Where do I begin. On Thursday Jonna, A.J, Moctar, and I (along with others), attended a workshop for Resume building hosted by Baruch’s Honor Society “Sigma Alpha Delta.” Prior to attending this workshop, I researched information on the workshop and found little to no information about it besides the location and time. Assuming this was a workshop where anyone was welcome to attend, I quickly spread the word to some fellow FRO classmates about this wonderful opportunity. Once I got there I completely changed my mind. For starters when I entered along with Jonna, I immediately felt that we were unwelcomed. How you may ask? Without saying an utter word, I could tell by the facial expressions of two of the moderators that we were unwanted. This in itself made me want to leave right away. But it was further reinforced when one of the moderators proceeded to say and I quote “I see a lot of new faces I have never seen before and I don’t understand why.” The manner in which he spoke immediately made me think he was a student being a jerk. But I soon discovered he was actually one of the moderators. Putting that aside we were able to speak with Ricki Weitzen, the woman in charge of actually giving the presentation and she allowed us to stay; seeing that we were not going to cause any harm in simply being there. The workshop overall was extremely helpful; it provided me with useful tips on how to make my resume appear as professional and polished as possible. I am overall glad I stuck around to attend this workshop and I am more than assured that the moderators and Ricki were glad we did too (as we were the only ones participating).

For my second blog, I was quite happy that donating blood was an option; under the ‘Health and Wellness’ section of Student Life. I have been donating blood at least 2 or 3 times every year, for several years now. I think it is a very important thing to do; it costs me nothing but time and it can mean so much to someone else. I don’t have a rare blood type, or anything, but there is still always need for donation of every blood type. I have had positive and negative experiences when donating blood, in the past. This time was a little bit of both. Overall the mobile donation unit set up at Baruch was pretty well run. The staff seemed to be very efficient and also fairly friendly. However the woman who ‘stuck’ me, quite honestly did a terrible job. She completely mauled my arm. It seemed like she was not paying attention and she caused me a lot of pain. She initially either didn’t get the needle in all the way or allowed it back out, causing me to bleed profusely all over myself and the table. Which I am blaming for traumatizing me to the extent that I forgot to take a photo, after she finally prodded and fished the needle around to a suitable position in my vein. Subsequently the entire process was extremely and unnecessarily painful. And my arm was sore for the following two days. I hope this experience does not deter anyone else from making a life saving donation. Really a few moments of intense pain followed by a few day of less intense pain, is a small price to pay for saving (potentially many) lives. And, as I said before, my experience this time, was not the norm, it is usually a much less traumatic experience.

Ah the Sydney Mishkin Gallery.  The gallery is around 10 minute walking distance from the Baruch college campus.  I had high hopes for the Sydney Mishkin Gallary, but was disappointed when I entered and saw only a couple of cubicles. The room itself is very small as well. The paintings in the exhibit were beautiful. My favorite painting from the exhibit was a collection of skeletons. The painting was done by Patricia Olynyk. The rest of the painting were more lively and colorful. Overall, I had a fun time at the gallery and was happy that it is very convenient to get there. I think the gallery could be better if they added more painting and maybe added some essential oil aromatherapy to give the room a unique vibe. Also having someone available to explain the paintings meaning and the style of the work would be a nice addition as well.

Today I attended an exhibition at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery. When I first looked up online that it was on the ground floor of the Administrative Center I just figured that they had a whole wing or large section dedicated to this exhibition. However, I was quite disappointed as the entire thing was a very small room with three mini cubicles each housing three or four paintings a piece. Despite the quantity of the paintings, the quality was very impressive. The paintings, which were done by Ellen K. Levy and Patricia Olynyk, also have an interesting range of style. One cubicle had paintings of skeletons and skulls–done by Olynyk– while another had vibrant colors clashing to resemble a field or sky of rainbows, which were made by Levy. The description piece for the colorful section says that Ellen Levy “focused on organismic life within the process of epigenetic change in an urban landscape.” Thus the creation of a field–a living thing–full of vibrant colors with a lively aura. The gallery may have fallen short of expectations but the artists and their work certainly did not and they deserve more attention and credibility than Baruch’s gallery can offer.

Sunday evening on February 28, I attended a delightful classical concert in our very own Engleman Recital Hall at Baruch Performing Arts Center. It had been a lovely day with beautiful weather and I decided to finish it off with an evening of classical music. The concert was presented by The New York Flute Club featuring renown flutist Yoobin Son and pianist Yekwon Sunwoo. They performed several pieces from various well known composers throughout the years such as Bach, Shumann (who is one of my favorites), Poulenc, and several more. Being a flutist myself, I was naturally ecstatic to attend a classical flute and piano concert. I’m no stranger to classical music concerts but I’ve never attended a smaller scale performance. Usually, the performances I’ve been to have had several hundred people form part of the audience so it was refreshing to be in a small crowd. As usual, the atmosphere was formal and professional, which I really enjoy since I’m not one for exotic rambunctious events. The performance itself was impeccable, Yoobin did an amazing job at delivering all the articulations on the flute for those selected challenging pieces. She is, after all, second flutist to the New York Philharmonic. I really enjoyed my evening and in the future should there be more concerts presented at Engleman I would certainly attend (especially since as a Baruch student you receive a discount).