Hello blog, and happy Wednesday!
Today was my second day of training for my new job at the Computing Help Desk, and I’ve been starting to feel the effects of stretching myself thin. It feels like my classwork has been piling up higher and higher and I have no chance to reach the bottom of the pile. To combat this, I’ve gone back to giving my days a strict structure; I plan out my time to the minute on a sticky note and stick it to my computer next to my to-do list to make sure I’m staying on top of things. I’ve had relative success; this afternoon I was so burnt out from staying up late finishing homework that I napped for three hours and missed the office hours I had wanted to go to and my scheduled library time, but I’m on duty for Community Engagement tonight in Bates so I have two and a half hours to catch up with that missed work, and I’ll just change my schedule for tomorrow to include the other things I missed today.
In the RA sphere, I’m really working to form better connections with my residents in the coming weeks. I’ve set up a google calendar where my residents can schedule one-on-one meetings with me, and this weekend is Crafternoon, my September floor program. I know that my upperclassmen residents might not feel like they need an RA as much as the first years on other floors do, but there’s a reason that we do assign RAs to upperclassmen and this is another area in which I’m trying to be proactive; if I’m able to form connections with my residents early on, then any issues or conflicts that might arise later in the year will be much easier to resolve with an already established understanding of each other.
This Sunday was Flower Sunday, and the picture above is of me and my little, Kate! She’s a fellow Midwesterner, a resident of Bates first, and just an all-around very cool person. This year was my first actual Flower Sunday ceremony, and one of my residents- the Bates ASC- actually gave a speech, which was very cool. The Wellesley College Choir was there and they sang “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”, which is a hymn that I’m actually very familiar with because of how common it is for bluegrass bands to sing. Growing up I went to a lot of bluegrass festivals with my Papa Larry, and I think at least one group sang it at every festival. Obviously the choir version was much different- and lacking in banjo and fiddle- but it was still very cool to find something that reminds me so much of home there.
Last night was Bates Hall’s second House Council meeting, and we held elections for all of our various HOCO positions. Our most represented faction is easily the Bates Second first years, but we’ve had a much better upperclassmen turnout than I was expecting, which is awesome. A couple of my residents came to the first meeting but none of them came back to the second, so I’m working on getting them back into that space. I think it’s really important for first years to have spaces like that where they get to interact with upperclassmen; I know that last year I got to know some of my HP’s blockmates during HOCO, and having them as role models when I was trying to figure out what I wanted my own Wellesley experience to look like was so helpful. Not every first year is going to be an RA, and we need to show the first years that there are so many different ways to be involved on campus; talking to upperclassmen about where they’ve found their place is probably the easiest way to do that.
I mentioned this at the beginning of this post, but I want to go back to my borderline-overinvolvement problems, which I’ve coined “the boulder chase” after that scene in Indiana Jones where he’s running from the huge boulder determined to crush him; my responsibilities are the boulder, and I’m Harrison Ford. I’ve started noticing that I’m picking up some unhealthy habits- like skipping breakfast, barely sleeping, and spending less time socializing and communicating with my family back home- and I’m really trying to find spaces where I can continue to do the things that are important to me without sacrificing my work. I’m hoping to start a new knitting project soon, so right now I’m finding time to head into either Cambridge or Natick to visit a yarn store, and I’m really focusing on planning time to get my work done throughout the day so that I can start going to bed earlier, getting more sleep, and waking up early enough to make it to breakfast before I have work at 8:10 or class at 8:30. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but I’m determined to make everything work, and that will only happen if I can keep myself healthy. I know that I am capable of doing all of the things that I want to do- working three jobs, taking five classes, being an active member of my music ensemble- while still finding time to be healthy and time to be social. It’s all about the way I navigate it, and I’m determined to do it right.
This weekend will be chock full of Bates Hall events. Abby, our first floor RA, will be holding an Ice Pops and Ice-Breakers program on Saturday afternoon, Mellany, our fourth floor RA, will be holding a Waffle Social on Sunday morning, and I’m holding Crafternoon later that day. Next week is the Education Department’s Open House, and I’ll definitely be going to that; I’m at a point where I know that I want to be involved in the department, but the requirements for the Education Studies major are completely different from the requirements for the Teaching and Learning Studies minor- which is the more involved part of the teaching certification program- and I have a little bit more exploring to do before I figure out which of those directions I’d like to go in. I do think that eventually I will study both the systemic framework that the Education Studies major focuses on and the curriculum development and teaching skills that the Teaching and Learning Studies minor focuses on, it’s just more of a question of if I want to go into teaching directly after graduating and go to grad school later on or if I want to go to grad school right after graduation and start teaching after I earn my masters. Currently the plan that is winning out is minoring in Teaching and Learning Studies, starting at an elementary school right out of school, and then if I start experiencing burnout- which is becoming more and more common in elementary school teachers and can really affect the quality of education their students are getting in some of the most important years of their schooling- taking a step back and figuring out where I want to go next. I’m also still figuring out what the next step for my English major is, whether I want to go for the straight English major or English and Creative Writing and who I want my advisor to be. I’ve decided against study abroad, though, so now I have until class registration in the spring to figure all of these things out. I have lots of decisions to make, but right now I’m feeling good knowing that I at least know what choices I might make.
I hope you’ve all been enjoying your Septembers so far, and that you feel as ready as I do for the start of October next week!
Sending you joy,
Andrew