it was time to leave already. It was sad to leave all the new friends we'd made over the last two weeks, and I'm glad that, unlike most, I'll still be going to school with one--Hummd.

As our plane landed at Oakland, the first thing we all noticed was the fresh, cool, dry air flowing in from outside. We had all been sad to leave, but we were all happy to be home again, too.

Home At Last

Par for the course this year the plane scheduled to wing our Vanderbilt cohort back to the Bay Area was delayed nearly an hour.  Fortunately, though, this was a direct flight so there were fewer opportunities for further delays.

The good pilot had a lead foot and pushed his airplane to go even faster than anticipated so the plane arrived earlier than expected--always a good thing.

Coming from the Oakland International Airport, the shuttle should have inched through the Friday night commute traffic but actually arrived earlier than expected.

When they arrived, most of the parents were there waiting but even those who came after the shuttle arrived in a matter of minutes.

It’s always fun to watch these joyous homecomings.

After the photos were snapped--we can’t have an ILC event without photos--the cars were packed and the Vanderbilt cohort went their separate ways--back to the beds they know and the home cooking they’ve grown up with.

The coming home event wouldn't be complete, though, with out a group hug of the four Vandies who have spent so much time together over the past month.

Welcome home.

Can't See the Forest for the Trees

The graphs to the left are all trees, the one on the right is not.

This morning we talked some more about graph theory, and learned about trees (graphs with exactly one path between any two points, so no cycles). Did you know that a group of graphs that are trees is called a forest? Mathematicians name things so creatively sometimes. After lunch we spent all three hours in the computer lab (though to be fair our assignment for the first hour and a half was to find commands on KnotPlot that made "interesting things" happen--we find out tomorrow who won with the most interesting set of commands).

The math "things" I created

Then we all made accounts on LaTex, which is apparently what almost all mathematicians use instead of Word or Google Docs, because it makes it very easy to format mathematical equations and draw diagrams and anything else you need. It requires you to use a basic form of coding to use it, though, so we took a while to practice looking up commands and using them to write mathematical equations. It took the rest of class to start getting the hang of it, but it seems that it will be a very useful tool in the future.

This evening was Proctor Group Night, and we decided to order pizza instead of going out, because we all felt lazy. The pizza was pretty good, although I'm not really a fan of pizza in general. Then we did superlatives. We'd send people out one at a time, then everyone else would come up with their superlative--what they're best at, or their greatest most unique quality, etc. Then at the end everyone received a certificate with what people had said written on it. Mine ended up being "the sleepiest most intuitive lamp champ of them all ~ the real MVP, who finally beat out the pancreas." There were a lot of inside jokes in that one.

The actual coding I did to get that math

On Wednesdays...

Today in class, we finished off the "Medicated Child" film from yesterday and then the presentations. The last half of the class went until lunch started and after lunch, there were still a few more people to go. Some of the drugs that were presented had a lot of very engaging conversations that spurred like Prozac (used as an antidepressant). I later learned that many of the drugs that are prescribed to both children and adults often times lead to more medications. In order to treat something, you would be prescribed one drug, then another to counter its side effects, and the chain continues on. One person shared the story that their grandmother is a pharmacist herself and ended up taking handfuls of medications everyday for one of her health issues. I also found out that there are other drugs that many people take even when their side effects are the most dangerous, like Avandia (for glycemic control in Type 2 diabetes patients). Many pharmaceutical companies have actually been filed for lawsuits and charged for more than what they profit each year. 

After lunch ended, right before the continuation of the presentations, the class performed our surprise for Monte! Zach opened the karaoke version of the song "Baby" by Justin Bieber for everyone to get ready and Monte watched us from the front seats! Monte recorded the whole thing from her point of view and sent it to the rest of the class! Everyone did a great job from rehearsing and fantastic on presenting their drugs (the assignment was to talk for 5 minutes long, but I think that almost everybody went 5 minutes and over). 

I was super excited to receive a lecture (since we have not gotten them in so long)! Monte gave a brief lecture on what I think is one of the most fascinating topics ever, body image. She brought up icons in her power point slides that had a picture of Marilyn Monroe on one side, and Paris Hilton on the other. We talked about how society today perceives the two and decides on who is pretty or not. Some guys even put in their opinion on what they would prefer and all of them liked Marilyn Monroe's body type better than Paris Hilton because it was closer to what is supposed to be considered as "normal". I copied some statistics down from her slide, the ones that I thought were really astounding, such as the fact that "nearly 50% of girls aged from 3-6 were already concerned about their weight." When I read that off of the screen, I felt so appalled! I can not imagine toddlers from 3 years of age to childhood years that little girls would already be worrying about their own body image. Another slide read, "adolescent girls are more afraid of gaining weight than getting cancer, losing their parents, or nuclear war." This statement was controversial in my class, some argued that girls can actually see themselves gaining weight, whereas getting cancer, losing a parent, or having nuclear war happen all of a sudden is not so likely. However, although that I think that is true, I also believe that society has pushed the standards far enough that there are now expectations for all ages. 

Monte showed us a few Youtube clips on commercials that photoshop their models and how easy it is to do so. Other people are discouraged about their bodies when they see this, but when they see the pictures of the models in actuality, it is not what their mind had expected at all. 50% of commercials that are aimed at women mention physical attractiveness. One example of a cultural expectation on beauty is Chinese foot binding. We were shown a video on the practice of foot binding, when it all started to its end with a new emperor. At the end of the power point, Monte had the whole class participate in an activity (including herself). She started off by saying one thing that she found negative about herself and shared it, and we went around the room. Then, she decided to turn things and make us find one positive thing that we like about ourselves and share it too. This reminded me of a video that I had watched where there was a study on women who walk into the same building through one of the two doors, one labeled as ugly, and the other as beautiful. The majority of the women walked through ugly and normally when someone thinks of themselves as beautiful, others tend to think that they are conceited so most of the time. We tend to find it okay to talk down upon ourselves when it comes to our self images. During study hall, we were supposed to watch a film on body image, but I guess there was a video tape on "Gymnastics Safety: First, Second, and Always" that was accidentally placed in the box that it came in. So we stopped the video half way through once we figured out that it was the wrong video and played short clips on Youtube on how body image has changed throughout history. 

There was free time after study hall until 6 PM, which was time for proctor night (for 3 hours long). I decided to take a nice nap shortly until then. Our proctor night plans were to stay inside and watch the movie "Mean Girls" on the projector on the 3rd floor's lobby while eating pizza. I had never watched the movie before (it was mainly the whole reason why we watched it, so that I can see what I had been missing out on). My roommate was (temporarily) dyeing her hair a shade of burgundy and there were girls who were working on friendship bracelets as well during the movie. After it ended, it was still not 9 yet, so we pulled up Youtube and watched tons of funny videos, such as the Jimmy Fallon and Kevin Hart video on a rollercoaster. Lizzy explained the plans for tomorrow (the last day) and set the time for us to meet up for Pancake Pantry in the morning! 

My view from our makeshift movie theater.

We Wear Pink

Today was my ten minute presentation to the class regarding the drug Fosamax. Fosamax is s biphosphonate that prevents the loss of bone mass. It's used to treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal and menopausal women, as well as to treat Paget's disease, which is a disease that causes abnormal breakdowns of bone tissue in specific areas. However, some of the off label uses include the treatment of excessive blood calcium levels, as well as the treatment of cancers that have metastasized into bone structures (such as lung, breast, multiple myeloma and prostate cancers.)

It was approved by the FDA in 1995 but when the patent expired in 2008, the manufacturer,  Merck, did not want to deal with the controversy associated with the drug any longer, and took no action to renew the patent. I even included an anecdote about a woman who was cooking Christmas dinner with her daughter, and sat down to talk to her  daughter. When she stood up, her right leg immediately fractured. This was supposed to be a very rare side effect, but after the research that I did over the past few days, it was found to be really common. Instead of strengthening their bones, it was making them weaker in most people.

After my presentation, a few more people presented theirs, and then we moved on to the next topic in our class, body image. I absolutely love talking about body image since it is a topic that is near and dear to my heart since I struggled with my body image for a really long time.Monte asked us to go around the circle and say something that we didn't like about ourselves. Then, we had to go around and talk about something that we love about ourselves. I didn't really have trouble with this, as I have accepted all aspects of myself, but this was really difficult for some people.

During study hall, we were supposed to watch a movie that talked about body image through America or something, but the library messed up the checkout. It was actually a gymnastics safety video from the eighties. For the first five minutes none of us really understood how this related to MHS, so Zach eventually texted Monte to ask what was going on. As a result, we just watched some videos that did relate to body image, but were not part of the curriculum.

We had a proctor night at Cafe Coco, which is this really laid-back organic cafe that reminded me a lot of the places that I love to go to in Berkeley. It was sort of a taste of the things to come, as my trip is drawing to a close very shortly. I don't know where all the time has gone. I really just feel like I am going to miss all of the people in my proctor group. In just three weeks I think that we have formed really strong bonds and it seems strange that I am probably not going to see them ever again after tomorrow.

Back row from left to right: Lizet, Alex, Hummd, Julianne and Bambi (her name is also Alex and it got confusing after a while)
Front row: Kate, Sofi, Taylor, Brenna and Hannah.
Also known as the best proctor group ever. 

Inconceivable!

After yet another long day, VSA continues to be great. This morning we had yet another retrospective breakfast, but proceeded the morning as usual. I found out that today actually wasn't the second half of the class's turn for the organ recital. Instead, we continued with the drug presentations. I was like the 5th one, so I felt as though I had it down. As I presented on Yaz, I realized how I hadn't practiced public speaking in a while and how I have to hone my skills as I will soon begin my senior year, full of occasions where I'll need the skill. Moreover, I do think it went well, though. We all had our turn, ending with Savannah, and had our much needed break, then lunch later.

Lunch was good today. I had the brisket as today's special, which was something I tried today for the first time. We had many good laughs and some infamous Gwennie glares that resulted from our cheesy jokes. Also, there were some thumb wars and arm wrestling for today among our group. With everyone one and my proctor, Tony, it was a pretty chill lunch, like we have made them these past days.

Back in class, we began a new topic- body image. We were given an article the day we began our drug research, but only referenced to it as a discussion. We learned about how Nigerian Arab tribes actually see women being fat as something very desirable- desirable to the point that young girls are force fed as much possible to encourage puberty as early as possible, in order to be appealing to the guys for marriage. Furthermore, we looked at body image in a historical context, looking at how beauty was defined for women throughout history, for example by women wearing their hair in exuberant ways. In another example, we saw how foot-binding was a form of being desirable for women. Again, we understood it as cultural relativism, understanding why cultures perceive things the way they do, while also considering ethics and all. We examined quite a lot and even did a brief activity where we all went around as a group and shared one of the things we do not like about our appearance, followed by something we do like about ourselves. It didn't get too emotional or anything, but we definitely showed another side to ourselves in class. I said how I dislike my eczema, especially when my skin gets really bad, dries, peels, itches, and makes my skin act up in nasty ways- on the flip side, I like my eyes.

To end class, we performed our Monte song for Monte. We all gathered at the front of the class while Monte sat in the back to record us; one of the highlights of the day. It was nice being able to show her that this class has opened our mind to different perspectives in medicine, health, and society. Afterwards, it was time for her to go and we ended up inadvertently looking at a video for gymnastics safety. Given that it was quite old, from the 80s, 90s, or so, it was just so funny how cheesy and predictable it was. To end class, we had free time. During that time, I was able to pick up my tie-dye shirt from yesterday and really liked the outcome.

With free time out of the way, we had a proctor night with our respective proctor groups. My group ordered Thai food from Satay Thai (the restaurant from last time). I got the Tofu with fried rice and an egg-roll, which was delicious. My group went down to the basement and saw the movie, Princess Pride. I didn't remember by the name, but I had seen it once my sophomore year in my English class. How did I not remember that movie? Inconceivable (haha)! All in all, it was a great time and I'm glad for it. As every experience is coming to a sad end, I am enjoying every single moment, thinking about how this experience in all has been great. It's sad to think that this seems like the end here, but we have one more day to go. Another 30 hours or so- and then it's back to our daily lives back at home. I'll save us my energy for tomorrow- there's a lot to look forward to in these next hours.

Problem Solving Skills

This morning my proctor group had decided to go to Fido's for breakfast, which on the downside meant getting up 45 minutes earlier, but on the upside meant much better food (and variety!). I decided to get a basic toasted bagel with cream cheese and a cup of Earl Grey tea. The bagel was good and very fresh, but I didn't think it had enough cream cheese on it, which I solved by moving all of the cream cheese to one half and then eating that half (problem solving skills). I wasn't really hungry enough to eat a whole bagel anyway.

In class today we learned about how knot theory is actually applicable to things like DNA, because DNA is basically a tangled up mess that enzymes can cut and move around to untangle certain parts. This was almost all lecture, so she broke it up with graph theory problems every now and then. I was glad about that, because I personally think that graph theory is more interesting than applications in biochemistry. Jeff ended our TA session a few minutes early when there was a huge gust of wind and then thunder, because he said that it looked like a storm was coming, and that if there was lightning then we would all have to stay within the building, and he'd rather we were all at Hank. 

The sign outside Jeni's: my kind of place.

Outside, the wind was very strong, and leaves and dust were everywhere in the air. It (unfortunately) didn't start raining before we all arrived at Hank. It started raining soon thereafter though, and I went outside to enjoy it. I had to come in only five minutes later, because there was lightning. Then I went to the panel of proctors who were talking about academics in college. The main takeaway for me was that you should take as few hours of classes as possible the first semester in order to give yourself time to settle in and adjust to everything. It's also a good idea to branch out, taking classes about anything that looks interesting to you even if they have nothing to do with your major. I definitely agree with this sentiment, since I think so many different subjects are fascinating.

They were small scoops, I promise. Mmm!

After dinner I made a tie-dye shirt, along with Arnold, Liam, Raymond, and Corry. I've never done tie-dye before, so I sort of just crumpled the shirt up and tied rubber bands around it randomly, then squirted different dye colors all over it. I guess we'll see how that turns out... I also accidentally squirted green dye on Raymond's head, and blue dye on Corry's shoe. (Oops. I'm sure it'll come out eventually. Probably.)

After tie-dying we all went to get homemade ice cream at Jeni's, which we'd heard was really good. Today was the last soft night, so we decided we had to do it. I really couldn't decide between four flavors (milk chocolate, dark chocolate, lemon, and raspberry), so I just got four scoops (problem solving skills). They were all delicious, and I didn't regret it at all. On our way back, it started to rain and there was thunder and lightning, which was very exciting. Also, rain! Lovely rain. It was wonderful. I got soaked, and so did everyone else, but I was the only one who was happy about it.

Do You Understrand?

Do you understrand? I don't. Time flies by so fast. This is coming to feel like the last day, but I know there is still some more time left. I came into this program not knowing how it would go, since it is so much more different from any other program. What ended up happening was a whole lot of really busy days constituting these entire 3 weeks of this summer. Three straight weeks of lots of memories that I have come to make. Three weeks that I will remember for years to come.

We had breakfast yet again this morning, as usual, followed by class for half of us. The group of people who were in the wheelchair the first time were the ones who were able to go see the organ recital. Unfortunately, we had to wait on that and will go for tomorrow, but the group of us that stayed in class watched a couple documentaries on healthcare and drugs. Much of it was very informational and revealing, as with many of the other documentaries we have seen. After it, we had lunch and came back to see that our class still wasn't finished with the organ recital. We began watching another documentary called A Sick America, which compared many healthcare models. It's a continuation of what I began to learn about healthcare models in different countries, but it was definitely interesting looking at specific examples of systems like having citizens having absolutely no medical bills, more autonomy in the care they receive, and more accessibility to healthcare in general.

Soon enough, the second half of class returned after their, very interesting organ recital, and joined us to see the rest of the country examples. Eventually, we had a break time and relaxed from a very slow, incomplete day without the first half of class in the morning, When we came back, we began to discuss our research from yesterday. We were only able to get through about half of the class, if not slightly less, but overall  it was a very long, informational session. Soon enough the time came for more free time now that we do not have arete. After that, we had a retrospective dinner. We came to realize that our time left here is short and will soon depart from each other and this experience. We began thinking about our moments here and how we all grew to be close to each other and how we don't quite want to leave. It's a sad truth, though. We're going to have to depart from here soon, but it's not over yet because we have some more days to left.

Apparently Lavender tastes like Fruit Loops.

When dinner ended, we went back to Hank and stayed outside for some T-shirt tie-dying. I was able to make what I hope to be a really cool colored shirt with lots of turquoise/green-blue/lime-green blends of colors (kind of like I tried to do with the scarf dying). Shortly after, Gwennie, Katherine, Kelly, Angel, Raymond, Corry, Lee, and I met down at Hank again for our last SOFT night out. It's sad to think that it's the last one, since we will be having more activities later in the week, but I definitely took in mind that it would be a great one. We went somewhere that's been on our VSA bucketlist- going to Jeni's for ice cream. We had a nice walk down 21st Avenue through a darkening evening. Our first stop was Dunkin Donuts, where I had my first full cup of Hazelnut Iced Coffee. We then strolled down to the ice cream shop. When we got there, we all went crazy with all the flavor sampling, but eventually I ordered the Lavender (since the lavender lemonade at Province was so great) and the Brown Almond Butter Brittle ice cream, both of them being some of the richest and best tasting ice cream I've had. On our way back, we hiked back up that 21st Avenue incline we all love and even with some rain- and flashing from lightening- above us. Fortunately, we caught some of that nice rain without any dangerous lightning and enjoyed the light summer rain before it just began to pour down.

VSA 2015.

At Hank, we had our proctor meeting, going over our best memories here at VSA thus far and the things we can look forward to this week. Right now, I am with the guys again, blogging for the night, but enjoying the company, given then we will soon all depart. I'm looking forward to our proctor group night tomorrow, which we will spend in Hank watching a movie and eating some more Thai takeout from last time's proctor night out. It's bound to be another good week this last week, and I look forward to making the best of these next few days we have in this program.

I Am Secretly Monet...Just For Today

Okay, so don't read the beginning of this post if you are squeamish, because I am about to go into a fair bit of detail about something rather uncomfortable to most people.

The Medicine, Health and Society class is going to visit the Med School 101 class at some point during this week, and I was one of the lucky half to go today. We went to see something called an "organ recital" where you hold a range of organs that are either from autopsies or from surgeries.

As we walked over to the hospital, I was steeling my nerves, as I had no idea what to expect. We walked into the classroom, where a silver rolling table with masses covered by blue towels was placed into the center of the room. On a shelf under the tables were boxes and boxes of gloves in a large range of sizes, which people were to grab before they sat down in the circle. The instructor, Esther, introduced herself and told us what she was going to be showing us today. We started off with a healthy pair of human lungs from an autopsy. When Esther held them up, I was surprised to see how dark and small they seemed to be, and sat there wondering if the person had ever smoked throughout their life. Apparently Esther was way ahead of us, and went into an explanation of how this was a healthy person during their life, but they were old, and dust and pollution had built up within their lungs.

Next we moved on to a set of lungs with emphysema, which looked radically different. They were smaller, and had small holes throughout them. After that, we moved onto a set of lungs with cancer, and there were tumors all over the tops of them, and in the part that was cut through the middle. Esther started that on one side of the circle, and a liver with cancer from the other side of the circle. It was sort of difficult to pass around since I had to trade organs with the person next to me since it reached our part in the circle at the same time. Finally, it was time for the leg. Unlike the organs, which were from autopsies, the leg was from a surgery. Apparently, the patient had diabetes, and lad to have their leg amputated since the blood was going septic. I could go into a great amount of detail about this leg, but I would rather not, as I think that would be kind of disturbing to read about. I could handle the organs without really being that affected by it, since I could view it without feeling a huge connection to it, but the leg made me feel sort of upset afterwards.

After the presentation was over, Zach led us around the outside of the hospital buildings, and then back into MHS. We watched part of a movie that centered around the different types of health care worldwide and compared them. I only really caught the end of the movie, since the part of the class that went to the organ recital came back rather late, so I can't really recount what happened. After lunch, we started the presentations about the drugs, but didn't get very far into them, so about ten people are going to be going tomorrow, including me. During study hall, we watched a documentary about how children are being overmedicated for childhood bipolar diseases and the adverse effects of that. Since most clinical trials on medications to treat bipolar disease are on adults, pediatricians are often flying blind when prescribing medications, and that often has terrible consequences.

After dinner I participated in the SOFT+ option of Monet For a Day, and attempted to paint. I decided to paint a quote from the Disney movie Up, along with a few balloons. I have only painted with watercolor before today, and I have found that painting with acrylic paint is exponentially more fun.

I think that if I have learned anything from this trip, it is this.