Good evening,
What a fun week it has been. We’re officially in “Future Planning” week, which many people dislike, but I adore. I love the feeling of ignoring homework for a bit, and looking ahead into planning my summer and next year, so that I know that I’ve made progress into achieving my long-term goals and I now have choices to make about what those goals are. It makes me happy, even as the work to do piles up in a mound behind me ;).
What prompted my summer and next year planning is that since spring break has finished, everything seems to have come to a head! Deadlines rule as we must establish roommates, summer program acceptances, summer housing, transportation and food, and to top it off registration is next week. Luckily, I have been fortunate in everything aligning. When my previous roommate became an RA (Resident Advisor), meaning that she organizes activities for and takes care of the residents in her hall, she left me without a roommate as RAs get single rooms. However, I have found a new roommate in Tamara, who I am looking forward to rooming with next year! Wellesley did its best to help me find a roommate, including hosting several speed-roommate dating occasions, though unfortunately I could not attend due to lab and track. Nevertheless, through my frantic calling of most of the track and swim team, and asking around constantly, I have found my one and only :P. Kidding, but I’m glad it worked out!
As for next year’s tentative schedule, I’m pretty sure what I want to take: Organic Chemistry I, Math for the Science, Neuro 200, and Psych 101. One of my teammates called it a balanced schedule, and I laughed since she was of course a fellow science major. However, I think it’s a good schedule for me, as it sets me up as a possible neuroscience, biology, or chemistry major. Interestingly, I came into Wellesley in the beginning of the year as a possible neuroscience, biology, and chemistry major. Little progress has been made in that area, but I have time :). If all goes well, I’ll be able to get into all of these classes during registration, so wish me luck that it goes smoothly!
I’m still working out many of the details for this summer, (including housing, food, transportation and swimming) but I’m most probably going to spend my summer doing research at Wellesley! I am super excited to have been accepted into Wellesley’s Summer Research program, and can’t wait to finalize everything.
In other news, my first track meet is tomorrow! I am running the 400m dash and the 4x400m relay. Coach Meg did not want to overwhelm me on our first meet (though our season is so short that we only have 5 weeks total!), and I am thankful for this as it is supposed to be a very long and snowy meet tomorrow. While I doubt we will have snow (at least I hope not), it is bound to be rainy, wet, and cold. Ah well, we do our best, and I will likely set a personal record as it is my first track meet in college!
And now to something even more exciting… Spring Open Campus is in three weeks! Our coaches are already urging us to host the recruited prospies (prospective students) over the two to three days that accepted Wellesley students of the Class of 2016 visit campus. Spring Open campus was the first time I visited Wellesley, and that was when I made my college decision last year. Between an Ivy League school and Wellesley, I made my decision to come after the first day, knowing from the environment, small class sizes, available professors, undergraduate research opportunities, varsity swimming opportunity, and enthusiastic and welcoming girls that this was my place to stay. I can’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t come… certainly not on the swim team, the track team, attending office hours every week, doing research as a freshman, teaching swimming lessons, taking singing lessons, and writing a blog!
As a side note though, be aware that Wellesley is not a party school. The all-girls aspect of the college means that we have a smaller social scene than many other colleges, and while the academics are superb and there are many smaller communities (including co-ed Wellesley-MIT/Babson/Olin clubs) in which to participate, it can be more difficult to socialize than at other colleges. One of my friends on the track team is going to transfer next year because while she is very respectful of the academic push Wellesley has, she wants the type of community where students come to football games and party afterwards. On the other hand, I really enjoy Wellesley’s academic environment. No one sneers at me if I say I’m going to do homework on a Friday night or during the weekend, and everywhere I go, students’ standard positions seem to be studying. This is not to say that I never leave my books—I do many activities, and track especially takes up a lot of my time (our team outing to get ice cream yesterday was a lot of fun)—but it’s understood that academics are the focus here. I enjoy that, and I enjoy Wellesley’s all-women community where everyone understands that even as they are involved in many other activities.
Speaking of other activities, singing is going well! Apparently I have made much improvement in using my lower abs to connect my breath flow to round sound. And if that makes no sense to you, it doesn’t make much more sense to me either, but I do my best and manage to practice quite a bit more than I initially thought I would. I never thought I’d miss music in my life, but singing is a lot of fun :).
Swim lessons too are progressing nicely. I just taught my five-year old boy, who follows directions wonderfully and is very driven. On the other hand, my eight-year old girl complains that swimming is too hard and that she wants to do something fun. Sadly, I am discovering that I can now anticipate whether students will quit or not, and I expect that I will be up to three students (a three-year old girl, an eight-year old boy, and this girl) who have moved on to other sports by the end of the year. I don’t think it’s anything too personal now, as I have several students who love swimming and whose parents are quite happy with how I teach. It has been odd to realize that many of these kids will not continue on to swim for the rest of their lives as I anticipate I will… and yet this applies to anything that is taught. I suppose that any time a teacher, who presumably loves what they are teaching (as they have done it long enough to become experienced,) shares their knowledge with students, most of the students will not devote the rest of their lives to that subject. I have often been on the receiving end of this idea (Professor Shetley was recently telling us how only a small portion of his class would continue on in academia), but it is strange to be on the teaching end.
And now I must return to my books! Astoundingly, there are only 6 weeks until the end of the year, after which I will have completed my first year as a college student. I cannot believe it, and yet the tests are awaiting for me :). It’s was a little tough to get back in the groove after spring break, but by this time I’m ready to go :). I hope you have a great weekend, and please email me with questions or comments!
Monica
(ps—it’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve gotten a non-spam comment. Pretty please with a cherry on top? ;))