Posts by Ana Colón

It’s been three months since I got to Europe, and I have two months to go. While I feel I’ve been getting the hang of this whole living abroad thing, I consciously try to not let my head get so big as to annoy the hell out of my friends on campus. Because let’s be real… some kids can go a little overboard with their oversharing on Facebook and Twitter while abroad. A lot of the times they try to justify their humblebrags by tagging whatever they post with #abroadproblems. But #abroadproblems isn’t a scapegoat, and it certainly doesn’t give you permission to show off how ~fabulous~ your life is. Here are things that are not problems:

“Ugh I hate airport lines. But going to Rome! #abroadproblems!”
Ah, the classic #humblebrag. Being drunk at an airport sucks, especially when TSA is in a foreign language and they’ve just started yelling at you for some inexplicable reason. But the privilege of traveling is the polar opposite of a problem. So kindly omit the hashtag, and make your way through security, s’il vous plaît.

“Changing your profile picture weekly. #abroadproblems”
Studying abroad means taking pictures of any and every menial thing you do/eat. That’s a given. (Confession: my Instagram feed is now 70% food, and I’m not about to stop.) But if you’re constantly updating your social networks, you musn’t be doing anything too interesting. Plus, there’s no need to document every time you go to the Eiffel Tower/Tower of Pisa/Tower Bridge/any other European Tower. [Read more →]

Other than checking my Bank of America statements online, I don’t really get many reality checks abroad. I go about my days eating bread, drinking wine, and watching non-French TV on non-French websites. It’s a simple life, really. Until I go on Facebook, and read about so-and-so’s internship in New York/D.C./San Francisco this summer. I scoff, take another swig of wine, and think, “Ha. Internships.”

And then I think, “Shit. Internships.” The most dreaded yet sought after word in a college student’s vocabulary. I thought studying abroad would allow me to disconnect myself from the stress of on-campus life (i.e. conversations in the Blue Room about interviews on Wall Street; “daddy’s friend” helping someone out during the job search; the endless stream of Career Lab e-mails). Instead, I get brief but painful reminders that I’m graduating next May and will be forced to become a real person, and it’s terrifying. [Read more →]

Mary Kate and Ashley circa 1999, my Parisian spirit animals.

I remember the first time I saw Paris. I was 7 years old and, like any girl born in the early ’90s, a huge Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen fan (before New York Minute came out and ruined their straight-to-VHS career definitively.) I had just gotten my hands on their latest VHS, Passport to Paris. 7-year-old me longed to have a baguette fight on the Champ-de-Mars on the back of Ethan Peck‘s scooter. Needless to say, I’ve grown a bit since 1999, but I still had some dreamy ideas about what my semester in Europe would be like (baguettes and Ethan Peck on a scooter included). However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that most some of my fantasies would never come to be. But it’s okay, baguettes are great consolation food.

Expectation: Immerse myself in the culture, act like a local.
Reality: Conform to buying 2€ wine and calling it a day.

I had a very specific image of what my semester abroad was going to be like: sit in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant (because sidewalk cafés are sooo overrated!), drink house wine, and converse with my neighbor in their native language. Maybe I watched Amélie one too many times before boarding the plane, but the idea of becoming unrecognizable as a foreigner in this country seemed both romantic and plausible. However, I forgot the very obvious fact that I lack basic social skills, and freeze every time someone speaks to me in a language other than English. My “immersion” has consisted of putting on my headphones on the metro to pass as any other angsty 20-year-old, and picking up a bottle of supermarket-brand wine on the way home, speaking to no one throughout the commute.

Expectation: Make local friends.
Reality: … Working on it.

I’m cross-registered at two universities, each with its own different vibe. One is made up of predominantly rich, white Parisians who are too busy chain-smoking to talk to me. The other is made up of every other kind of person who still is too busy chain-smoking to talk to me. I don’t smoke, and have no interest in starting. However, going out for a cigarette during the mid-class pause is where people go to mingle. So I’m at a moral crossroads: to smoke and make friends, or to preserve my lungs and spend the next four months all by my lonesome, Anglophone self? Le sigh. [Read more →]

February 4th, 2013: First day of school on another continent.

Yes, I know it’s ridiculous that I’m starting school so late. I’ve been in Europe for almost a month, and this is the first time I have to set an alarm. I snooze it three times before I manage to get up from my bed. That’s when it hits me: so many things can go wrong today.

To calm my nerves, I made a list:

1. I have no idea what the professor is saying to the class/me.
2. I have no idea what the other students are saying to the professor/each other.
3. I understand enough to know that I have a 15-page paper, oral presentation, midterm, and exam, on top of being in class with people I don’t understand.
4. I took the train in the wrong direction, and I am now alone on the metro car with an old man yelling things at me that I don’t understand.

I put on my big girl pants, down an espresso, and text the only other Brown student that’s supposed to go to this class. I passive-aggressively tell her, “Leaving my apartment! Don’t be late.” But passive-aggressive texting is a dying art, and I’m left loitering in front of a building for 20 minutes. Thanks, friend. [Read more →]

Sunday afternoon, 1 p.m.: We drive in circles around Olneyville, trying to find a cookie convention amidst abandoned warehouses with shattered windows and graffitied brick walls. Is this Spectacular Cookie Smackdown a front for another kind of smackdown?

But we arrived safely at Fête, albeit unprepared for what would await us inside: a large room packed with people and, more importantly, COOKIES. ALL OF THE COOKIES. The Spectacular Cookie Smackdown is an event organized by RI Food Fights, in which different RI bakeries battle for the glory of being crowned Best in their category. Last year, it was cupcakes. This year, they fought for their honor the title of Best Cookie.

This Smackdown of baked-good greats came at a very opportune time: It’s finals, we’re tired, and we love to eat our feelings. So to walk around a room and be handed cookies of all varieties— chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, chipotle peanut butter… It was all too good to be true. Before we knew it, we were cuddled up in a dark corner, gloriously wallowing in the food coma (see above picture).

Amid all that, we actually did think about the food we were shoveling in our mouths. After the jump, our reviews—so that you, too, can get in on the cookie fun!

[Read more →]

http://youtu.be/oMMnAW5QUEw

You guys, it’s really happening! NBC made the incredibly wise choice of tapping our dream BFFs Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host the 70th Annual Golden Globes on January 13th. Their first official ad as hosts was released today, along with the list of nominees. I, for one, am outraged that Matthew McConaughey was snubbed for his sultry, drool-worthy inspiring performance in Magic Mike. But hey, Daniel Day Lewis lived as Lincoln for two months, so I guess that’s cool, too.

A hundred years ago, the New York Times celebrated this once-in-a-lifetime occasion by encouraging people to write the date on the top of a sheet of paper, and treat themselves to the pleasure of knowing that this “triple-plated date of magic mischance” is pretty cool.

Finals are upon us, and it’s easy to forget the little things in life. Like the fact that this will probably be the only time in our lifetime that we’ll see 12/12/12 on our phones, our computers, our newspapers, etc. Some people are doing 12/12/12 big: people are getting married, the Pope started tweeting, and hundreds of anxious high schoolers will join the Class of 2017. BlogDH doesn’t encourage shotgun weddings, but we do like things that fill us with warm fuzzies. There are tons of ways to make 12/12/12 count: eat a dozen cupcakes, make a list of 12 things you’re looking forward to, write a letter to someone you care about (or write one to yourself.) Take this moment to do something for yourself and make 12/12/12 memorable.

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Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a previous post that went up last year 24 hours before early decisions were released. These tips and tricks worked amazingly well for prospective students back in 2011 (and, not to mention, for all of us when we applied), and they’ll work well for you now. Take heed. Good luck!

Dear Brown 2017 Early Decision applicants,

We’ve been there. Those 24 hours before college decisions go viral are the most excruciating hours of everyone’s high school career. You’d think applying early decision to a school would make the wait a little less painful, but it’s a college admissions rite of passage everyone must go through… and it sucks. It’s also very easy to be overwhelmed by the thrill of it all— the reminder e-mails from admissions officers (as if you haven’t had the date marked on the calendar since the moment you submitted your application), the nagging calls from distant family members (just because you haven’t talked to them since last Christmas doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten how to be overly intrusive) and the thought that your future will be decided in the coming hours (I guess there’s always Harvard…).

But you can’t let it get to you. Life will go on, regardless of the decision you receive at 5:00 p.m. EST. Keep repeating that to yourself as you decide how to spend the next hours before you get the fateful e-mail. You might be compelled to do certain things, like cry your eyes out to James Blunt (is he still relevant?) or bash your head into a wall, that you will surely regret the day after. As a former ED applicant, I will impart some of my wisdom to you, the stressed-out high schooler, for what not to do on the big day. (Author’s note: Some of these tips are based on actual events. Do not judge me.)  [Read more →]

If you’re anything like us, you might have started watching this season of Saturday Night Live terrified of what would become of digital shorts in Andy Samberg’s absence. Thankfully, just a couple of weeks ago the SNL cast delivered what is (very much subjectively) the funniest sketch they’ve done this year—”The Legend of Mokiki and the Sloppy Swish.”

As Kenan Thompson says, “it’s a really stupid dance created by a crazy person.” The Sloppy Swish is a weird and yet addictive dance that we may or may not have started doing at parties. But it’s doubtful the dance would be as amazingly hilarious were it not for Taran Killam— therefore, he joins the list of Shit We Love. Here are some more reasons Taran Killam is completely awesome:

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Have you ever dreamed of being by yourself in the Blue Room with trays of fresh baked cookies, and having the cashier tell you that you can have them ALL for two credits? (Anyone? No? Just me?) Whatever, that would be awesome. Well, RI Food Fights is back again, offering the next best thing: The Spectacular Cookie Smackdown. For $10, you get to feast on the best cookies Rhode Island has to offer, and drink all the milk, coffee, soda, and hot chocolate your bladder can handle. The Smackdown is going down on December 9th, right as Reading Period begins and your hopes and dreams social life disappears.

If you’re skeptical about spending money on an all-you-can-eat buffet of just cookies (we get it, we’re kind of broke, too), buying a ticket to the Smackdown has more benefits than just sugar, butter, chocolate, milk… Eh, sorry, got distracted. If you buy a ticket, you also get a coupon for $10 off Pizza Pie-er. So now, it’s cookies, milk, coffee, soda, hot chocolate, AND pizza. Save the diet for your New Year’s Resolutions.

It’s going down at Fête on December 9th, from 1 to 4 p.m. Perfect mid-afternoon study break, just sayin’. I’ll be the one in the corner drowning my sorrows in oatmeal raisin cookies.

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