Hello hello hello!
Man, I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve posted! Well, two weeks. I meant to post over thanksgiving, but that didn’t quite get done. Oh well, more to talk about this week!
So since two weeks ago is now ancient times (some say that the time goes by quickly. I feel that my days are so full of thoughts and events that time crawls. Not that this isn’t a great thing ;)) my recollections are going to be a bit sparse. I also failed to take my usual notes on past events, made worse by my habit of erasing everything in my agenda after I’m done with it (then it looks like I’ve done nothing the entire year! Actually, I don’t really know why I do it that way). However, I’ll start from where I remember! And that’s right before my return home for Thanksgiving.
I returned how later than most, because I was vacillating for a while and so it was difficult to get tickets. So on Wednesday morning, I woke up, went to optional swim practice (optional swim practice is funny, because it is optional by NCAA rules but highly recommended by our coach :)), ran back to my room, cleaned up my room, realized I really needed to start packing, packed in 20 minutes, ran to the shuttle bus, and made it to Logan Airport three hours early! This shows what an earnest mix of timeliness I keep; my swim teammates have noticed that I do tend to be rather exactly on time (I refuse to call it late), probably by reading this blog. Writing this is turning to my disadvantage, readers! Oh, what shall I ever do?
Anyway, I made it back home, where I greeted my two lovely younger siblings (heehee :)) and parents. We even ended up going shopping that night, in that my mother had picked out a pair of winter boots for me at REI and we went and bought them. My mother is ever logical—they are the most functional boots ever, warm and with a zipper down the front, though I complained about aesthetic appeal :). Shows how little I know about New England weather! No doubt I’ll appreciate her every day I make the trek to class come snow-time, especially since they are actually quite nice-looking for their class of apparel (winter gear has a hard time being warm and beautiful.)
But enough silliness about clothing! I feel like I’m finally turning into a fashion-conscious female, which is humorous since I resisted (sweat pants all the way) for so many years. I’m going to move on to our family trip to Wisconsin! Our family hasn’t had a really traditional thanksgiving dinner in quite a while, due to the fact that no one in our family likes turkey or brussel sprouts (I’m not exactly sure if brussel sprouts are traditional, but I feel they should be.) The turkey thing is definitely a problem, so we had fried chicken a few years back, but this year we decided to have a real thanksgiving dinner with family and all. We don’t have family living near us in Minnesota (my mom’s relatives are in CA and my fathers are spread around mostly the Midwest), so we went to visit relatives in Appleton, WI. There, I met a whole bunch of aunts, uncles, and cousins I had never met before, learned about the Peace Corps (one of my new-found cousins is working in a small village in Central America right now!), ate a very good dinner (homemade pumpkin pie!), played spoons, admired their streets (they have very good streets for running), and then returned home at the end of the evening. It was a very pleasant Thanksgiving and it was wonderful to spend time with family!
The rest of Thanksgiving passed with little fanfare at my household. I did homework, spoke to some friends, read and hung out with my sisters and parents. It was a very nice break, and I came back to Wellesley happy. Unlike the fearful predictions of some of my friends, I didn’t come back to pre-finals homesick! I think this is awesome; I feel like I’m finally in the rhythm here. I imagine I will continue saying this as I get more and more comfortable at Wellesley, and it surprises me because I didn’t really realize it would be such a long and gradual process. And it’s not even a hugely obvious process, since I tend to try suppress emotions that aren’t helpful… e.g., I thought I was comfortable here, and now I think the same, but I don’t even have to convince myself now because it’s true. And it’ll be even more true later. All of those people I talked to were right about the first semester being an adjustment! But the best part is, I know I’m pretty much done adjusting, and I won’t have to change again for the next four years :). It’s a relaxing feeling.
So now I’m back at Wellesley! I don’t even know if I’m supposed to talk about what I did over break, since I’m supposed to be writing about my experiences as a Wellesley student, not as some random college kid sitting at home in Minnesota. It makes me wonder what my purpose is exactly in writing this, since we are constantly being nailed with that point when we write essays here. Perhaps it’s like a story, which can be occasionally amusing to read. That’s what some of my teammates said about my blog: they said it’s fun to skim when they have some extra time (i.e., don’t feel like doing homework :)). So that would mean that I write to amuse, insinuating that I should try to be funnier. I have been told, however, that I don’t have a completely-developed sense of humor, in that I am able to make what I think is funny seem funny to everyone else. Or maybe I have it all wrong, and all the non-purposeful bloggers out there are just writing to fulfill something in themselves, the part of them that wants to share their experiences in really long monologues every once and a while. Who knows, I suppose. My quest to understand why people read other people’s writing will continue on unabated.
So that places me at the beginning of this week! I had a math midterm before break (which I did astonishingly well on. And after only six hours of studying! My teacher was very generous.) and a chemistry test this Tuesday (which the whole class struggled on. I “sort of” finished, in that there was something written down in all of the blank spaces, but the accuracy of those scribbles is a little tentative.). I’m also writing a really long paper for Writing class (really long meaning 8-12 pages. Which isn’t really that long, it’s just that I’ve never written something that long before!) about whether death metal music is considered aggressive in society because of its lyrics or because of its sound. (Don’t ask me how I got on the topic.) So that’s what I’ve been doing academically since I’ve gotten back.
I’m actually in the eye of the storm right now, since finals begin next week. I haven’t started studying for them (I have two tests, math and chemistry, and two essays, writing (a different one from the one I’m writing now) and history, plus whatever I have time for in my audited education class) because I just finished with my chem and math midterms, so I took a break on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday I actually read Time Magazine for two hours (oh yes, who had time for normal-people reading? MONICA DID!) and yesterday I watched Tiffany play the harpsichord with other ensembles in the Chamber Music Society concert. Plus today I watched Triple Helix perform in my Writing Class! (My writing course is Music and the Ineffable, so it’s about music). So much music in my life recently. And a whole hour or two of free time too! Not that it was actually free time—I should have been working on either of my essays, doing my lab report, catching up on history, studying math, or doing education work. Or any other of innumerable things that need to be done. Oh well, it was only a few hours, and I think it’s good for me :).
Thursday was also much fun, because it was our last chem lab together (nooooo) and we needed to celebrate. I came in to the lab at 1:30pm very saddened, because I read in our lab report that Professor Reisberg is having us do Student’s T-test on our data, without Excel’s help :(. I’m really not a fan of Student’s T-test, because statistical analysis takes a really long time (I’m thankful we’re not doing uncertainty analysis though. That takes even longer. That lab took me more than 5 hours… I spent 9 hours on our longest lab, which was Gaussian. This is just me though. I’m obsessive; no one else spends that long I don’t think.). But Professor Reisberg made up for it! He baked us wonderful cookies (they actually were wonderful. I want the recipe) that morning, and we took a break in the middle of the lab and watched him make elephant toothpaste (way cool demonstration) and ate goodies. Then we talked about an entity titled “Chemistry Cat” who apparently makes nerdy chemistry jokes (I need to look this phenomenon up), reminisced about how we were the best chemistry group ever, and debated about who was going to eat the last cookie. Professor Reisberg says that one of the best parts of an all-girls school is that no one wants to take the last cookie, so he considers it a gift to him :). Unfortunately, he hasn’t met me, because I made him split the last one with me. They were good cookies.
One other thing we talked about: apparently there’s a chemistry party during finals period when all the chemistry professors make a couple dozen cookies and all of the chemistry students are invited and we go and sing Christmas songs (with changed words to illustrate our love of chemistry), and eat. Apparently, there are thousands of cookies and 80 people. “Do the math,” says Professor Reisberg. Result: this is going to be the most amazing cookie partay eva :)!
Back to the present, I ended up staying until 6:40pm doing “Lab 12: Buffers” instead of getting out at 5pm like we were supposed to. Oh, the sacrifices I make for chemistry and my lab report :).
You know the rest: went to Tiffany’s concert, went to work, went to sleep. Yesterday was a very good day, as today has shaped up to be. I like Friday’s a lot, because I have an excuse not to do homework, which is that my schedule is packed solid. I wake up at 6:30 am, do weights from 7am-7:45am, stretch until 8am, run to breakfast, change, and get to writing class by 8:30am, finish at 9:40am and then attend chemistry class from 9:50am-11:00am, go to education class from 11:10am-12:20pm, go to lunch, walk to the Admission office and start writing this at 1pm, finish anywhere from 3:00-3:45pm (depending on whether I work extra or not. Note: I usually work extra for this), run to swimming (and that’s the consequence) and swim from 4pm-6pm, have dinner, and then I’m good to go because I don’t work at the library on Fridays. It’s a good day, readers; Friday’s a good day.
Tonight I’m also hoping to get some singing in, because my lessons are all done for the semester! I am sad that I don’t have any for another two months or so, but happy because my family bought me a singing book over break. It is a collection of Disney songs, and I could not be more pleased. Tiffany said she just bought Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” for piano, and she could not be more pleased either. Yay for happy songbooks and T. Swift and Disney!
And now for the moment you’ve all be waiting for: swimming discussions! Ha. But it makes up WAY too much of my life not to write about it :). After last week, when Coach Bonnie was forced to introduce “optional practices,” she has decided to nail us hard before we go into another round of “optional practices” next week during finals period. I’m going to practice every day next week, because without sports I tend to self-destruct due to anxiety, plus I like being in shape (I can lift 40 pounds now on some of our arm weight exercises!). But nevertheless this week has been a bit rough! We have sets Bonnie calls “parametrics” which means we are expected to keep our heart rate high (180-190 beats per minute; for comparison, 210 is my max heart rate when I’m all-out sprinting) while we sprint short distances with 15 seconds rest. We did 26 50s on Monday, 13 100s on Tuesday, had a meet against Tufts on Wednesday, and 30 50s on Thursday (which, since I have lab during practice, I made up for by swimming the set last Sunday). Oh boy. However, I still did very well on our last home meet against Tufts on Wednesday! I got a 56.85 seconds in the 100 free (yay! Back in the 56 seconds. I’m working on keeping it consistently down there), a 26.01 seconds in my 50 free (almost there! I’m waiting for my 25 seconds), and a 25.18 seconds on my relay split for 50 free, which I think is a lifetime best. That means I’m close to the 24s. It would be amazing if I could do that this year!
We also had Simmons last weekend, which was our first away meet. It was lots of fun, even though I didn’t do great (I was still sick: I’m fully recovered now!). Tomorrow, we have an away meet against Mount Holyoke, which I’m excited for because it’s a crazy meet where we can choose to do the “Iron Woman”: swimming every single event except the mile (1650 yards). That is a long way. I don’t think I’m going to do the Iron Woman this year, but I signed myself for some wacky events since I have the chance. I’m doing the 200 fly, 200 breast, 50 fly, 400 IM, etc… those events that I haven’t done in years because I’m a sprint freestyler (which I nevertheless love being).
Enough about my very specific swimming though; I’d also like to expound a bit on my swimming lessons! The team is definitely going to Hawaii for our training trip over Wintersession, and so we need to earn enough money via swimming lessons to pay for it! I have calculated that I need 6 sets of 10-lessons to pay for the entire trip, and I’m already teaching two 3-year olds. I happened to be online when our assistant coach Carlos posted another lesson, so I have another one lined up for next semester (it’s first come first serve, and I’ve tried to get 6 different lessons to no avail. Luckily, I have this one!) And, I’m starting a new student tonight! I’m very excited, and hope it’ll go well! (The young ones have a hard time staying in the pool for a whole 30 minutes, because the pool is very cold, so a lot of my time is spent coaxing them to play in the water.)
In other news, something very interesting happened in History class the other day, which I thought was fantastic. We stopped class 20 minutes early because Professor Rao got onto the topic of the European financial crisis, and we talked about current day affairs for a whole 20 minutes. I feel like that’s what we’re missing out on most by being at Wellesley: I’m mentioned my trouble with reading the newspaper and keeping up with current events, and that’s because that information is simply not useful in my day to day life. We live in the Wellesley bubble, and very little of the outside world seems to affect us, so it’s difficult to keep up with knowledge that isn’t going to be tested (though happily, I had read TIME the night before, so I was able to contribute some). Still, it was so odd to actually have a chance to figure out what was currently going on in the world. Though Wellesley does have discussions with professors on current events maybe once a month, these usually fall during my swim time so it’s difficult to attend. I feel like I need a current events class, so that I’m incentivized to keep up with the larger affairs that affect me as a global citizen!
I was actually just reading an article about this in “Counterpoint,” (Generation Y “Why Our Generation is Stuck in the MIddle” by Madeline Furlong, November 2011, volume 34, issue 3, pg 14-15) Wellesley’s main college magazine, which urged Wellesley students to look outside the bubble and actually participate in world affairs. Though I can’t remember the name of the article, the author was saying how college students used to be the ones protesting, not idly watching the Occupy Boston movement from afar. As I was walking out of my history class with a classmate, she mentioned an idea similar to this, saying that she had attended an Occupy Boston rally to try to be a part of current day affairs. She mentioned that as a child, she always wished she lived in earlier times when “things happened.” Now, she expressed that things are actually happening, that we’re living through a possibly important time, and that she feels she should participate in what’s going on now just in case it’s revolutionary later. I find it amazing how disconnected I am allowed to be from world events, and also kind of frightening. Shouldn’t there be some kind of consequence for not knowing what’s going on? Shouldn’t there be some incentive for me to step outside my bubble of swimming and tests and be involved or at least know about situations that are larger than my immediate community?
It’s an interesting question, I think, though I don’t presume to talk from anyone’s viewpoint except my own. As far as I know, many students on campus are involved in issues beyond Wellesley, and I’m one of the few that has to extend myself just to get basic information. I just think there shouldn’t be many people like me, and there should be a way to make sure not many people are unaware. But then again, is this the most important information we need people to know? There’s just so much information that it’d love to have… it’d be best, of course, to take every class at Wellesley and then every class everywhere else. But we must pick and choose, I suppose. That’s why individuals on campus who are concerned with global affairs usually pick an issue (like building a school in Malawi, one of the current ones) and stick to it. If only that weren’t discrimination against all of the other issues, and all of the other information, out there.
And I think I’ll end my post here, because I’m confusing myself as usual! The bubble is a nice place, and as this is where my immediate reality lies, I’ll return happily. I have some awesome pictures from lab, and I’ll go pirate Tiffany’s facebook to see if she posted any pictures from the last meet. As always, I am open to questions and just for talking! One of my last readers and I had an intense discussion on personality, and it was loads of fun.
Have a wonderful afternoon!
Monica
