Year 1: Semester 1 Week 16

Hey hey,

This week was good, not a lot going on besides the usual school stuff, exams, studying, assignments. I finished the last essay for Faith in Science Reason in Revelation and am therefore officially done with that class. Our professor brought us cookies on the last day, which has become something of a class tradition. I'm going to miss the professor's sarcasm and storytelling so much, and I'm going to miss commiserating about essays and readings with my classmates :) We did it!

Just some of the reading material for this course! Not including online readings

My Programming for Engineers group finished the 3D virtual reality maze project after testing it so many times it made me dizzy- I was actually really happy with how it turned out, given that I had never done anything remotely like this before

The maze layout from the design screen

What the maze looks like during gameplay

Shoutout to hot chocolate for making me feel like it's Christmas time even though it's not even cold outside :) I've been trying to get in the holiday spirit by listening to and singing Christmas music, but it's kind of hard to feel like it's the holiday season given that there aren't a lot of decorations and temperatures are in the mid-20s Celsius/ 70s Fahrenheit. I love Christmas songs so much though.

I've been loving my study music lately. There's a Swedish band called Wintergatan that makes unusual mechanical/electronic instruments, and I really like studying to their album. As I've mentioned before, I also study to movie soundtracks. Aside from the usual Les Miserables on repeat, I've been really liking the A Beautiful Mind movie soundtrack for doing calculations like physics homework-- I read John Nash's biography a few years ago and I really admire him as a mathematician and I find his life story interesting, so the soundtrack is really motivating. The Theory of Everything soundtrack is really nice as well, as is The Imitation Game soundtrack. At this point, I'll listen to pretty much anything that has enough of a beat to keep me awake but not enough noise to be distracting. I've also been going through old Coldplay, Owl City, and 21 Pilots songs when I'm in the mood for studying with lyrics.

Speaking of music, vocal ensemble also had our final concert, which was good. We performed in the campus recital hall, and the acoustics in there are just fantastic. No microphones needed.

In other news, the school organized a "midnight breakfast" (actually from 10 p.m. to midnight, though I didn't stay that long) and it was murder mystery themed. Chocolate waffles at 10 p.m.is always a good idea, but especially during finals week.

On Monday, I went to Al Wahda mall/ Lulu's to get some school supplies and things I needed, but of course found myself in the bookstore buying a book instead- which I am now reading voraciously whenever I have a spare moment. For some reason, even though they went out of business in the U.S., they still have Borders Bookstore here, which is awesome.

Church this week was really nice. Sometimes people at church talk about being "spiritually fed" by the messages, and I definitely felt that feeling this week- the peace I get from going to church replenishes my energy and helps me refocus. I play the piano for the children's class, and it's so fun to sing Christmas songs with them.

I had a chemistry final exam this morning, so the only two finals left are programming and physics. Now that all the assignments are done, classes are over, and I can just focus on studying, it's honestly not so bad. I even went to the gym this morning! Celebrating the little things.

This evening, a "study break" in the piano practice room with friends just turned into a full-on jam session, and now my heart is happy :)

Happy Holidays,

Alison

P.S. Congrats to those accepted Early Decision 1 into NYUAD class of 2021! Especially those from my Candidate Weekend group- you all are obviously the best candidates ever ;)