Hello!
Where has this week gone? I’ve been racking my brains to try to remember what I’ve done over the past few days… thank goodness I have my agenda, or I’d come up blank :). Each day seems to last a lifetime, and this is six lifetimes past my last entry! Life is good, and is determined to make me live each day to the fullest.
We didn’t have a swim meet last weekend, so I took the time to log some needed homework hours. I’ve been talking to some people on the swim team, who don’t seem to do as much homework as I do, and it turns out this is not an illusion. I do have a heavy schedule, and I am doing a lot of work, but I’m behind as usual and need to do more work. Ah well, it’s an exploration of how much I can learn in a short time period, and I love that all of my time is being put to good purpose.
Monday was a biology day, as I presented an article to the class in Organismal Biology (Bio 113), and spent the rest of the day running around crazily trying to answer reading questions for my other biology class, Molecular Biology (Bio 112). Both classes are advanced biology classes, and so are not lecture format. Instead, we read pages out of the textbook to review our basic biology knowledge, and read current scientific research papers as our main weekly task. The article we were assigned last week for Bio 112 was particularly challenging. I read it on Sunday, went over it again with a classmate, Sebiha, for another two hours on Sunday (line-by-line, oh yeah), met with Professor LaBonte privately for a half an hour on Monday, worked on it over lunch, went back for Professor LaBonte’s normal office hours, worked on it some more, went to other classes and then sent Professor LaBonte some last questions by email. It got done by Tuesday in the end, and I’m pretty confident about my answers, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been that challenged on an assignment. Professor LaBonte tells the class that it gets easier from here as we adjust to the research paper format; I sure hope so. More importantly, I’m very thankful that Professor LaBonte was able to devote so much time to helping me out the day before the paper was due. Starting early would be optimal… I will do my best, but I never really anticipate how busy I am until I’m in the moment and semi-imploding because there’s a lot of things that need to be done in a short time period.
Needless to say, I’ve also been spending some time calming myself down and enjoying swimming, singing, and the miscellaneous social activities that I partake in :). Last Tuesday I spent some time chatting with Professor Reisberg (professors’ offices are so cool; seriously, almost every professor’s office I’ve been in is crammed with knick-knacks and interesting collections), and Wednesday was the Career Fair at Wellesley. I wandered down to the Career Fair, breezed through and checked out company names, and was kind of cowering by the corner when Ms. Kenney came over and told me to go talk to some people. I’ve worked with Ms. Kenney three times already on summer applications; she’s at the Wellesley Center for Work and Service, and she came over to me and told me to get a move on. So I did, and learned about an industrial biotech scientist job and a grassroots job entailing knocking at people’s doors and spreading a message (it was really cool, because the man presented it in a way that made it seem really appealing, even though I know I personally would be miserable in that kind of situation) before heading out. Thank goodness I’m a first-year; I feel I’d have no excuse for intimidated cringing otherwise. On the other hand, most of the first years I know didn’t go (the Fair is mainly meant for upperclassmen), so I consider it a work in progress.
A lot of Wednesday was spent reading my neuroscience textbook and writing an experiment procedure for Bio 112. I’ve found I actually like the process of designing experiments… step one for pursuing a scientific career :). I also spent a bit of Wednesday packing for our final swim meet, NEWMACs—where I am now!
Thursday afternoon, after my classes, I took off with the rest of the team to head to MIT, where NEWMACs (New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference) is held this year. This year is the first year that the competition is co-ed, but the meet seems to be running smoothly as far as I can tell. MIT has a gorgeous pool that we warmed up in on Thursday; the meet started this morning at 10am. Wellesley (along with all of the other teams!) is doing well, with lifetime bests all-around. I got a 25.03 on my 50 free, which is a lifetime best for me, and sets me as the second alternate for coming back to finals this evening. Regardless, this evening I shall be doing a 50 in a relay, and I’m very excited!
That was my week in a nutshell, with many kindnesses and swimming-related bonding activities along the way :). I’ve work to do, but when do I not; and everything I’m doing is something I love. Hope you all have a wonderful Friday, especially if you’re in Boston—spring has arrived with sunny weather and over 50 degrees.
I’m here, as always, for questions!
Monica
