Happens to Circle Back to Home

Hello everyone :).

I’m so pleased to be talking to you again during the summer… since I am done with junior year! It’s been a long haul since September, but I’ve had such good times throughout. Note that this in no way diminishes how psyched I am to be a senior ;).

However, given that this is summer blogging (which means I am not on Wellesley’s campus, and am in fact not even doing a Wellesley summer program this year), I need your help in keeping this blog relevant to you, the new and upcoming Wellesley students. Thus, PLEASE SEND ME QUESTIONS. And topics to address! Anything that you’re worried or interested in, I’m sure other people are too, and I really, really want to make this blog as helpful as possible. I’ve got two hours to kill every week, guys—no question is too stupid when you’ve got a two-hour time block to mess around in :). And if you don’t feel comfortable posting questions here, just post a comment that you’d like to speak with me, and I’ll send you my email address so we can talk one-to-one :).

That said (and I’ll keep in saying it, don’t you worry) this is going to be a what-happened-this-week post, since very recently I was getting a bit stressed about my 18.05 (Intro to Probability and Statistics) exam, many days passed, and now I’m at home in Minnesota running errands with my sisters :). One of my favorite parts of this job is the recall involved—because in my head, time crawls, and it’s so much fun to look back and dig the time up again :).

So, last Friday, I was studying for my finals, because I had two exams at MIT on Monday, and another one at MIT on Thursday. Most of my friends were also studying at this point, since Wellesley’s testing schedule overlapped with MIT’s this year (usually they’re off by a week). Unlike MIT, Wellesley has self-scheduled finals, which means that students can choose to take their tests anytime within a specified five days during any of the morning, afternoon, or evening sessions. This was the first year I didn’t take a final in Wellesley’s Science Center (where all the test-taking occurs); I had a writing portfolio due for English, and all the rest of my classes were at MIT!

Both tests on Monday went well. Going to my first test in the morning, 8.02 (Physics II / Intro to Electricity and Magnetism / the second semester of freshmen physics / take your pick) was pretty funny. At MIT, all of the freshmen students have to take physics, which means that during the year there are 9 sections of this class with approximately 110 students in each section. On this particular morning, this fact meant that the entire freshmen class showed up at Johnson Gymnasium to take the test. Literally hundreds of people were piling into the gym, where there was a football field’s worth of desks set up, with two students to a desk. When the teachers were handing out tests, they piled themselves with two-foot tall stacks and ran between the aisles, depositing them as fast as possible.

Looking up at all of the teachers (the 9 lecturers and the many other graduate and undergrad assistants, which you need in classes that have 110 people), I laughed a bit to myself, because unlike most of the MIT students, I was actually acquainted with almost all of them. Most MIT students work on psets (problem sets) with each other in the evenings and weekends. But because I commute to MIT, it’s hard to work with other people unless there’s some kind of online system set up. Thus, I ended up going to a lot of office hours with a lot of the physics professors… which obviously has its advantages and disadvantages :). On a related note, there was a group of upperclassmen who handed out bag lunch breakfasts for the 8.02 test (:)), and I knew some of them from my other classes. Taking classes at MIT was special this semester both because I’m an outlier in some ways (upperclasswoman in this case, and always a Wellesley student), and yet in many other ways it feels like home.

Monday through Wednesday were pretty unexciting, events-wise. I was gearing up for my next test (which meant I was hiding in my room studying), and most of Wellesley’s campus left by Wednesday. Wellesley students don’t have housing after the day of the last final, so only seniors and students with special permission to stay (e.g. choir members singing at Commencement, students taking MIT classes, etc.) were still around.

Thursday morning, bright and early, I went and took my 18.05 math test… results haven’t been posted, so I don’t know how well it went yet :). Ika and Tiffany, good friends of mine, took the MCAT (the standardized test for medical school) on Thursday as well. They’ve been studying for that test for upwards of six months now, for 10 hours per week. All I can say is, I’m sure glad I’m taking the GRE instead (the standardized test for grad school), which, as long as you don’t take the subject tests (which are very difficult) is actually quite similar to the SAT :).

Thursday afternoon and Friday morning were spent packing and taking care of miscellaneous errands. Storage at Wellesley works as follows: if you’re local, you get no storage, if you’re outside of a certain range, you get 2 boxes of storage (of a specified size), and if you’re outside of 400 miles, you get 4 boxes. My permanent address (Minnesota) happens to be 1200 miles away from Wellesley, so I happily get to store 4 boxes worth of stuff at the college :). For the rest of their stuff, students usually pair with other students and rent out storage space from services in the area. I am so lucky to have my aunt Rachel around to store my stuff for me—immense thanks to her for taking four more boxes of my stuff :). What’s pretty amusing is that on the last day before I leave, I always end up with the situation where I’ve packed my pillow and blankets and towel and have nothing left to sleep on. I deal with it by wearing warm pjs, sleeping on a pillow of jeans, and leaving room in my carry-on plane luggage for my sheet and mattress pad. I know there has to be a better way to do it… I just haven’t found it yet ;).

Friday was a marvelous day :). A good portion of the swim team and I were going to go hiking Mt. Washington, but the weather didn’t cooperate. Thus, some of them went shopping (heehee :)). I ended up running with Suman in the morning and going to Tiffany’s house with Tiffany and Suman in the afternoon. We watched two movies, made scones, cookies, and muffins, sang while Tiffany sight-read Phantom of the Opera and Disney music on the piano, and ate so much food. In other words, practically my perfect day :).

Saturday I took a plane home, and one of my sisters and father met me at the airport. I must say, the concept of family is just astonishing to me. Despite the fact that I’m never home (like, this year I’m in Minnesota a total of three weeks during the entire year) the integration is not awkward or uncomfortable at all. It kind of makes me feel like I haven’t changed, like nothing has changed, but that’s not it either. My dad got a new car, the fan in the kitchen is different, I met the new neighbors… my father’s work is at a new stage; Nicole (my youngest sister) is doing trap-shooting. As I washed the dishes tonight with Nicole, on three separate occasions I noted reactions from her that would have been different last year. And yet, last night Nicole, Leslie (my middle sister) and I got together and watched Leslie play Neopets (such a throwback) and we were giggling for a whole two hours. Today we went shopping together, just the three of us, for the first time, and it went beautifully. Everything is just so easy—better than when I was home for high school, all of us grown-up maybe, and maybe more special because of distance—and it’s so amazing to me that my parents, sisters, cat (because Sheba recognized me too), will always be here for me, always get me better and faster than anyone else (and it goes both ways), will always be an instant home. I don’t ever feel homesick for anywhere anymore. But this immediate sense of belonging—not earned, just given—feels so precious, so unique, so extraordinary… every time I come home I have a different reaction, see a new light on the word family.

Hm, so happy to have finished the year and be back for a bit ;). I’m signing off, readers—I have to go bother my sisters with demands of entertainment :). Comments and questions are always welcome, and Happy Memorial Day to you all!

Monica