Dani’s Blog Archive – Page 3 – Wellesley Student Blog

Wellesley College: Paradise Found!

This weekend was a blast with the TZE applicant mixer at Sigma Chi at Harvard, Frisbee’s Valentine’s exchange party and applications for new members coming in on Sunday. The Whiptails have also booked their spring break plans to head to Virginia for a tournament and some of my soul sisters got a call back for Wellesley’s dance group Freestyle.

I also happened to have a great Latin class yesterday. We’re currently translating Book II of the Aeneid around lines 200 and we began talking about the significance of the Trojans having been defeated by the Greeks and ultimately the founders of Rome are a bunch of losers.

Now considering how sweet the Roman Empire was, it’s kind of hard to justify saying that they are a bunch of losers. So I brought up Milton’s description of the fall of man in Paradise Lost as a necessary loss in order to allow the Christ event. Kind of an epic loss in order to have a greater win.

While Paradise Lost does really get me going, for whatever reason, we also then moved on to talk about how Bradley Cooper has been cast as Satan for the new action movie of Paradise Lost. I think the casting is way off, and am actually pleased that production has been pushed back so far, but we began talking about ideal casting for our version of Paradise Lost.

I chose Jeremy Irons for Satan, but my professor preferred Christopher Walken. Other suggestions included Alan Rickman. The following is a recording of Alan Rickman’s reading of My Mistress’ Eyes. I certainly think he could do justice to Milton’s poetry.

Hope you enjoy my English major nerd sesh! It actually was a Wellesley professor (and alum) who made me hooked on Milton. Consequences of majoring in English at Wellesley: You will probably definitely enjoy it!

Dani’s Adventures in Deutchsland

I’m just settling in to my second week back at Wellesley. We have a wonderfully long wintersession and I stayed busy. I had mentioned in previous posts my intention to fill out an application to study away in Germany. At the end of the semester, I received my acceptance letter from Jacob’s University in Bremen to attend their winter school. I took a class with Dr. Claas Kroop on Africa’s role in the 21^st century. Dr. Kroop is not a professor, but a German diplomat who lived in Ethiopia and worked on the European Union’s strategic partnership with the African Union.

What I found most interesting about going to school in Europe was the international diversity of the classroom. We had students from Morocco, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Germany, Czech Republic, Serbia and I could go on. This is not to say that Wellesley is not a diverse campus. However, the travel from New York to Boston is the same from Paris to London, so there is much more prevalent international diversity.

Jacob’s is also a small school, even smaller than Wellesley if you can imagine. Just like at Wellesley, everyone seemed to know everyone on campus. Me, with my American accent and unfamiliar face stood out like a sore thumb. Nobody ever asked me where I was from because once I opened my mouth it was too obvious. Far fewer Jersey Shore jokes abroad though, which I appreciated.

While I was taking off from Wellesley, I imagine those early decision class of 2016’ers were getting all the more into it. By the way, I’m turning 21 this weekend and class of 2016 makes me feel old. I’m sure those of you still waiting for your decision letters have seen the New York Times article about Vassar’s (another [co-ed] Seven Sister!) mistake with their accidental acceptances.

I still remember the day that I read my acceptance online for Wellesley. Notifications are online and I was away at boarding school. My mother came to school to count down the minutes and baked me brownies as “comfort food” for no matter what happened. I sat on my bed and typed in my info. The second I saw my acceptance I jumped up on my bed (almost hitting the ceiling) and said “I’m totally in!” As an early decision applicant my senior year was a breeze after getting into Wellesley. A friend of mine in my early morning gym class was also apply ED, and we were able to celebrate together the next morning.

While my college process seems like a dream come true, I did have some serious anxiety about if I would get in to Wellesley. I applied ED because I felt at home at Wellesley. I fell in love with the campus and was impressed by the students. There was no other place that I wanted to go. However, with ED comes the dreaded deferral. I had decided in my head that if Wellesley didn’t think I fit for ED, then I clearly had the wrong kind of idea of what they were looking for in their students. If I was deferred, I would not have considered Wellesley a top choice anymore.

Luckily for me, I did fine home here and Wellesley had a place for me. Nonetheless, I think the college process has needless stress attached to it. If any school does not think that you are right for them, they might be right. Hopefully you’ll find home wherever you choose to attend. I certainly did. Congratulations to those who will get a chance to find themselves at Wellesley like I did, and good luck to those who are still waiting!