The most beautiful woman in the world

I'd like to start off by showing you this picture. It is of a plant that I started to grow just last week. When I first moved in, my RAs gave each of us a cup with some dirt and some seeds in it. It was up to us to take care of our cup of dirt. At first, I paid no attention to it. I didn't care whether there was a plant growing or if it remained a cup of dirt. After seeing the rest of the suite's plants, I decided I wanted mine to grow.I started to water it and now I have a prospering plant. What kind of plant it is, I have no idea. It will remain a mystery.

This is exactly a metaphor for how my time here at Columbia has been so far. At first, I was too homesick to want to do anything. The days crept along and I remained in my shell, refusing to branch out. After a while, I realized that other people were having the time of their lives and I should too. I started to "water" my time here, and now look. I'm a prospering plant, having the time of my life like everyone else. Thought I would share my little story with you.

I find that the resources at Columbia are amazing. Yesterday I had ameeting with a librarian, Mary, who helped me find resources to use when looking for research. She even requested some materials through the interlibrary loan system for me so that I can use them in my paper. Her knowledge about the library system really helped a lot since my professor had written as a comment on my outline that I needed more journal and primary sources. The librarian helped me find just that.

As for my outline, I received a fairly good score. I treat itas if I got a bad score. I'm not sure why I do this but I always do. It keeps me motivated and not get too comfortable thinking that just because I got a good score this time I am for sure going to get a good score the next time around. I'd rather thinkI did badly and be more motivated to improve than know I did good and take it easy. But, overall I am satisfied that on my first college assignment I did really well.

Today I also had a meeting with Dr. Z. to receive some input on my paper. She told me what I needed to work on like my sources, and how I should carry through with the rest of my paper. What I liked the most its that she didn't tell me what to write or how to write it, she simply told me to develop more here or be more precise. My professor is very easy to talk to and I'm glad my first experience being taught my acollege professor is not a horrifying one!

This evening I saw for the first time the most beautiful lady in the world. Ever since I could remember, I always thought of my grandmother as the most beautiful woman in the world. Don'tget me wrong, she still is... But, this other woman caught my eye not only because is she beautiful to me, but in the eyes of many others. As I stood on the boat that took us around Manhattan, I looked up and saw Lady Liberty. My first impression of her was how green she was. Then as I stood there I realized that this was the first face many immigrants saw of the US before actually arriving. This was the face that meant they were in a better world and could start a better life. It was kind of overwhelming, well at least to me.

The boat took us to see the Brooklyn Bridge, UN building, Twin Towers memorial site, and other famous landmarks. There is so much in New York I am not convinced you will never get bored here. Our tour guide also pointed out that the Hudson River that we were sailing on was where the pilot made the emergency landing a couple years ago. He stated that the plane had 90 seconds before it would sink if there wasn't another boat pumping water out of the plane. Luckily enough, a boat like the one we were on came to the rescue and helped pump the water and save the lives of this stranded on a plane in the middle of the Hudson.

Today was a very enjoyable day for me. I realized Columbia has its ups and downs like any other place, but I feel like so far I've seen a lot of ups and hopefully this week will continue to bring them.