Hello everyone!
Happy Friday :). For the first time ever since October, we have snow here! It is very exciting, even though most of the people I have talked to seem to be disappointed. In my younger, more foolish years, I too was disappointed by snow, until I realized that YOU CAN SKI IN IT! Join cross-country skiing, everyone. It will improve your mindset all winter, even when there are no 7 feet-long skis hanging in your garage!
In other news, I’m no longer sick and track is not as time-consuming as swimming, both of which are marvelous things. I have found that instead of running from class to homework and back all the time, I now have time to stop in the middle and talk to people. I almost feel like a real Wellesley student, who goes out on weekends and plans events with friends :). Well, I’m not that far yet, but it’s a step forward. I stage the school/social debate often in my head, and am not sure I have the perfect balance down yet. The problem is that for school, not only do you have to learn the material, but you have to learn it better than anyone else if you have the same long-term goals that I do. On the other hand, what makes or breaks an experience is the people, and it’s enjoyable to spend time with acquaintances and friends. Now that swimming is over, I think that taking some time in between working is a good step for me!
My summer applications are also done, which is a huge relief to me. It’s hard to find room in my schedule to do anything besides task-oriented work, but I’m increasingly finding that administrative and maintenance tasks actually do need to be taken care of. In other words, the laundry needs to be done, past papers need to be organized, my email needs to be addressed, I need to talk to advisors when issues come up, and I need to fill out applications. I applied to three SURPs (that’s what I’m calling them; it stands for Summer Undergraduate Research Programs) at the University of Minnesota, Wellesley, and St. Olaf. I also think it would be really fun to do research at MIT, but I’m going to save that for next year.
Speaking of research, guess what I did today? I very much enjoy Fridays, where I work in Professor Arumainayagam’s lab from 11am-3pm. I promised myself I’d take a picture today (and I forgot, as usual), because there were six of us there today—Will (our newest member), Audrey, Katheryn, Katherine, Karen, and I. The lab is getting more and more enjoyable as I understand what projects we’re all working on, and I had a general idea of everyone’s today! Professor A. gave me the problem of getting “quotes” (ie, price tags for very expensive and specialized equipment) for our new cryogenics system that will go on the new ultra-high vacuum chamber. You’re going to have to stop me, readers, because now that I know all of this vocabulary I’m all ready to jump into the fray and speak esoterically like everyone else :). Anyway, I had to talk to a sales engineer about how their super-expensive and custom-made machine that cools substances to very low temperatures would work in the lab. After quizzing Karen extensively (she’s the other professor who works in our lab, besides our P.I. (principal investigator) Professor A. who runs the lab), reading over the company’s brochure, figuring out a general idea of what a closed-system and continuous-flow system were, calculating the temperatures we were trying to expose our crystal to, and attempting to belatedly put together what I knew about the research to what this machine would do, I called the woman, terrified. Turns out, she was very nice, and answered all of my questions like how much liquid helium we would have to order on a weekly basis. Karen pointed out to me that people who are trying to sell you very expensive equipment are often very nice to you. I like rewards systems, especially when I’m stuttering through my name and attempting to sound knowledgeable :).
So lab was fun! Then I went to track practice, which is still great after a week because the girls are fun. Coach Meg is wonderful, too, because instead of me always worrying about getting shin splints, she worries for me, and adjusts my workouts accordingly. She’s also been coaching me on how to land more softly, and I think there’s a good possibility of not getting hurt this year! These are the benefits of being on a fledging, soon-to-be six-member spring team (Zoe will be joining us from basketball shortly.) I went to dinner with one of those members, Sarah, and then after dinner had a long chat with one of the girls on the distance team, Chloe, both of whom are also first years and in my biology 112 class.
As for the rest of the week, I must say that I’m still recovering from my mad rush to Thursday. Because right now I only do assignments a few days before they are due, when major assignments come up they derail the whole process. This is true for everyone, and since we’ve hit the midterm block of weeks, there is more hysteria than usual at Wellesley (I exaggerate, of course, but tests take time to study for and essays take time to write.) I had a film paper due on Thursday (which was a lot of fun to write, actually—I’ve never done a film sequence analysis before), a biology lab presentation due on Thursday, and my usual assignments before that, so I was a busy girl. Right now it seems my prefrontal cortex, willpower central, has shut down, so I’ve been doing smaller assignments yesterday afternoon and today, including making graphs (which I enjoy), organizing stuff, future planning, and reading Time (which is why I’m referencing their willpower article “Getting to No: the Science of Building Willpower”). They’re all somewhat productive, so I don’t feel super guilty, but I know I’m going to have to do some hard-core reading and studying this weekend to get ready for my Neuro midterm, which is coming up next week I believe.
Ah, school… you take up so much of my life and attention, and you reap so many rewards :). I’m sorry I focus on schoolwork so much when I write this; it just seems like I don’t really have a lot of time to reflect and philosophize properly. Then again, my mother says that right now I’m living my life, and when I have time later I can reflect on it. Ah well; as long as I’m enjoying myself and putting myself in a position to succeed in the future, I think I’ll save the deep reflection until someone bangs me on the head with a situation that screams I’ve put it off too long—that’s when I usually make large changes in my behavior ;).
Life is good. I try every night to make a list of things I’m grateful for that occurred during the day—I think it makes you fall asleep faster :). There’s also so many things to grateful for, focused mainly on my interactions with all the wonderful people at Wellesley and the fact that I’m here in the first place. I’ve received another email from someone who has been accepted to Wellesley, and I can’t wait for her to enjoy it as much as I have. I know that I’m definitely not a proper model for the Wellesley Class of 2015, but even though I have my rough weeks I definitely enjoy it here.
It’s funny how the Admission Office chooses one student per grade to write a blog, and that they choose this student in the beginning of the year. How do they know who’ll love it here, or if they’ll represent the college well? Then again, all of the girls here could definitely write a great blog if they were placed in my situation; we’re a community of dedicated, different, exciting girls, and it’d be fun to read the thoughts of every one of them. Too bad we’re not all keen to write, and that readers only have a certain amount of time in the day—it would be a wonderful thing to hear the stories of every person on campus.
That’s the end of my time limit though—this was a longer blog since I’m in procrastination mode :). I’m off to read Time and hopefully mobilize myself to do something useful; hope you all have a wonderful Friday evening!
Best wishes to you all,
Monica
