At the End of the Day

Hello readers!

Hope you’re all doing well :). I am in the throws of navigating a particularly tricky doctor’s appointment in Boston: first the commuter rail was delayed, then the red line was delayed, then there was a fire at Arlington and the green line completely shut down. I love public transportation, and in the end the city got us all where we needed to go. But in the meantime, there were quite a few of us running around trying to figure out what buses to get on!

Moreover, today’s not my only day in Boston! On Monday, the swim team took a volunteer trip to Cradles and Crayons, where we made outfits from donated clothes. You can imagine the delight of a crowd of college-aged women being assigned to dress young boys and girls :).

Cradles to Crayons

But my biggest day in Boston is still to come: Friday! I’ve been sitting on my bed during fall semester, sitting on the floor in Puerto Rico, and sitting on the couch in the Wintersession dorms, staring at my laptop for all of these months and analyzing matrices for cell latencies sorted by luminance, saturation, and hue. Finally the big day is about to arrive: Harvard’s National Collegiate Undergraduate Conference (NCRC!) NCRC runs from Thursday to Saturday, and another member of Prof. Conway’s lab, Yiing, and I were accepted to present our research at the poster session. I can only make Friday, and Yiing can only make Saturday, but we’re making the most of our presentation. This poster has been the primary cause of stress, work, and time over my break, so I am pleased to have it almost finished. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Sunday’s my last day in Boston, and the last day of break before classes start on Monday. I’m taking some of the team to dimsum (I now definitely know my way around Chinatown, or at least the dimsum restaurants :)), then meeting with Prof. Conway to discuss all that has and will happen in my research. Future planning, writing a proposal for funding, talk about fMRI next semester, if I can stay on during the summer… I’m planning to cram as much possible information into this meeting as I can. When I came to Wellesley, I definitely did not expect to be spending as much time in Boston as I do now!

Boston aside, though, my reason for being here this Wintersession is swimming :). And the swim and dive team just had our second biggest meet of the season: Seven Sisters! Seven Sisters is a two-day event with three swim sessions and two dive sessions, where five womens’ colleges come to the host school (that’s us this year!), stay in hotels, and compete for the trophy. If you’re wondering why it’s called Seven Sisters, there used to be seven womens’ colleges in the area, but a few got absorbed into larger colleges, and Vassar is actually co-ed. Nevertheless, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Smith, Vassar, and Mount Holyoke were all here and swam hard. There are several traditions associated with this meet too, so we participated in the Hokey Pokey, various camp songs, an incredible amount of excitement and cheering, and a formal dinner (looking pretty and food… doesn’t get better than that :)).

Wellesley ended up victorious for the 16^th year in a row, and all of the teams had quite a few lifetime bests. I personally was astounded with my performance, and can’t wait until NEWMACs, our final meet, unless some of us qualify for nationals (NCAAs). We’re on our last week of doubles (practices twice a day), so the team is in the home stretch. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I didn’t do sports… it recently hit me that it’s not typical to face this kind of physical challenge every day. The hard part isn’t actually the physical challenge, it’s the mental part… the part that dreads going to practice and pushing full effort for two hours, regardless of how great it’ll feel at the end :). Since last year, I’ve made it a personal goal to not be apprehensive about practice, and even if I don’t exactly look forward to it, I should be content that I have the opportunity to work hard with a team. I’ve been very pleased in that my attitude is much improved from last year, and I hope to apply that same mentality to my tougher classes next semester!

On that note, I THINK I HAVE A SCHEDULE! There was a lot of uncertainty on that point for this next semester :). What with my asking every mentor I knew about my four-year plan, and only signing up for a single class out of four that I’m going to keep, I’m hopeful that I finally have a plan that will work for swimming, research, scheduling, and my sanity. Registration opens up again on Monday morning at 8am, so I’ll do my best to get into those slots. Regardless, I’m so pleased to have something that could potentially work on all fronts :).

So that’s my life right now: a little hectic, a little busy, but as wonderful as it can be :). I’m swimming and eating and working and playing, and I think this is the most productive winter break I’ve ever had. I’ve applied to some internships, am applying still to others, am assembling goals for next semester, and am well on my way to being prepared in all of my activities. Lucky as always, more independent than usual, sheltered by mentors and friends, and ready for more :).

Open for questions, too! Hope you have a marvelous day, readers.

Cheers!

Monica

ps, this picture is my personal favorite of the meet. We make an epic cheering squad.