Hello readers!
Hope you’re well :). It’s a beautiful fall day here– I’ve got my window open, and am listening to little children yell and throw leaves at each other as their families walk around the lake. I’m so glad the weather has turned out for all of our visitors– both high school students for Discover Wellesley Weekend, and families for Family and Friends Weekend!
Here’s the Discover Wellesley webpage… it was pretty funny to see myself on the cover. The students here have a system though– whenever we see a friend on Wellesley’s homepage (often in the “Daily Shot”), we make sure to send them an email. It’s often the first they’ve heard about it, so it’s fun to be the one to spring the surprise :).
Since there are so many activities on campus right now, I haven’t been able to get to all of them myself :). But both Christine and Tiffany have sent me pictures, so you’ll get to see some of their events too! Plus, I’ve been hoarding a few pictures for a few weeks, so prepare yourself for a fall picture bonanza :).
…
Fall! This is picture from Fall Frenzy a few weeks back, which the campus organization SBOG (responsible for most large-scale social events on campus) and College Government put on for us. Fall Frenzy contains many events under its week-long umbrella, but the biggest ones are the fall concert (this year by Charli XCX) and the free t-shirt giveaway. That’s what this picture is– free doughnuts and t-shirts to whoever’s patient enough to queue up for them :). We’re almost to the front of the line by this point, though anyone who was willing to dance for the SBOG members could shoot straight to the front!
Fall of senior year also brings the Senior Neuroscience dinner! It was so cool to see all of us assembled– I don’t actually think I’d ever seen us all together, and it was great to know that there were only a few I didn’t recognize after our many years of classes. This dinner was immediately preceded by a talk by the amazing Dr. Ling– Director of Biological Technologies at DARPA (US Department of Defense’s research agency)– so I had a great time, pumped by the science and the people alike :).
Alison, Colleen, and Emily
Prof. Wiest, Jody, and Heather. These guys were too busy to eat they were so into discussing the science!
Sometimes I forget about how many on-campus orgs (organizations) we have… and there’s nothing quite so lovely as walking by one of their practices :). This is the Whiptails, Wellesley’s Frisbee team, practicing in Munger Meadow.
I live in Stone-D this year, did you know? Hillary Clinton lived in Stone-D all four years, if the tradition is true. It’s actually two buildings that are connected– Stone Hall, and Davis Hall– and I’m living on Stone side. Many of our residence halls are beautiful, and this is definitely one of them.
The view out my window this morning :). Every room has a radiator and a window. On mine you can see the solar panel I made in Nicaragua last January on the right, and my make-shift clothesline on the left. It’s been working very well– I put all of my workout clothes outside to dry, and since I’m not in immediate line of sight from the lake path, and I’m two floors up, they just hang off the ledge. It’s made out of an ethernet cord I picked up from Sustainable Move-In.
And science! Science never stops, of course, but this fall has been a particularly eventful for me. Everything I’m learning is just so relevant, which means it all matters a lot to me, which means that I’m working as hard as I can to make it all happen :). In Neuro 300 we all write an original grant proposal on whichever topic of interest we’d like, so long as it has to do with neuroscience. Prof. Wiest wrote down all of our ideas on the board for us– it’s so amazing that we all were able to come up with such diverse topics and formulate experiments that have never been done before!
Research lab continues too, and Galen organized a fall lab party last Tuesday :). It was so much fun– I walked over from MIT to Prof. Conway’s house, and almost everyone in the lab was able to come and make pizzas together. Here we have Isabelle, Galen, Kaitlin, Oana, and Emma. Eileen and Evelyn weren’t able to make it, and neither were the local lab alumni Jane and Cleo, but Prof. Conway, Mela, Josh, and Rosa were chatting outside at the grown-up table. It’s so, so fun to have been in this lab for more than two years– I know almost everyone who was in the lab previously, and all of the new people, and there’s something so grounding about belonging so strongly to a group. We spent a lot of time making inside jokes and mocking each other for our (non)ability to spin pizza dough. Much fun was had by all.
This weekend was Head of the Charles, the gigantic crew regatta on the Charles River, did you know? (And if that sentence did not make sense to you: crew = rowing, regatta = competition.) I didn’t go, but I did end up taking the 5pm bus back from MIT that Friday, which meant I got to catch this sunset on the race course. If you look closely, you can see the buoys where the race was the next day.
And here you can see some of the boats practicing :). It’s a bit hard to see because of the bus window reflection, but I like to think that’s just making this into a selfie.
Haha, science. Actually though– this is my laptop Desktop, and it’s all science. SCIENCE RULES! (also, I need to get organized…)
I have an eternal love for Wellesley’s SI (Supplementary Instruction) sessions, in which a fellow peer leads a group study session to help us go over class materials. This was an SI session for my CS (computer science) class, Data Structures. Our SI leader Erin had us use the example of pancakes in order to practice using the data structure “stacks.”
Also, this just makes me laugh. These were the 3rd and 4th results in Google Scholar when I searched “fMRI adaptation.” I posted it on Facebook under the comment “Ha. Science :)” and got quite a few likes :).
Hmmm :). All right, we return to this weekend, which is Family and Friends weekend, and thus time for the varsity swim and dive team’s Alumni Blue and White meet! First, all the new first years on the team, even though it was far too early to be taking pictures at this point :).
Ooh, I don’t even have to label everyone, since they’re all conveniently holding up their Wellesley W’s. Most varsity teams make their first-years Ws, which they can put on their dorm-room doors. I still have mine!
At the alumni meet, there’s a lot of relays like doggie-paddle and corkscrew and trying to swim with sweatpants on. I wasn’t able to go this year, but it’s always so much fun :).
My favorite seniors :). There are three seniors on the team, Tiffany, Gabby, and Grace, and they’re all excellent captains as well. Here they are with Erin P., who graduated last year and came back for the meet :).
And now we’re swinging back to MIT :). This, my friends, is my inner fan-girl going crazy. It’s a talk by DR. REBECCA SAXE! I can’t believe all of my friends don’t immediately fall down with awe when I mention I got to hear her speak, but I suppose I’ll have to give some context. Prof. Saxe discovered the RTPJ, aka the Theory of Mind region. This region of the brain selectively responds when you think of other peoples’ thinking. You should all go watch her TedTalk right now. And if not, know that she’s awesome, and in this picture I’m seeing Prof. Tenenbaum (who I’m taking 9.66 with, and is fantastic), Prof. Saxe, and Prof. Kanwisher (who I’m taking 9.71 with, and is again fantastic) in the way back corner out of the frame. A friend mentioned recently: “Do you ever think about how weird it is that that the people we’re taking classes with are known world-wide, extremely important people in their field?” I was like: all the time. All the time.
Prof. Tenenbaum’s introduction. HOW DO I GET TO TAKE A CLASS WITH HIM.
So much excitement.
And to finish up, I’ll bring us back to this weekend at Wellesley :). Every class at Wellesley has a tree planted in their honor, and any sophomores can show up from the class to help plant their tree during their Tree Planting Ceremony. I wan’t here at the Class of 2017’s ceremony, but Christine was, and she sent me some beautiful pictures. I’ll leave you with these, readers, and wish you a great fall week :).
Monica
