This weekend was the Division III cross country national championship meet. Claudia Keep ’15 qualified for the meet with an 8^th place finish at the regional meet. The meet took place in Hanover, Indiana. Naturally, this called for a road trip.

Early Friday morning, 10 cross country athletes and one of our assistant coaches, Matt, piled into a van and set off for Indiana. The athletics department started a #CKeeprun hashtag and we proceeded to document our road trip through Twitter. Road trips, it turns out, are a great opportunity for napping and snacking, and as a result of this, practically every group photo we took includes someone asleep.

Exhibit A:

Sorry, guys.

The first day we drove through four states: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana. Most of the states looked pretty much the same: vast fields punctuated by quaint towns along what seemed to be an endless stretch of highway. We found ways to spice the 12 hour drive up; with sing alongs and interactive games of candy crush (who knew it was a team game?), but it was, in truth, an incredibly long drive.

We stopped in Indianapolis for the night at a team member’s aunt’s house (shout out to Geri), where the highlights were her warm hospitality and her dogs. Geri owns a yellow lab, but also trains service dogs; and when we visited was in the process of training a 21-month old yellow lab named Harmony. Harmony is energetic and affectionate, and both dogs proved to be the exact outlet that 10 college girls (and Matt) needed to unwind after the long day.

The next morning we headed out to the course, a 2 hour drive from Indianapolis. There were hordes of fans already there, decked out in their school’s colors. Some even arrived in full body paint, which on a windy day in Indiana was not the most comfortable attire. One team had even set up a teepee in a field directly across from the start. Spectating a cross country race is not for the unathletic. Because the race takes place over several miles of woods and fields, the spectators have to follow the athletes around the course, cutting corners to try and get to the next cheering spot before the runners. Which is a workout when you’re trying to beat some of the fastest collegiate athletes in the nation. Basically what happens is as soon as the runners pass you, you and hundreds of other running enthusiasts, covered in body paint, wearing ridiculous outfits and carrying flags, sprint across a field, hoping to get to the next part of the course before everyone else so you can get a spot right up against the fence to cheer. Then the runners pass by again and you sprint to the next spot. And this continues for approximately 20 minutes.

 

The other exciting thing about the meet was that I got to see not only Claudia run, but also my big sister, who runs for Williams College. She and her team ran to a second place finish overall, getting beat only by defending champions Johns Hopkins. Both Claudia and my sister had excellent races, and started practically next to each other, which was cool.

Once the race was over and we had said our congratulations, we got back on the road. The return trip was pretty rough. After getting stuck in standstill traffic—it took us two hours to go two miles—it started to snow rather heavily. This was exciting for my hellee, who is from California and had never seen snow before, but it was less exciting for the drivers. We made the best out of it, and played games to keep us entertained during the traffic jam, and I introduced my hellee to the art of rolling up snow and throwing it at people (as any good heller would).

Today we had a pop-up on campus (pop-ups are awesome). The whole student body got an email in the morning telling them that for an hour, there would be free Legos and we could build whatever we wanted. Also, the President would be there.

It was pretty cool. When I got there, there were 4 tables pretty much covered in Legos. Someone had thoughtfully built models of lanterns, owls, etc. for the more building-challenged of us to copy. All of my friends that I had harassed to come were there too, such as the lovely Hannah, pictured below.

Also, as promised, Kim Cassidy showed up. And when I say showed up, I mean it; she can build! Well, it was just some letters, but still. I struggled for a while trying to make a winged shoe to take with us to Nationals to be our mascot, but it pretty much failed. I ended up making a radish, a carrot, and a cucumber, which turned out pretty well, but when you think about it are kind of a weird choice to make, if you have all the Legos and possibilities in the world.

Other notable attendees were my coach and my bio professor. You would think that when the professors heard about this they would be like, “I can’t compete with fun, oh no!” but instead, they were like, “Yes! Legos!” and hung out with us and talked about their kids (and in some cases, actually brought their kids—it was adorable). My coach got really excited—you could practically see the 10-year-old Jason resurfacing—and made this super intense 3-D owl, which he’ll probably have in his office for years to come.

It was a really fun stress buster, especially in the middle of the final push to Thanksgiving break, but be on the lookout; you never know what will pop up next.

Also, since Beyonce is Mrs. Carter most of the time now, here is an amazingly photoshopped picture of her as Beyonce Carter (BC)

background photo by me, Beyonce photo from the internet (the gentlewoman)

Two weeks ago I had an amazing week, the type of week that makes it impossible not to smile. It was actually really luck that I had that week, because the next few weeks would hold a lot of stress for me, so it’s good for me to look back now and remember that feeling. It all started when I met with one of my favorite professors. She’s done a lot of the types of therapy and research that I hope to do one day, so it’s good that I asked her to be my major advisor. Maybe one day one of my journal articles will cite something she wrote. We’ve met several other times, but this meeting was particularly special – during this meeting, I declared as a psychology major. I’d been decided for a while, ever since this summer when I earned the opportunity to work at a vocational education facility for individuals with intellectual disorders. I worked with a variety of kids and teens with a wide range of disorders. It was one of the funnest summers I’ve ever had. It was also, however, a huge challenge. There was a steep learning curve for how to troubleshoot problems I ran across in the classroom. As most of the kids required one-on-one attention, I worked individually with a child for most of the day. This meant that I got to make an incredible bond with a few of the children. It also meant that I got to watch the development of a few select kids over the course of a summer under a particular behavioral plan. It was at this point that I realized my life dream. I don’t just want to carry these behavioral plans out; I want to write them. I’d like to write individualized therapy plans for clients from a very young age, but also do the research on therapy strategies, and write the guide to the therapies I put in the therapy plans. So I declared my major in psychology and set myself in a direction I can’t wait to go in.

I couldn’t keep a smile off my face for the rest of the week, but it wasn’t just because of declaring my major, because I have some other pretty exciting news………..I GOT A HELLEE!!!!! I was SO EXCITED, almost to the point of scaring her off. Almost, but not quite. She is the sweetest ever; she made a beautiful fortune cookie for me, and written on the fortune was her request for me to be her heller. It was as if the two best things about being a sophomore had happened in one week, but I know that the real best thing about being a sophomore will come in February, when I get to watch her do all the crazy tasks I think up for her.

Stress is a very real experience at Bryn Mawr. Everyone has that one semester, or for some it seems like a whole year, where they just can’t catch a break. When I was signing up for classes at the end of last year, my thought process went something like this: I’m not a first year anymore! I get to start in on the meaty stuff of my education; I’m going to take all of these classes that are really interesting and also really hard!

That was not one of my better ideas. When picking classes, it is always a good idea to ask yourself this question: what will I do if every single class has a major assignment due in the space of two days? This will undoubtedly happen at some point, because all professors are on some sort of super smart person ESP network. It feels incredibly overwhelming, and the only thing to do is head to the library. I don’t study in the library very often, but when I do, there’s either food, or I’m about to plow through a lot of homework.  And there’s never food in the library, because it might get on the books. So this past week I’ve had a lot of work. I was in the library until it closed one night (Carpenter closes at 8 some nights—it’s not that impressive).

Luckily for my social life, it’s more likely that I’ll close down the dining hall than the library. Because, after all, I’m a Mawrtyr. The reason why I was so excited to take hard classes this semester was because my freshman year professors were so awesome. The professors assign so much work because they know we can do it, or at least enough to learn what they’re trying to teach us. I finished my term paper with plenty of time to spare, and was so excited about what I was writing it on that my friends told me to stop telling them psychology fun facts. It all worked out.

I just hope I never have a semester like this one again.