Sunday, June 29, 2014

Stay Tuned for the Adventures of the Penn Cohort

After the many ILC events and preparations, it has all finally come down to tomorrow.

Last night was an intense battle of checking, double checking, and triple checking everything that I needed to bring in my luggage and adding whatever more items I might need. The results were promising. I tried to fit as much as possible into as least as possible. In other words, I'm not very fond of carrying a bunch of luggage around. Even after I attempted several protests on my mom's strategy of packing a lot of things into one of the bags, she continued to cram and was able to successfully stuff them in and zip the zipper (although I suspect that the seams are about to explode).
Cramming at its finest
Among my cohort members, I am the only one who has never been to the East Coast before, which poses so many question for me. Questions that are soon to be answered with (no doubt) an incredible experience to go along with. As of now, I am filled with excitement and anticipation for what is in store for us tomorrow. There is the usual nervousness of setting foot in a new place filled with new people, but I am way more excited to get out of my comfort zone and meet different people.

Since the day of my acceptance into the Ivy League Connection, the wait towards our departure to Penn has been excruciating. And now, even though my moment of departure with my cohort is only in a few more hours, it still feels crazy-surreal.

The fact that I'll be in the East Coast to visit prestigious colleges, take an Experimental Physics course at UPenn, and experience the summer of a lifetime makes me feel the utmost gratefulness. I hope to make the most out of my journey and learn so much more about the world out there with my cohort. If the Penn dinner and the other ILC events were already a blast, I can only imagine what these upcoming 27 days of East Coast adventures will be for me.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get rested before arriving at 3:50 tomorrow morning at El Cerrito High School without the recurring dreams of assassins and trip setbacks. Summer has only just begun!


2 comments:

  1. I'm so excited for you! I remember when I found out you got accepted too, I was thinking, "Yes! I knew Donna would make it." Have a safe flight and maybe I'll "coincidentally" and "just happen" to tag along to your tour here at Columbia.

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  2. Assassins? What trip are you dreaming about? And NO setbacks!

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