smartgrlanita

01:47 am: Thanksgiving
Thankgiving was on November 22nd. I left campus on the afternoon of the 21st to go to my aunt's house where i stayed from Wednesday to Sunday. I had a really good time. It was so nice being away from all the stress and pressure from school that on Saturday night when I realised that I would be leaving soon, I began to feel very depressed. I do enjoy school but it is extremely stressful. That is probably my fault though. I think I commited myself to more than I can handle. I am taking 17 credits (the maximum is 18), I am in a sorority, I do competitive ballroom dancing, and I work on the SmartGirl website!! I love everything I am doing but its just more than I can deal with. Anyway, I had a good Thanksgiving. My uncle and aunt live about an hour away from the University of Michigan with their 2 children. A 16 year old son and a 14 year old daughter. I get along really well with both of them so I always enjoy visiting. We had a really good thanksgiving dinner and during the remainder of the time I was there, I hung out with my cousins playing 'Need For Speed', 'Dance Dance Revolution', choreograhing a hip hop dance with my 14 year old cousin and also teaching her how to ballroom dance (It was so much fun!!!) and just hanging out and chatting. It was a good thanksgiving!!! :)

01:46 am: So much to catch up on!
Hey Girls!

So much has been happening and I've been wanting to write about it but I've just been so busy and stressed out! So here I am, pulling an all-nighter, and between Psychology and Chemistry and Women's Studies, I am going to write about how life has been the past few weeks!

12:20 pm: i feel silly.
Hello girls! I'm feeling very silly at the moment. I was dancing around my tiny dorm room and my hand hit my dresser. Hard. My wrist is red and slightly swollen now. I hope it'll be alright. It reminds me of the time when my friend was playing soccer by himself, tripped over the ball and broke his leg. Silly embarressing accidents!

I'm going to Ohio tomorrow! I am on the Michigan Ballroom Dance Team (we are the collegiate champions!) and we're going for the Ohio Star Ball - a ballroom dance competition taking place this weekend. I am not competing this season because I was too busy rushing and pledging my sorority to attend practise regularly, but I'm going to watch and I'll compete next season. It should be fun!!

My parents came to visit me over the weekend. I really enjoyed their visit. I haven't seen them since August so it was really nice seeing them again! There isn't much to do here as its a college town and there aren't many tourist attractions so it was mostly shopping and good meals, but I had a good time. It was nice just being able to spend time with them. I'm going back to Singapore for christmas! I'll be leaving in 6 weeks! I'm looking forward to it! I miss my family and friends!!

Bye girls!

PS: my wrist still hurts.

03:36 am: snow!!
Hey Girls! It's thursday today and I'm really looking forward to the weekend! My parents are coming to visit me! :)

I come from Singapore and it takes 22 hours to fly to Michigan from Singapore, but my parents are currently i Mexico for a meeting so they'll fly here to visit me for the weekend. I haven't seen my family since August so it'll be nice to see them again. :) I'll be going home for christmas so I'm looking forward to that!

It snowed today. :) It was pretty cool. Singapore is a tropical island so the only times I've ever seen snow was during vacations to cold countries so I think the last time i saw snow was about 8 years ago!! I'm finding the weather very cold but apparently it is going to get alot colder. That is scary. But It'll be fun when there is alot of snow and I can build my first snowman!! I'm looking forward to that! :)

02:59 pm: party!!
So tonight, I went for a frat party with my the girls in my sorority. I had an awesome time and it totally helped me bond with them. :)

01:19 am: :)
Hey girls! I've been feeling pretty good ever since I decided not to compete in ballroom dancing. I've been getting enough sleep, I dont have to rush though every single piece of homework, and I dont have to keep rushing from one event to another. Best of all, I can still go for ballroom dance practise, but i only go when I have time and its no longer and obligation and I really enjoy myself every time i go for practise! Competing would have been alot of fun but with the number of comitments I have this semester, it would have been too much for me to handle. Last night and this morning have been alot of fun. I hung out with my sorority. Since I'm new to it and I joined without knowing anyone, there's alot of bonding to be done and I'm really enjoying it! I'm really beginning to settle in and enjoy school here! :)

03:00 am: dancing with the stars!!
So i'm FINALLY done with my stressful week of exams! It feels so good! I can actually sleep again!!! :) Anyway, do any of you watch Dancing With The Stars?? I do! It's my absolute favurite show and season 5 (the one showing now) is the best of all!!! I was really upset last night when Sabrina and Mark were eliminated. I think they were the best couple and I really wanted them to win the competition. I was talking to Paige (another smartgirl mentor) about it this morning and we both agreed that Mark and Sabrina did not deserve to be eliminated. We came to the conclusion that no one voted for them because their scores were not in the bottom 2, and they had been leading the competition all season and it seemed obvious that they would not be eliminated, simply because they were clearly 2 of the best dancers on the show. So I'm really really upset about them being eliminated and I know that their huge fan base is upset too. I'm hoping that there will be a petition or something to get them back on, because I feel that Mark and Sabrina deserve to win dancing with the stars season 5!

01:34 pm: school is stressing me out :/
Hey girls, I'm guessing that so far you've heard about all the friends, parties, freedom and cool stuff you'll get to do in college. All that is true, but what most people forget is that those are just fringe activities - college is really about academics.

I'm taking a pretty heavy courseload this semester. 17 credits out of a maximum of 18. That's alot for a first semester freshman who is from a different country and has to make new friends as well as get used to a whole new culture and education system. In addition to that, I am in the Singaporean Students Association, the ballroom dance team, a sorority, and I'm working on the Smartgirl site for all of you! :) I love everything I'm doing but my grades are dropping and I'm survivng on 4 hours of sleep and a ton of coffee on weeknights - I sleep in on weekends. :) This is really taking a toll on me and its affecting my grades, my health, and my social life. Something's gotta give. I considered dropping chemistry but I thought it would be a waste since I'll have to take it next semester anyway. Eventually, I decided to drop ballroom dancing.

I really love ballroom dancing, but practise is tough. University of Michigan has been the collegiate ballroom dancing champions for the past 2 years and so practice is intense. We practise 6 days a week which works out to about 16 hours a week. Practise finishes at about midnight and after practise, I have to travel back to my dorm and finish up my homework. I have 8 am classes 3 times a week, so when I have dance practise the night before, I'm completely exhausted in class and I can't concentrate. So I think I'll be able to pull my grades up if I don't go for ballroom dancing. I still love it alot though, so I will probably drop by practise sessions and dance once or twice a week.

So.. this is the harsh reality of college life. School work is important and sometimes we have to make sacrifices for it - but don't be intimidated, on the whole, college life is still awesome! :)

07:50 am: chicago! :)
Hey girls!! This post is slightly overdue but I really wanted to tell you about my roadtrip to Chicago!

Over fall break, my friends and I rented a car and drove to chicago to spend two days there. On our way to chicago, we stopped at the factory outlets at Aurora. I hadn't been shopping in quite a while and I needed to get some warm clothes so I had a really good time. :) After that, we walked around downtown chicago and at night, we went to a jazz bar. We'd heard that the jazz bars in Chicago are realy good, but, we weren't allowed into most of them cos we were under 21. I was pretty upset. Finally, we found one that would let us in, but they made us leave at 8pm! It was quite disapointing that we didn't manage to spend the night enjoying jazz music at one of Chicago's famous jazz bars.

We then went for dinner at Grand Lux Cafe. It's a really gorgeous restaurant, good food and amazing decor. I enjoyed it. However, the most horrible thing happened after dinner! We had parked our car on the side of the road where a whole row of cars were parked, but we arrived after dinner to find our car missing. A tow truck was there towing another car away. We then realised that we had parked in a tow zone and our car had been towed away!!! What a horrible way to end our first night in Chicago! We had to take a cab to the auto-pound to get our car back! It would have been pretty funny/fun if it hadn't cost us $160. We pretty much collapsed into bed when we reached our hotel that night. It had been a long day.

The next morning, we went to chinatown. I'm from Singapore and its a predominantly Chinese country, so it was great seeing Chinese culture and food again. We had an awesome 'dim sum' lunch and we looked around the shops. We then decided to walk around the city, to look at museums and see the atmosphere. Somehow, we ended up at navy pier where there was a halloween carnival! We took the ferris wheel and wave swinger. It was alot of fun. We didnt really get to take in much culture, but we had a good time. After navy pier, we started the 5 hour drive back to Michigan.

This was my first road trip, coming from Singapore where i can get from one end of the country to the other in an hour, this was quite an adventure! I want to go to New York next! :)

01:40 pm: PHI RHO ALPHA
I've been rushing for a sorority - Phi Rho Alpha, and yesterday was bid day.. that pretty much means judgement day. It's the day when i find out whether or not i get accepted. This is what happened!

At 10 am, Liz and Yelina appeared at my door with a poster, a box of chocolates, a small bunch of pink roses and a letter inviting me to join Phi Rho Alpha. I was really happy and excited. I stuck the poster on my door. It is pink and heart shaped, and it has my name and the name of the sorority on it.

At 7pm, 3 girls picked me up and we drove out to a really nice restaurant where the entire sorority had dinner together. I got to know the sisters better and it was alot of fun! After dinner, we went to the sorority house and had a 'Carry In' ceremony with some of the guys from Sigma Pi (a fraternity). That was pretty fun and exciting, but i totally regret wearing a dress that night. After the ceremony, we proceeded to Theta Xi (another fraternity) for a party!!!! :)

I've spent about a month or maybe slightly less rushing, and i've been in Phi Rho Alpha for two days, but so far, I really like it!

If anyone has questions about rushing or sororities, I'd be happy to answer them! :)

09:21 am: PRISON BREAK
So I just finished watching today's episode of Prison Break and since its my FAVOURITE show, I couldn't resist telling you guys about it! For those of you who love it but didnt manage to catch it, DON'T READ YET!!! I dont wanna spoilt it for you. For those who love it and watched it, I'd love to discuss this show with you!

I can't believe that they killed Sara!!! Micheal will be so devastated when he finds out. Apparently the actress got pregnant and that's why they had to cut her out of the show. And Micheal's plan for escape is unfolding, they're gonna attempt to break out soon!! Although, if this season is anything like the first, it'll take many many attempts before they finally break out. Okay. So i know i'm just gushing about the show, but I just love it so much. And I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions about it!! :)

08:35 am: Shopping :)
Hey girls!! I had a really awesome weekend and I'd like to share it with you!! :)

This past week has been full of exams and on Friday night, my friends and I were in desperate need of retail therapy. All the shops were closed since it was pretty late at night so we decided to go to...... MEIJIERS!!! We took the opportunity to buy groceries but we also spent ages in the makeup section and in the toy section. We're 19 years old but we can't resist toys. :) After that we hung out at my friends apartment and baked double fudge brownies. We decided to add cornflakes to make the brownies crunchy! It turned out more chewy than crunchy, but it was still good. So we hung out til about four in the morning eating our AWESOME brownies, and watching grey's anatomy!!

Today, we went to a real mall. That was awesome. I haven't been to the mall for about a month, and I LOVE shopping. I bought some cool stuff!!! So i'm pretty happy. My favourite stores are H&M, Forever 21 and Victoria's Secret. If anybody knows any other cool stores, I'd love to know about them!!

12:27 pm: my very first post!!
Hey Girls!!

My name is Anita and I am a new mentor for Smart Girl! I am really excited about this project and I hope I'll get to meet alot of cool new people (i.e. YOU) through it!!

I'll start by telling you a little about myself. I'm a first year student at the University of Michigan. I LOVE to dance!!! I used to do ballet, and a little jazz, hip hop and lyrical, but now I do ballroom dancing. For those of you who are interested in dance, and wanna talk about it, send me a message! :) Other than dance, I like to go shopping!! I like to read, magazines, novels.. anything! I love hanging out with my friends. Guys are awesome but girl time with my best friends is my favourite!!! My favourite TV show is Prison Break and I watch it religously every Monday.

I've been in college for a month now and its been a great experience. I'm an international student so adapting to the culture here as well as getting used to the TREMENDOUS workload of university life has been difficult, but fun. Its great living in a dorm with lots of other girls. We hang out, eat pizza, watch girly movies like The Notebook. It's awesome. And next weekend, over fall break, I'm taking a road trip to chicago with a couple of friends. Isn't college great? :)

So this has just been a short post so that you can get to know me a little, I'll write more soon. And if you have questions about college life, or you need someone to talk to, i'm always here! :)