Hello! Guess who finished her midterms and essays? *Monica raises her hand excitedly.* Guess who also is behind on reading due to studying for said midterms and writing said essays? *Monica waves her hand around wildly.* And that’s where I stand at the end of this long week!
Thus I am super psyched about Fall Break (we get Monday and Tuesday off)! I think we should have fall break after every midterm week, so that we can all catch up. My crazy weeks happen to fall on the first week of every month, so be prepared for the hectic posts :). (It also amuses me that when I say “crazy week” I refer singularly to schoolwork—oh man, but the swim meets are a-comin’ to add to that definition!) I spent 11 ½ hours out of the 16 hours I was awake on Sunday sitting in my room studying… it made taking pictures for this post difficult, but I took a bunch yesterday so all is resolved. Taking pictures is fun; though I notice when I tell people I’m going to take a picture many dislike looking into the camera. Makes me laugh, especially as there’s always one person smiling while everyone else is looking down.
As for other events in this hectic but happy life of mine, swimming is going swell and the library work is continuously pleasing. Grace, who is my manager much of the time at the library, went a little stir-crazy on Wednesday, and insisted that we all use walkie-talkies and learn the codewords so that we could communicate when we frolicked among the bookshelves. It made sitting next to the computer clicking buttons all the more enjoyable; I was even bored at the end of my shift (gasp) which will doubtless never happen again after I post this, but it was quite refreshing!
Swimming is good as well! Though this is probably esoteric, I’ll mention that I’ve always been a swimmer who only depends on her arms to move forward. I am now learning, all over again, how to kick! I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much effort the coaches are going to to make sure we have proper form, which I definitely need. What with hard sets and technique sets for 2 hours every afternoon, and then 45-minute strength weight-room sets every morning, we’re getting both power and skill, and I know I’m going to be a better swimmer at the end of this season. That is very exciting, since as an athlete I hit a peak in swimming during 9th grade.
Swimming is also exciting because I’m hosting a recruit next weekend! I’m asking around for an air mattress so she doesn’t have to sleep on a wood floor, but it’ll be fun and it also gives back to the team. I was hosted when I came, and the swim team (Carlos, our assistant coach in particular) goes to a lot of effort to make sure the swimming recruits are occupied while they’re here. I wish I knew what went on with the other sports; I’ll ask around and get back to you on that!
And for more swimming news (I know you’re all enthralled ;)) I’m teaching my first swimming lesson in an hour and a half! This will be the first time I’m teaching a swim lesson, so I got frightened and ran off yesterday to Coach Bonnie asking for manuals and such. Luckily, I am teaching a three-year old, so basically the requirements are that I play with her in the water and blow bubbles and try to get her to submerge. We’ll see how it goes; I’m looking forward to it, since this toddler’s mom says that her daughter is very enthusiastic about swimming, and enthusiasm always spreads :).
Moving on, after practice is over tonight I’m finally going to venture into Boston :). I’m staying with a sophomore friend of mine at MIT tonight and Saturday—and she’s a swim friend, which means we’ve spent years and years swimming a ridiculous amount of hours together in the pool. I have no idea what we’ll do, but maybe I’ll be able to give you a taste of what typical college students do? Maybe? I was brushing my teeth yesterday when one of my dormmates, Cara, asked if I was going to a frat party (this is very common) and I frankly said that I didn’t know. Then I told her I was coming back on Saturday so I could get some work done. She reminded me that “you always have work,” and this is true. It’s the way I like it though, and I suppose that’s why we have five bloggers (plus all of the archived blogs!)
Lots of people are going home for Fall Break, and many are leaving campus to stay with friends at other colleges. I’m going home for Thanksgiving Break, but since I live kind of far am staying here for Fall. However, one of my friends, Tiffany, lives in Wellesley, and she has offered to take me and another Wellesley swimmer, Allison, back to her house so that we can eat Chinese food! All of our mothers are Chinese, so we’re used to eating Chinese food, which doesn’t really occur at Wellesley. We’re also planning on going out for Dim sum (if you don’t know what it is, look it up and be happy; it’s essentially a Cantonese tradition where one goes out with the family and eats brunch at a dim sum restaurant, where there are specialty dishes and they get served around on carts so that you can pick and choose. At least that’s how I’ve always understood it; please comment if I’m wrong!). This is delightful because while I’ve always loved dim sum (it’s my favorite kind of food, actually) I live in Minnesota where there aren’t a huge variety of dim sum places in the area. We’re going to Chinatown in Boston though, and I’m told there are plenty. I’m very much looking forward to it!
What else do I get to tell you? Oh yes, chemistry :). I’ve been thinking of presenting this little tidbit all week, and it involves one of the projects we’re doing in lab. Every week we have a 3 ½ hour lab session where we investigate a specific topic. However, in addition to doing these traditional labs, this year the class has also incorporated doing research into solar energy!
Professor Reisberg (our lab professor) calls the project our “Saving the World Lab.” If you’re interested in the state of solar energy, he linked us to this New York Times video which was quite informative. What our lab specifically is working on is called the Artificial Leaf projects—Scientific American describes it here—which is basically a project whereby one creates an artificial leaf, or, in the words of MIT News, a “device can turn the energy of sunlight directly into a chemical fuel that can be stored and used later as an energy source” (Chandler 1.) While MIT has already developed a “leaf”, other labs are also working on the project (information from the Scientific American article listed above), and they have reached out to universities so that we can test combinations of metals to make the “leaf” more effective and less costly. So that’s what we spent most of our lab time on; mixing metals. In a few weeks we’ll test our metal mixtures, and be on our way to saving the world through doing real research!
And now that I’m done listing all my citations in the Works Cited page (that just took as long as writing three paragraphs… kind of discouraging actually, especially since I’m not exactly sure how one cites sources in a blog, so I did both links and a citation page at the bottom), and I’m done talking about the new events in my life, I’ll mention some more general ideas about Wellesley.
First, that today and yesterday the first-years voted for their class council of 2015! There were many posters placed all around campus, and we all got to know at least some of our classmates via their faces smiling out at us through colored (you have to pay for colored printing, so this is serious ;)) flyers. Plus lots of names were chalked on the sidewalk; Wellesley seems to chalk everything on its many paths, as well as pasting posters to columns, in order to advertise events.
Speaking of events, I went to several last week! I heard Wilson Lecturer Amy Smith (look her up; she has many credentials) present on Sustainable Development through her creation of the D-Lab at MIT, and Dudley Herschbach, a Nobel Laureate, speak about “Chemical Wizardry.” Both were very informative presentations, and I encourage you to look up Amy Smith’s D-Lab especially if you are interested in attending Wellesley (or just look her up in general!). Since Wellesley students have the ability to cross-register at MIT, knowing about MIT’s resources can also be very valuable… and the information about D-Lab was fascinating and literally life-changing for many around the globe! If hearing lectures are something you are interested in a college, I would definitely recommend Wellesley. There are many events like these that I haven’t been able to attend, but I’ve heard from others and experienced for myself that Wellesley brings in fantastic presenters.
There are so many other things I’d like to say about events on Wellesley; I get a daily digest of campus events into my email, and there is so much going on. Much more than I could mention, and much, much more than I could even get involved in! If you are interested in anything in particular, I’d be happy to look it up for you, but I’m going to have to end now so that I can get to my swimming lesson. I’m so relieved that we have break; though I’ve been working on sleeping more, it does catch up to you :).
So best wishes to all that are reading! Since we’ve hit October, it’s definitely been getting colder here, but it’s beautiful as always. Feel free to ask questions; I’ll go ask around and see if I can learn more. Let the Friday festivities begin!
Monica
Works Cited: (sorry, the indents aren’t working out)
Chandler, David L. “‘Artificial Leaf’ Makes Fuel from Sunlight.” MIT News.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 30 Sept. 2011. Web. 7 Oct. 2011. <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/artificial-leaf-0930.html>.
“Possibilities in Solar Energy – Video Library – The New York Times.” Video Library
Home Page – The New York Times. The New York Times, 2011. Web. 07 Oct. 2011. <http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/07/06/business/1194817104324/possibilities-in-solar-energy.html>.
Regalado, Antonio. “Reinventing the Leaf: Artificial Photosynthesis to Create Clean
Fuel, Made Interactive: Scientific American.” Scientific American Oct (2010). Science News, Articles and Information | Scientific American. Nature America, 23 Sept. 2010. Web. 07 Oct. 2011. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=interactive-reinventing-the-leaf>.