Yoga

Well, finished school! Yay! Graduated a little more than a month ago. Crazy isn't it? Well, I have been doing almost nothing these days back in Miami, which has been driving me a bit crazy. I have been hitting the gym hard, then working on essays, then running, then essays, then driving, then essays, and back to the gym. Oh, and of course, watching WAYYYY TO MUCH TV. You know you have watched too much TV when you are watching reruns of episodes of shows that you've already watched twice before in the same week! That is just sad. I was also getting really anxious about a lot of different issues and feeling overall pretty bad.

I realized last night as I was tossing and turning restlessly in my bed that I was upset because I had lost touch with the way I had been up to sophomore year of college. I always had had a very spiritual way of viewing the world...I always saw it as if everything was almost magical, a fun mystery I wanted to unlock. I know it sounds silly. And if you know me, you are probably laughing at the BS you think I might spewing out. But I am serious. Its hard to explain really. But anyway, back in my sophomore I used to Yoga and I remembered last night how good it made me feel. I love being active, doing gymnastics, swimming, running, going the gym...but nothing really has ever compared to the feeling I get after I do an intense Power Yoga routine. I always centered me and helped let go of all my mundane anxieties. It just made me feel good, inside and out. So today, I popped in Baptiste Yoga audio CD and did a 75 minute routine. I was amazed at both how much I was still able to do and how much I had lost in the last two years! It felt awesome though. I really felt like myself again. It is completely what I needed and I think I am going to do it more often now (especially this summer). I don't think I've ever felt so calm this year until today. Anyway, I'll stop ranting like a New Age lunatic now. Just felt like sharing that experience. It feels good to feel spiritual again.

Weird mood...

So after a fun night out drinking with my roommates in the Square we came back and wanted to watch some TV. There was nothing good on, but we found a rented “Brokeback Mountain” DVD on the coffee table. After some discussion, we decided to start watching the movie…man it was depressing. It was a very good movie, I know realize why it received so much hoopla (I was one of those people who always rolled his eyes every time some TV show discussed the “controversial” movie). It was incredible…incredibly sad, but incredible. I have to admit I was wrong about this movie, and I am glad I watched it. But now I am in this sullen depressed mood…great way to go to bed :-\ Oh well, g’night.

Need to sleep

You know when you are soo tired that you can’t sleep. I am sick right? And I should be going to bed, but it is now around 2:30 AM and I am still out of bed! Grrr, sometimes I get so angry at myself…I have tons of work to do tomorrow. Oh well, it’s senior spring…I’ll just keep telling myself that ^_^ G’night ya’ll, I am just glad I got this blog up and going, it’s nice to have a place to ramble to even if no one is reading it.

Have not posted in a while...

So I had many great plans for this blog a while ago, I was going to learn how to do my professional websites and make my own template and make this into a spectacular blog...and...nothing came of it and I almost forgot about it. Luckily, I just remembered about it! Yay! And now, I will pick up that project again...errr...in the summer.
I have just learned how to do flash (I had to do a HUUUUGE project for my Tokyo class) so I think I will load up some swf files onto a space I can find online and link them up through here and make a template that works around it; it should be cool! Of course, that's only when I have the time, right now I am concerned primarily about *graduating* Haha, I have to finish my final project(s) and I am done with school...off into the real world, well not entirely (but I will explain more about that later).
Many things have happened since I last wrote my (second) blog entry in this website. I finished my thesis, got a summa grade (which made me happy since my work seems to have paid off, you can see my blog entry while I was doing field research in Peru for this thesis @ http://fantestravel.blogspot.com) and some other possible opportunities have come up which I will discuss when they do actually happen (ooo, I am being all mysterious now...I know all of you who know me are like, Francisco, mysterious? nah! ahh, but I am ^_^ In a good way of course!). Unfortunately, none of my fellowships panned out (although I was lucky enough to be the finalist for the UK Fulbright program, my luck didn't last past the final round >_<) , but I did recently get accepted to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. At first I was all bombed out, because my parents were telling me that perhaps I should not go and not waste any loans and instead stay in the States and work. This sounds great, and I tried to embrace it, but I just could not find a job that really peaked my interest and excited me as much as going to study at the London School and getting a Master's Degree in public health. Doing part-time work would have been a good a break befire medical school (I am taking a gap year before starting that...applying this year) but, my heart was more in this. So, after talking it over with my parents, I have decided that I will take out loans and work a lot during the summer to start saving up some money for medical school. If I can, I would love to work part-time while studying in London.
To wrap that long story up, I will be going to London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on September, godwilling and have a fun, busy, and eventful year in England. It would be an understatement to point out how I excited I am (except, I did).
Right now I am trying to get myself to start working on my final project for my Marine Bio course. My professor is great, and I really appreciate that he allowed me (a history of science, in other words "humanities," student) take his graduate level science class. It has been a wonderful experience, and I am especially grateful that he is allowing me to do a hist-of-sci final paper and presentation rather than making me write a 20-page pure science report. It is not that I don't like science (I do!), but asking me to go from having at most written 5-page science reports to writing a 20-page graduate-level scientific review would have been nothing short of "cruel and unusual punishment" to a history major like myself—especially since this is my senior spring! I am going to do my paper on Edward Morse, a marine biologist who discovered that Brachiopods were not mollusks but annelids. That might not sound so interesting but it was pretty revolutionary at the time. Also, what is interesting is that in order to reach this conclusion he went to Japan in 1876 or so and was one of the first Americans to have a long-term encounter with the Japanese. He was so influential to Japan, that the marine laboratory that he setup then still up and running. He also was one of the men responsible for bringing ideas of evolution to Japan and has become a "scientific hero" for the country (I've heard people claim that almost every kid in Japan learns early on in science class who Edward Morse is). Ah, yes, and I forgot to mention, he was one of the greater defenders of the Darwinian theory. His own mentor, Louis Agassiz, was a great scientist and a very religious man. Agassiz never felt comfortable with Darwinism and was one of the last zoologists to try to latch on the creationism (in fact, the Museum of Comparitive Zoology in Harvard University was funded by Agassiz on the condition that do not organize their specimens by evolutionary order, but by geographical regions...to this day, MCZ is the only zoological museum that organizes their exhibits in this manner, cool eh a bit disturbing as well?). Morse turned his back against Agasiz and began promoting evolution in the US and Japan, which partially got him in trouble at Harvard since Ag was already tenured (even if Harvard was now embarassed to have him in the faculty, they *had* to support him). Anyway, I can go on and on, I spent all day today in the stacks of different libraries, wet (it was raining, and the libraries are not close to each other) and with a fever doing research on this character for my final paper. I wanted to start writing today but my body was not happy with me after 5-6 hours of active work while I am sick. So I took the rest of the day off and now I am writing on a blog...great way to spend my time right? *sighs* Well, I just finished a huge project for my Tokyo anthropology class. I spent over 30 hours straight of active work on the website to complete it! This is not counting all the preliminary, more passive work I had to do. The hours easily add up over 70-80 hours just for this single project! I deserve a little break, I think! Pus, it is senior spring, I should be partying it up! But no, I see these last few weeks as a chance to get some great grades because I really enjoy my classes this semester and I'd liek to end in the right note...I'll have plenty of time to party when I get back to Miami this summer ^_^

Well, I should go to bed, what I am doing up with a fever at 1 am?

Very Excited, New York Trip

Yes, I have been at living at Harvard for almost three and a half years now, and no, I have yet to take a weekend trip to New York as I used to dream I would do all the time in the summer before college. Why? No reason. Just never get around with it, I felt happy (even though stressed) in my little Harvard bubble and not once did it cross my mind (well it did, but I would shush it quickly) to just pack up my bags and go for no reason at all. Well, it is the end of the fall of my senior year and I am finally going to do it. I am very excited! Don't I have homework you ask? Well, yes I do. Will that stop me? No. I'll find a way, but this is for me.
I am so psyched. Granted, New York as a city kind of scares me. The last time I was there I remember feeling horrified at the lack of greenery and tall buildings. Granted, I live in a city as well in Florida...but, there is still *nature* all around me nevertheless! There are beaches, and palm trees, and australian pine trees (which are actually not native and are invading and destroying our natural environment, but that's besides the point...they are pretty). But, considering it is winter and there is no leaves visible on the trees here in Boston, I think I will be able to handle the lack of nature a bit better in New York for one weekend.
Ok, well need to leave to start heading for the airport.

New Blog, New Possibilities

I decided to make a new blog since I enjoyed doing the travel blog over the summer so much. I know it has been a long time since then, but I have been mainly working on keeping up my DA Site (and, well, homework of course) in the meantime. I plan to use"Do Sonhador" as a combination blog/personal art gallery where I can post my progress in drawings that I am working on. Eventually I'll try to find a way to blend it in with a website I want to construct (all this major construction will probably occur over Christmas Break, since right now I need to be focusing on thesis). I am going to be working periodically on completely personalizing this template as much as I can with my own images. We'll see how it comes out ^_^ In the meantime, you can visit my DA (or Deviant Art) site/journal/gallery (http://elferlin.deviantart.com). Enjoy!