Hello blog, and happy Wednesday!
This is the first real week of classes, and I’m beginning to realize that I really need to straighten out my priorities if I want to do everything that I want to do on campus; I’m taking five classes, working three jobs, and participating in a music ensemble this semester, which is quite a bit more than I took on last year, but I think I can make it work.
Speaking of jobs, my first event as an RA was a HUGE success; we had a pretty good turnout from residents of the New Dorms, and even a group of former residents now living in Tower showed up to sing with us! My next event is my floor program, which will be next Sunday. My HP coined the term “Crafternoon” to describe it; we’ll be decorating availability tags, pronoun cards, and doing some coloring pages. I think it’ll be really fun.
This Sunday is Flower Sunday, a time honored Wellesley tradition in which upperclassmen- Bigs- are assigned to first year- Littles- as a sort of sibling-type mentor to help guide them through their first year of college. The Bates res staff did our matching last night, and I’m feeling really good about all of the pairings we made! As an upperclassman this year, I too was assigned a little, and I’m already so excited to get to know them!
Last night was also my first House Council- or HOCO- as a member of the Bates res staff, and it was really cool to see all of the little differences between the way Bates does HOCO and the way my old dorm- Pom- did it. There’s this one position that Pom refers to as the “Deities of Love and War” that is apparently referred to as the “Secretaries of Love and War” everywhere else on campu. Their job is basically to coordinate acts of love and acts of war against the other dorms on campus. Interpret that how you will.
I’ve spent a lot of time out by the lake this week, which past readers of my blog will know is a pretty common spot for me during the fall. On Monday I spent three hours sitting in the little spoonholder over by the society houses working on homework and eating a phenomenal egg salad sandwich from the grab and go lunch case at Collins Cafe on campus. The header image for this post is a picture I sent to my dad of the view.
I also spent some time over by the lake this morning; a friend and I are in different sections of the same French class this semester, so we met in a different spoonholder over by Tower Court to work on homework for that class. What we actually ended up doing was just talking for an hour, but I don’t consider it any sort of waste. I think the best part about college is being able to connect with so many different people, and I don’t regret any of the time I’ve spent getting to know someone instead of reviewing conjugations.
I think today has been a very productive day in a somewhat unconventional way; I haven’t finished- or even started- most of my work due tomorrow yet, but I did manage to get some things done that I’ve been putting off for way too long. Last week the paperwork for my legal name change came in, and I’ve been slowly going through and changing all of my different accounts to reflect that. Today, I finally changed my Wellesley OneCard- the swipe card that I use for basically everything on campus- and I contacted my bank about getting a new debit card. I also met with a counselor from the Stone Center- something I’ve been meaning to do pretty much since I got to Wellesley- and we spent about forty minutes talking about what I’m looking for in a therapist and gave me a couple of referrals to different providers in the Boston area. I sent out a new client inquiry to one of the practices today, so hopefully I’ll hear back from them soon and can start going to counseling regularly again.
This is definitely going to be a term full of responsibilities and learning, but I think it will also be one full of joy and growth. I think I’m going to start dividing up my to-do lists into two categories; “What is Left to Be Done” and “What I Can Do Now”, so I don’t keep stressing myself out with things that I need to get done but maybe don’t need to finish right away, and to make sure I don’t let anything that does need to be done right away slip through the cracks.
I played my friend Emma- the RA on Bates second- one of my favorite songs tonight, and she said it sounded like that song in a musical that nobody really likes, but I hope that you’ll all appreciate it. It’s called “Try to Remember” and it’s from the musical The Fantasticks, although the most famous version is probably by the Brothers Four. Personally, I like the Andy Williams version best.
Sending you joy,
Andrew