Gaby's UMBC Blog

It’s almost over!

Gaby — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:11:35 +0000

Wow, sorry for not writing in such a long time! I have been so busy studying for finals that I haven’t had the time. So I just had my Physics final this morning…..it wasn’t that bad, at least I wasn’t late to the exam this time! haha

I have barely been getting any sleep these past few days, so I am extremely exhausted. I was so tired that I actually took a nap today! I never take naps, no matter how tired I am, because I just feel weird sleeping during the daytime. Now I have a couple more finals to go and I have to write a paper for my Spanish class for Monday and I haven’t started yet. I don’t even know what I’m going to write about! I better start doing that ASAP! I can’t believe the semester is finally over next week. I finally get to go back home and see my mommy!!! Yay!!

So I applied for a new job on-campus for the next school year. I applied to be a Sports Medicine Trainer. Sports Medicine hires undergraduate students to help out with therapy and to help wounded athletes. We are supposed to take a class once a week to learn about different methods of treating different wounds, etc. It sounds like a lot of fun and it’ll give me more hands-on experience with patients!! I hope I get the job, I’m supposed to find out soon! So next semester I am definitely going to be busy working for Sports medicine (hopefully) and Health Services, but I like being busy so that’s ok!

So tomorrow, my friend and I are going to make….CEVICHE! It’s this really good Peruvian fish dish! I’m so excited!!! Now I have to start packing up all my stuff and get ready to move out! I’m really going to miss living on-campus and living with my roommate but I’m also glad the semester over! This school year has been absolutely crazy but it was great! Next year will be my last year at UMBC! I can’t believe I’m graduating soon!

Anyways, I hope everyone has a great summer! : )

4 more weeks until SUMMER!!

Gaby — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:47:51 +0000

I can’t believe summer break is almost here! This semester has gone by so fast! I will be flying back home to CA and spending the whole summer in good ol’ Sactown! : ) I can’t wait to see my family and my friends from high school! This is going to be an awesome summer. I will be going to the Bay Area often because that’s where my aunt lives and then my friends and I were thinking of taking a road trip to Santa Cruz. I’ve never been there and I heard that their beaches are gorgeous!!

So this week has been crazy with exams and homework…I’m really tired and I just can’t wait until this semester is over, but that only means that finals are coming! Not fun. So I have papers to write for 2 of my classes and I haven’t even started on them; I don’t even know what topic I’m going to write about! I’m being such a procrastinator lately. Oh well, at least they’re due by the end of the semester so I have enough time to get them completed as long as I don’t keep procrastinating!

It’s almost Friday! This weekend is going to be nice because I am finally going to visit my aunt. I’m such a bad niece. I have been so busy over the past several weekends with UMBC Ambassador stuff and studying and going to fun UMBC events like Quadmania…..so I haven’t been able to visit her since spring break. It’s the perfect weekend to visit her too because my cousin from Utah is coming for the weekend so I get to see him as well! I totally need this break….I love living on campus but it’s nice to have a change of scenery once in a while. Oh and I finally get to take all my winter clothing and store it at my aunt’s house and I bring back my summer clothes and flip flops! I have wanted to wear flip flops so bad this week since the weather is so nice but I don’t have any with me at the moment but I will definitely have them next week!

All right, I better stop thinking about summer break/this weekend and go to sleep! Buenas noches!

LOMO SALTADO!!!

Gaby — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:10:13 +0000

Ok, so all of you can probably tell by now that I love Peruvian food….Well, I actually cooked Lomo Saltado yesterday!! Lomo Saltado is a dish made with beef, onions, tomatoes, and red peppers all cooked together with soy sauce, vinegar, and salt. Fried potatoes are then added and it is served with rice. It’s my favorite peruvian dish!

My friend Aileen has wanted to try Peruvian food for a while and we decided to cook dinner at her apartment yesterday. I asked my aunt and grandma for the recipe and then we went to Giant to get the ingredients. Anyways, I am so happy because I actually cooked something and it didn’t turn out that bad! Well, I can’t take all the credit, my friend was the one who did all the chopping of the vegetables which is a lot of work. I have never really cooked a complete dish all by myself so this is a big deal for me!

Oh and just in case you were wondering, my friend liked the dish! : )

Harbor, here I come!

Gaby — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:44:34 +0000

So I have been living in Chesapeake this year. It wasn’t my first choice but it has been nice. It really took me a while to get used to having a roommate. Since I’m an only child I am used to having my own room but it was a great experience. My roommate and everyone on my floor is super nice! Even though living with a roommate has been fun, I decided that I would like to live in a single room next school year. I just got my housing assignment today for the next school year and I got my single in Harbor! So excited! : )

I can’t believe that this semester is almost done! Time goes by so fast. Now I am just counting down the days until summer break!

Spring is here!

Gaby — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:04:34 +0000

So I’m so happy its spring even though it doesn’t look like it today. I just want it to get warmer so I can wear my flip flops! Anyways, spring break went by really quickly. I didn’t do much…..a lot of sleeping which was very nice. Then I got sick in the middle of the week so I was stuck at my aunt’s house for the rest of the break!

So I mentioned before that I started to go to the Power Stretch/Yoga class at the gym. I’ve been pretty good and have been going almost every week. This class is great and it’s only an hour long. I feel so refreshed and relaxed after the class is done….but its not just stretching, we also do other things like upper arm exercises which is hard for me because I barely have any upper arm strength…hehe

I’m so glad tomorrow is Friday and I can’t wait until Saturday! SEB is showing “I am Legend” this week and the movies are free on Saturdays! I have wanted to see this movie so bad so my friend and I are definitely going to show up for the movie!

Ok, I better go and get ready to go to my 20th century art class…..

SpRiNg BrEaK!!!

Gaby — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:28:30 +0000

Yay, so it’s finally spring break! I really don’t have any big plans for break. I’m just going to be at my aunt’s house sleeping in a lot and of course studying…. My aunt, uncle, and I drove to Frederick today. We went to a family friend’s house, it was their sons first birthday. It was so much fun! The best part of the get together was that fact that they cooked lots of peruvian food and I ate so much of it! As you can tell from some of my other blogs, I am obsessed with Peruvian food but I can’t help it! Anyways, I’ve never been to Frederick before and it was really nice!

This is kind of off topic but I just want to say how happy I am that UMBC made it to the NCAA Tournament! We beat Hartford 82-65. The next game is this coming Friday against Georgetown! GO DAWGS! : )

What a day

Gaby — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:19:50 +0000

Today has been a crazy day! I have been busy non-stop since 8am-5pm. My first class was at 8…..I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble waking up for this class every Monday, Wednesday and Friday but it’s not that bad. I just wake up at 7:15ish, get dressed, have some breakfast and then walk to class! So anyways, I had classes throughout the day until noon, then I had to go to my physics exam review (my exam is on Monday) and then I had to go straight to work at the UHS until 5. I am extremely tired now.

Oh, so I took my first 20th Century Art exam on Tuesday. This class is actually really interesting. We’re currently talking about Cubism and artwork from Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The only annoying thing about studying for the exam was the fact that there were so many paintings to remember and a lot of the painters had similar styles so it was hard to tell who painted which painting! Anyways, I got my exam back yesterday and I did really well!

Now this weekend I have to study for my Physics exam and get ready my presentation for my Spanish class, both for Monday! In Spanish we signed up to present about different regions in Central and South America. I signed up for a region in South America and I ended up in the group including Peru! The funny thing is that I met a girl in my Spanish class who is also from Peru! It’s so cool because there aren’t that many of us Peruvians at UMBC. Anyway, another girl in my group really wants to do her presentation on Peru…I think it for the best because I always do presentations about Peru. It’s about time I expand my knowledge about South America, so I chose to do my presentation on Venezuela!

Well, I’m glad the day is over and now I have to clean my room, it’s a mess. I have to keep my room nice and clean for you high school students coming to Just for Juniors tomorrow! I’m showing my room to tour groups tomorrow, so I better finish up!

Just for Juniors

Gaby — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:13:19 +0000

Now for a reminder….for any of you high school students who are reading this, Just for Juniors is this coming Saturday (3/8/08) at the UMBC RAC (Retrievers Activities Center). Since I’m a UMBC Ambassador, I will be participating by showing my room to the campus tours! I hope to see you there! It’s a great way to meet current students, faculty, etc. from UMBC and to learn what this university is all about! I believe it is too late to register for this event…but I just want to let you know that we do also have more student visit days coming up and it is a great way to learn more about UMBC.

My Adventure in Downtown Baltimore

Gaby — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:08:45 +0000

Wow, what an awesome day! A couple friends and I went to downtown Baltimore today. We took the UMBC transit bus to the Inner Harbor. FYI: you can ride on it for free as many times as you want throughout the semester! I mean the fee is included in your tuition so students should really take advantage of it and there are several buses on-campus that go to several locations around Baltimore. Anyways, we went to downtown Baltimore and then took another bus nearby (we stood at the wrong bus stop for a while but we eventually found the right one!) and we went to the BMA (The Baltimore Museum of Art). This was my second time going to an art museum. I went to The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento in middle school but I barely remember the trip but I do remember that it was very small. This was no the case for the BMA, it is HUGE! It has three floors and their art pieces are gorgeous! The BMA really interested me because I took an art history class last semester and now I’m taking 20th century art. It was nice seeing pieces form artists I have studied. The coolest part was when I saw one of Henri Matisse’s paintings that we were studying in class last week! It was so much fun! So then we went to lunch and took another bus back to the Inner Harbor. We walked around the harbor until the UMBC bus came back to pick us up. The only bad part about this trip was the fact that it was SO windy and cold! Other than that, it was a fun day! I can’t wait to go back again.

Fire alarm…why?!?

Gaby — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:00:33 +0000

So, I am done with my exams for the week! Yay! These past few days have been crazy. I studied all weekend for my exams. I barely got any sleep Sunday night and I only got two hours of sleep last night.

I woke up this morning at 10 to get ready for my class when all of a sudden I hear the fire alarm go off in Chesapeake. It was so loud!! So I just started getting dressed…I had my top on and I was still wearing my pajama pants. All the residents had to go outside in the freezing cold and we waited for a really long time until they said it was all right to come in. Apparently it was just a test……I planned to use that time to review some more for my exam! Oh well….I think I did well on both of them, especially my physics exam!

Anyways, I am off to work soon! : )

*Gaby's UMBC Blog*