As we near the end of the Spring Semester, the perpetual Wellesley midterms season is now morphing into the hellish Finals season. Somehow, the weather still fluctuates between shorts-and-short-sleeve weather at noon and winter-jacket weather in the early mornings and evenings. It is annoying and I blame it for my mood swings, but at least I could wear the nice outfits I’ve saved for the sunshine.
Also as the school year ends, club events, performances, and recitals are piling on top of each other right into reading period. There is so much to do that our coming weekends are filled with events. The realization that our time as (less than) blissful sophomores and our friends’ impending senior year seemed to have kickstarted our motivation to consciously set aside time to hang out with each other. This past weekend was one of those first weekends – a weekend filled with friends, fun, and a great deal of stress in getting all my work done before the weekend too. Foresight is difficult to maintain when all you can see is the lab report or 20-page midterm you need to finish before being able to go out with your friends; but hindsight is sweet when you look back on sophomore year and see the memories you chose to make with the people you love.
Last Friday evening, Meiya Sparks Lin (‘22) and I held Society Zeta Alpha’s Fireside Poetry event. There was a small turnout, but that lent well to the evening’s cozy vibes. We ended a little early, stretching and laughing at the little cheese-themed telephone poem we composed at the evening’s end.
(From Left to Right) Fuyuto, me, and Ayato with our Cookie Monstah ice cream cookie cups
On Saturday, SBOG hosted a Plaza Palooza event where they invited two food trucks on campus and gave out free food. I bumped into my friends Fuyuto and her sister Ayato in line for the Cookie Monstah truck – an ice cream and cookie truck. The weather was surprisingly pleasant, and we ended up chatting for a long time, sitting in the grass under the sun with our ice cream. We studied together in the Science Center for an hour afterwards before I left them be and joined my roommate Amy and our friend Dani (‘22) for dinner at Boston’s Hard Rock Cafe. I always see “Hard Rock Cafe” inscribed on vintage graphic t-shirts or souvenir mugs, but I have never been to an actual Hard Rock Cafe. The massive burgers, the crisp smell of freshly fried fries, the overwhelmingly sweet shakes, and the friendly waiters made for a comfortable atmosphere. The music flipped between the ages – right after getting Rick-Rolled, Eminem started playing, followed by Twenty One Pilots and many more songs that I do not know but triggered gasps of nostalgia from tables around us. Amy, Dani, and I talked without regard to the time, chatting about high school, college, professors, departments, hot takes on weather preferences, and more. Then, at around 7 PM, we met up with Tati on a Boston Ghost Tour trolley where we explored Boston’s graveyards and listened to our host of the evening animatedly recapture the most invigorating ghost stories of Boston. If we had gone on this tour during Halloween, I think I would’ve been absolutely terrified.
(From Left to Right) Me, Tati, Amy, and Sally in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross after Easter Mass
Sunday was the highlight of the weekend for me. It was Easter, and Tati took us to mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. Though three of us (me, Amy, and Sally) were not Christian, we went to support Tati and celebrate Easter with her. It was lovely – listening to Seán Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, joke about Easter being the perfect time of year to celebrate right before the Marathon given all the running back and forth on that day was funny – the crowd chuckled as he joked. His talk of Easter as a time where we are all “surprised by joy” was heartwarming. Happiness is something so simple, but somehow so difficult and rare to come by. If there were someone out there – someone omniscient and omnipotent as Descartes would say – I would pray that they could help those around me lead lives where joy comes easily to them.
We ate a filling brunch at the Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse – so filling that we were so sleepy by 3 PM that when we got back to Wellesley, we either passed out on the way or took a nap as soon as we arrived in our dorm. Somehow, I still managed to finish my summer internship credentialing after the massive food coma. I was glad to finish all those CITI modules – they were interesting, but completing 30 modules was a lot all at once. Later in the evening, we went to Hana Matsuri to support our friends Takami and Jessica. I bumped into some more people I knew like Kana and Michi – it made me happy to see them. I wish we could spend more time together before the year ends – I will miss them a lot when I’m abroad next Fall.
Monday was Marathon Monday – the Boston Marathon returned to its regular schedule this year on Patriot’s Day, and the entire campus was excited to revive the Scream Tunnel. Last Fall was a makeup MARMON for last year, and since our entire friend group had already gone then (in addition to this weekend’s plentiful schedule), we had little motivation to go again this year. Instead, we slept in, stayed in, and cozied up to do some homework. Amy and I had rehearsal, and it made me so happy to play music with our quartet that afternoon. We managed to sneak into the auditorium to practice and see how we sound there. The auditorium is infamous for its poor acoustics – we couldn’t hear each other at all. But, at least when Fuyuto set her phone at the back of the auditorium and recorded us, we sounded alright. It was 18 minutes of playing, but it felt more refreshing rather than exhausting when we lifted our bows off the last high chord of the nocturne. I remember how after finishing the Dvorak quintet, Amy who sat opposite of me had immediately relaxed in relief with a blink of disbelief that we had pulled it all off at once. I’m glad that we got to play together again as a quartet, with a piece that challenged us in a different way.
There is so much to look forward to next week. I am excited, though I am dreading the final papers, exams, and presentations that accompany the fun events to come. I will be performing a few times with my quartet and a solo piece (for the first time officially!) with Professor Collins playing piano with me. A number of my friends will be performing for the upcoming Wushu show Reflections this Saturday, and Fuyuto and Kana’s recitals are coming up too. I can’t wait to celebrate my friends’ hard work and interests, and I am excited to show off what I had been working on all semester too.