A bonus little thing: actual landscape painting that is Swelles campus
Five little Wellesley things that made my week
1) Burritos with a scale insect expert. Our weevil lab took a little lunch outing to Boloco with a professor from U Mass Amherst, who was coming to Wellesley to give one of the Biology department’s endowed lectures. He focuses on scale insects; how asexual reproduction correlates to the number of host plants a species can eat. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard two scientists talk weird bugs together, but I can tell you, things get pretty exciting. It was super inspiring to hear them talk of collecting specimens on cranes from the treetops of Gabon, camping in the Pategonian forests looking for bark beetles together. (I know, I know I’m only a sophomore, but he also had really helpful advice about grad school: read the scientific literature, figure out what’s “really cool” and reach out to the people making it happen.)
2) I left my One-Card in the Pom dining hall. Not only the dining hall workers give it over to the Resident Director, Paula, who emailed me right away, but when went to go thank them many times over, I left with a spoonful of ice cream from the carton they were just wheeling out to replace. “Oh, it’s no problem, honey. Try the new vanilla, before you go.” Actually made my week.
3) My lab paper got postponed until Friday. We had our midterm yesterday, and originally my paper on Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium in Silene Latifolia populations was supposed to be due three short days later, on Monday night. I could have made it work, of course, but now I have more time to really think through what I’m trying to say.
4) I got new music. Even if it’s just a new etude, getting new music is basically guaranteed to improve my mood. On top of the self-described “dream-piece” I’m already playing (Havanaise, Op. 83 by Saint Saëns) I got three beautiful Schumann Romances. Something nice, romantic, and slow, to contrast the part in the Havanaise which is so crazy fast it can best be summed up as “dropping the bass (treble?) ”
*Takes practice room selfies instead of actually practicing said new music*
5) Thinking about the next few weeks: Montreal, and my sister. My sister Anna is currently a senior in high school too, and she’s spending next Tuesday and Wednesday with me to check out some classes and see if Wellesley is the place for her. I’ll be pretty busy with midterms but just having her around will be great, since I haven’t seen her since August. Fall break is also coming up, and a few of my friends and I hopefully planning an excursion up to Montreal- I’ve never been and it’s only a four-hour drive from Wellesley. College road trip, here we come (if we can figure out a place to stay)!
Anyways, I hope you too had many little things to make your week better. Stay tuned for Montreal and midterms, and as always,
Ever lovely yours,
Eleanor