Hello readers.
I’m done. Not quite in Minnesota yet—that’s not until next Saturday—but I’m done. Done with my sister and relatives’ visit, done with my summer research internship, done with neuroscience camp, done with my sophomore spring, done with wintersession, done with sophomore first semester. Winding the clock way back to August of last year, the last time I sat on my bed, read books, exercised, and lazed about, relaxing before the work began. It’s winding down again, from the furious activity during the school year to the slower pace of the summer, to my part-time work next week to back to Minnesota. To home, one of many. I like the cycles.
It’s been a good year, since as an academic (a life-long affliction, I predict) the year always begins with September. Fall seems like an eternity ago, with only the grade on my transcript to remember so many hours of learning and studying. We met the new first-years on the swim team in the fall, and burned focus intensity away in the bubbles. I cemented friendships, learned friend’s thoughts and their patterns; people were amazed to learn we hadn’t been close forever.
Over Wintersession we went to Puerto Rico, to train. We swam four hours a day, became roiled in conflict. We were storming, Bonnie said, and there was a team meeting without the coaches. Tears, and then pride. We swam well at our conference meet in the spring.
Over Wintersession we went to Puerto Rico, and I coded. Struggled frantically in the fall to know what to do with my new research lab, and started picking at Matlab, so, so slowly. My lab partner and I presented at a conference at the end of January, and we failed. Our poster was a wreak, and everyone knew it. But we continued to work, and learned Matlab some more, and clarified our questions, and were patient with this new independence, of figuring out what to do. Yiing and I presented our research again in the spring at Ruhlman Conference, and it was wonderful. We presented again in the beginning of the summer, and I presented again at the end, and it was good.
Spring semester was organic chemistry, and neuro 320 (vision and art), and matlab class and engineering class. But it was mostly organic chemistry and neuro 320, and I worked hard. So much to do, even when not swimming. Every minute important, conscious always of time. Erin, Emily and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday, stared at the impressionist paintings. The paints are equiluminant, and that’s why it shimmers, I murmur, and Erin looks at me and smiles. You’d know all about that, she says, and I did, a bit. I did learn about how neuroscience can be applied to art, about how beauty and science intermingle.
Neuroscience camp was lectures, and new people, and grad school, and drive. And family, too, when dad and Leslie came to pick me up. I remember driving down a Midwest road, half asleep against the window, dad driving and Leslie reading and everything so calm.
Research, first week—doing grunt work. Frustrating, still not sure I wanted to be there, unsure about my role. Conflict, conferences, learning about my lab people, people I had never spent time with. Weeks and weeks. I became invited over to Kaitlin and Galina’s every Wednesday, to make dinner and watch Dr. Who. I went out with my roommates, laughed and chatted with them, spent many hours in comfortable silence. I had dimsum every Saturday, and the people sitting around the table were never the same. I invited a guy out for a workout date, and worked out with other Wellesley girls too. I walked home along the MIT bridge every day, and saw the sun’s colors balancing the moon’s. I was tucked under the wing of a professor down the hall, and swim with him and his buddies a few times a week in the ocean. I hosted my sister and her friend, spent wonderful meals with my relatives. Watched the water in the Charles a hundred times. Knew expressions and thoughts of my labmates by heart. Loved Boston, loved where I was, knew this was where I want to be, in the present, and in the future.
My year, very shortly. Nothing captures the small things—the way Iulia tilts her head when she questions, how Kaitlin’s voice slows with amusement, how Alice’s lips quirk when she smiles, Galina’s half-teasing, half-intense determination. They are collected, those small moments, repeated memories, drawn up in an inward smile.
It is beautiful, my summer; and life.
Wishing you all the small moments.
Monica
Claire and Leslie, eating canolis from North End in the park :).
Leslie and her friend Claire came to visit me this week! And Aunt Judy, Uncle Nick, Annacy (on the left) and Michaela (on the right) from CA came to visit as well :). Here we are in front of Munger, my dorm for next year as well as last year. Let it be noted that Uncle Nick (a scientist in industry), loved the Wellesley Summer Science poster session, and enjoyed speaking to all the (spoken in a tone of great enthusiasm, and later amended by calling us accomplished women) “little scientists” :).
The whole crowd! My aunt-in-law Rachel, Leslie, me, Claire, Aunt Judy, Annacy, Michaela, Gemma, and Chloe.
The Crusty Barnacles, who do ocean swims every Sunday in Nantasket, and have welcomed me with open arms 🙂
My final dimsum for the summer! Cara, me, Annie, Penny, Helena, Emily, Erin, and Erin.
ps, you must let me know if I should continue with the interviews. I haven’t decided on what I plan to post on for the rest of the summer, so please let me know what you’d like!