Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz – the book that my friends and I agreed to read together
Our fall semester at Wellesley is over. I’m writing this from the basement of my sister’s home in New York. It feels like both a lot and not a lot happened in the last few days. There is so much to do ahead of me, from study abroad applications to a January Hive Project. I really want a bit of a break where I can just sit and do nothing, but it feels like there is no time to breathe. It’s when that burnt out feeling doesn’t necessarily push you straight to a breaking point but instead sits on your shoulders for months on end – so long that relief becomes a foreign feeling. How do adults do it? No clue – maybe they are just slightly older versions of us, hanging on for dear life every day too.
The last five days passed by slowly in the moment, but they still flew by incredibly fast. On Saturday, I took myself to the library and sat there from noon to 6 PM cranking out my last POL3 221 World Politics paper on climate change and global governance. It was difficult to write, but not as much of a drag as the last two were. It felt like I was actually doing some minute form of analysis instead of recapping lectures.
After that, I called my friends Cynthia Zhao and Janelle Yeo who are back in China, hanging out together in Shenzhen. We were a best friend trio back in high school. Given our time differences, we hadn’t called in a while – the last time we called was probably last semester. It was nice to see their faces and chat about dumb things again, and it was cool to listen to how their lives have changed since we parted ways. We agreed to start reading a book together – Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz – and we hung up one hour later.
1AM s’mores, fresh from the microwave
In the evening, Amy and I finally took some time to make the s’mores that we had saved from a Stone Davis event a few days ago where the Res Life Staff passed out some grab-and-go s’mores-making supplies. The marshmallows were stiff when we took them out of our mini fridge, but when we put them in the microwave, they puffed up so much that it was kind of funny. We even put another plate over them and watched the marshmallows push the plate upwards. The s’mores were disgustingly good and awfully sticky – I could almost feel all that sugar buzzing down to my fingertips.
On Monday, Amy and I finished our finals! Amy took her last Biology exam in the morning while I submitted my paper after attending office hours. When she got back, we dawdled a while before taking an Uber to the Framingham AMC to watch the recent film adaptation of West Side Story. We got popcorn (I’ve never tried the butter flavoring pump up until then, and oh my goodness it is disgusting – why, America?) and sat down a few minutes early, laughing at the odd advertisements and making confused remarks on the interesting new trailers. The movie itself was lovely – it’s sad to see that it was a box-office disappointment. We both love the musical, and seeing it brought back to life in this movie was an amazing experience. My favorite part was the way they filmed the “America” song scene. The dancing in the streets, the red and yellow dresses, the clapping – all of it made me really happy. 🙂
We ended up grabbing a really late dinner at Lulu with a friend of ours called Tessy. We talked for a long time and ended up back in the dorm at around 11:30 PM. We were both exhausted and, after washing up, finishing packing, wiping down our room, went to sleep at about 1 AM. We left for the airport together the following morning – and now I’m here in New York while she’s in Florida on vacation with her family.
It is surreal how quickly this all happened despite knowing how tedious it felt just a week or so ago when I still had five exams to finish. I know that this feeling of being done won’t last long because I have a long to do list for this break, as I’m sure most Wellesley students do too, but I’m glad to at least be with my sister’s family this winter. I will go bake some oatmeal raisin cookies for my sister now. 🙂