Tidbits and Tidings

Hello readers!

Alas, this week (similar to last week) I am left without a unified theme that unites all I want to talk about. I suppose I should consider myself fortunate, since nothing significantly traumatizing happened that could scoop everything under one umbrella. That said, a whole bunch of little but happy things have occurred, and I’d love to share them with you. In no particular order, of course :).

Last week, my friend Suman changed her anticipated career path. Instead of being pre-med, she is now pre-health policy, or something else in that domain. But not only did Suman go to professors to get advice on this new field (always my default), she did something that many students here don’t take advantage of: using the Wellesley Network.

The Wellesley network (both a concept and the website that Wellesley alums use to connect with each other) is one of those benefits that Wellesley College advertises widely to upcoming students, despite the fact that while in college these students likely will not use it. I don’t start hearing about how remarkable it is until my friends are seniors, or until they’ve left college. What I’ve heard basically amounts to the following: Wellesley alums are great (accomplished, strong women who have done astounding things with each of their chosen paths in life) who are startlingly welcoming and willing to mentor younger students. As Suman said, the first time she used the network she slept over with an alum when she needed a place in San Francisco. The second time, an alum hosted Suman and three other girls during their choir trip to Washington D.C., and gave them a surprise midnight tour of the city. This time, she emailed an alum, and a day later they had a conversation in which Suman learned that this woman had struggled with academics at Wellesley, had gone into public health after an art history major in college, was currently working directly under the CEO of a major pharmaceutical corporation, and lived twenty minutes from Suman’s home in California. The alum also said that there must be something the company could do for Suman, and that Suman should definitely call her when she got home. Needless to say, Suman was beaming when she showed up at my door.

I’m sure I’m only scraping the surface of what the Wellesley network offers—which, as I understand, is a community of women across the globe, often willing to offer a coffee, a bed, advice, whatever they have to offer to a fellow alum—but from what I can tell now, this is an amazing resource that I want to be a part of in the future. Wellesley is defined by its community (that’s why I chose to come here) and the fact that this community continues outside college, and is often strengthened outside college, is something I know I will only appreciate as more unique and wonderful as time goes on.

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All right, switching gears, guys! Guess what guess what guess what: registration and housing went wonderfully. I haven’t completely sorted out classes yet (MIT doesn’t register until September), but I’ve gotten into all of the Wellesley classes I wanted, and I’m now happily housed in Stone-Davis. I was going to stay in Munger, but one of my friends asked me if I could block with her, since she didn’t have a good lottery number. So I’m switching the dorms up—should be exciting, and I’ve finally made the move to East Campus, lair of the science majors :).

Another fun event this week was attending Chemistry Club’s Element Day. Chemistry club does Mole Day in the fall, and Element Day in the spring, and I continue to be on their spam list for the express purpose of attending these two events. On this year’s Element Day, several members set up tie-dying for the club’s t-shirts, there were pipe-cleaners and googly-eyes to do crafts, and there was pizza and liquid-nitrogen made ice cream. I must say, ice cream gets made a lot faster when all you have to do is pour liquid nitrogen in and watch it freeze. It was also a lot of fun to hang out with many of the upperclasswomen science majors, who I’ve met through classes throughout the years but are not close enough friends for me to seek them out individually. I love that at this point in my Wellesley career, I always know people at Science Center gatherings, and we can all catch up with each other while eating oreo ice cream :).

Speaking of knowing people at lectures, almost all of the neuroscience majors showed up to Prof. Nancy Kanwisher’s talk at Wellesley on Friday, which was marvelous. Professor Kanwisher is a researcher at MIT who finds and studies specialized processing units in the brain using fMRI. She’s been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and is legendary in the cognitive neuroscience field. She’s also incredibly clear in explaining what her lab does, and her lab is doing some fascinating things. At one point, Isabelle, a member of my lab who was sitting in front of me, craned around to whisper: “Ooh, do you think we can do a similar experiment? Let’s ask at lab meeting next week!” I don’t go to lectures as often as I did in the past, but talks like these remind me how lucky I am to be at this college. I have the opportunity to listen to such incredibly important people talk, and to personally ask them questions. A huge thanks to Professor Kanwisher for coming and speaking with us, and to this school for all that it continues to offer me :).

Yesterday I went to another talk, this one by Bernardine Evaristo, a British writer who was doing a small book tour for “Mr. Loverman.” I could only stay for the first half, during which Ms. Evaristo read part of the book aloud, but I really want to buy it now. It again comes back to my stupefaction that we have such amazing people who come to our school— and the fact that I’ve been taking this creative writing class, so I know hard how it is to write anything well, just adds to my awe. I really wish I could have stayed for the part of the talk where she discussed it… but even with what I have, I recommend checking it out, because I guarantee the premise will grab your attention, and the writing inside does not disappoint :).

Last Friday night the swim team had a birthday celebration for Cathy, who the team adopted last year through the program Team Impact. Everyone had a good time, and it was great seeing everyone gathered again. At the end of the night I was walking in the direction of Munger when Tiffany pulled me on the path to Spanish House (where she lives) instead. “Uh, are we doing something tonight?” I asked her. “Yup. We’re watching Sherlock. I’ll invite Suman too!” And so we watched Sherlock, which Tiffany had already seen before, Suman had never seen, and I was missing this final episode. I love them all, readers. Friends :).

I was heading back to my room two nights ago when I saw Zoe sitting on the couch in the living room. “Hey, what’re you doing over here?” I asked her, because Zoe lives in Tower, which is on the other side of campus, and it was around 9pm. Zoe was unpacking filming gear from her bag, and she explained to me that she was doing a segment on the Boston Marathon (coming up the week after next—Wellesley is the halfway point, and I’d recommend looking up the Wellesley Scream Tunnel if you’re not familiar with it) through her internship at one of Boston’s newspapers. Zoe, who is a senior, is working toward being a journalist, and she was covering three schools’ (Wellesley and Boston University included) preparations for Marathon Monday. She said that if this went well, she’d maybe get a slot with her voice included in one of the local newspapers. When I came back from working out an hour later, I saw her sitting on the couch with a Wellesley student, holding up a microphone and asking about the Wellesley sign-making for the Marathon that was taking place in the living room.

I forget there are so many different paths here, and so many different people. Much love to Zoe and to all the Wellesley women :).

And that’s all I have time for this week, readers! Hope it was informative, and if not, questions and comments can always be used to redirect me :). MIT has their spring open campus going on right now (called Campus Preview Weekend there), which has me pumped for when you all come on the 28th-29^th. But that’s in the future, and until then, I’m going to enjoy the fact that spring has finally arrived, and also go eat brunch in the dining hall ;P.

Best wishes!

Monica