The first week of the term is done: four math classes, two sociology classes, five trips to the chapel, two covid tests, eight hours of work work, two org meetings, three visits to office hours, one appointment with career ed, one hour of therapy, one zoom Shabbat, one zoom class, one fire alarm, five runs, one stationary bike ride while watching Seinfeld, and 21 dining hall meals.
Now that’s a week at Wellesley.
I love both of my classes this term, Mathematics and Politics and Intersectionality at Work. They’re both in-person, which is a huge privilege, and they’re both in the chapel, which blows, since the acoustics in there are not ideal. (If I hadn’t gone to an Episcopal boarding school, I’d joke about spending more time in a chapel than I ever have… but I went to an Episcopal boarding school, so it just wouldn’t be true.)
Math is off to a great start. We’ve learned about the faults of the plurality voting system (in which the person with the most votes wins, even if that ends up being a ridiculously low percentage in a crowded race) and gone over all sorts of wacky voting systems, including three different types of ranked-choice voting. Different voting systems yield different winners. How you slice it is everything.
This sociology class is my first 300-level course, and I’m one of two sophomores. There’s a lot of reading, especially in the first couple weeks before we start interviewing people for our projects, but it’s been manageable. My professor is great, and the material is interesting. (The reading for tomorrow has me seeing service workers like flight attendants in a whole new way.) The class eats up my whole afternoon twice a week (2:30-5:15), but it goes by fast. I’m excited to keep getting to know my classmates. I signed up to lead class first, so a classmate and I will be teaching for an hour during Monday’s class.
Outside of class, it’s been great meeting up with friends, including those I haven’t seen since March. Sometimes I forget that my friends who were off-campus in the fall still exist in three dimensions. (I gave an enthusiastic “Is that Meg???” to someone in the dining hall yesterday, and it was not Meg. But today I did see Meg!)
It has snowed a bunch lately! Here’s a pic from my run on Saturday. (It wasn’t the prettiest part of my run, but it was where I stopped to look at the map.)
