My Mondays begin earlier than most people’s do, because I wake up early to run at 6:45. Despite this fact, I had one of my favorite Mondays this week. It started with practice at the track, which was fun because instead of just running in circles for an hour, I ran in straight lines while jumping over things. For those of you who have a little bit of knowledge about track, I’m referring to hurdling. I had my first hurdling practice, and even though I was a little rusty, it was a very encouraging practice. It wasn’t just because of what I was doing that made it a good practice, however. At a track practice there are a lot of different things going on because everyone runs something different. And then there’s field, but that’s a whole different story.

On this particular morning, we had the distance runners running a long interval workout, which made them kind of like the rhythm behind the whole show. Every so often, I’d hear my teammates cheering, and I’d look up to see them urging the distance crew on, or the distance crew urging the rest of us on as they passed. Then we had the sprinters, who I had joined for the day, doing a variety of different drills. My favorite one was when we practiced relay handoffs. The handoff is the most important part of the relay: if your teammate doesn’t get the baton, the whole thing falls apart (as we know all too well from the 2008 Olympics)

source: sfgate.com

It’s a fun thing to do in practice because there is less pressure, but also because you get to hang out with your teammates a little more; it’s like the communal part of track. Despite the fact that we were in the middle of the track passing a stick around, we weren’t the loudest group by far. That award went to my coach, who had joined in with the mid distance runners on the last part of their workout. Near the end of a workout, if it hasn’t been too grueling, trackies like to have some fun and do what we do best—race. My coach decided that he not only wanted to join in on the last few reps, but also narrate the whole 100 meter “race” for the rest of the team to hear. It ended up coming out pretty breathless, since my teammates were giving him a run for his money, they even beat him on the last rep, a ruling that held, despite his claims that they false started.

This isn’t where track ends, however. Later in the day, we had a lift, which my coach decided would be fun. Unfortunately, my coach’s definition of fun is playing pass with weighted med balls. Trackies aren’t known for their superior aim. The lift, while being successful in making my quads very sore as I’m writing this, also succeeded in creating one of the funniest scenes all week. Just picture 25 rather clumsy women with not the best arm strength in the world trying not only to throw a 20 pound ball to each other, but also catch the wayward tosses from their teammates. It was as much of an exercise in teambuilding as is was for our bodies, and both came out stronger—just in time for Championships.

source: athletics.brynmawr.edu

Today, Bryn Mawr named Kim Cassidy (affectionately known as K-Sass, K-Cass, and a variety of other creative nicknames) as the 9^th President of the college. My first reaction to this news was: yess!! I really wanted her to get it! My second reaction was: wait, Bryn Mawr has only had 9 presidents? The college has been around since 1885, or 129 years. That means that up until President Cassidy took office after the 2012-2013 school year, each president served an average of 16 years. The longest term served is a tie between Presidents M. Carey Thomas (1894-1922) and Katherine McBride (1942-1970). Both presidents were at the helm for 28 years. This isn’t your President of the US 4-year term (unless you’re FDR), this is a long-term commitment.

When I think about this, and the commitment that President Cassidy is making to the college, it makes me think of my own relationship with the college. I’m not just a Mawrter for the 4 years I study here; I’m a Mawter for much longer after that. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be. When you stand in Thomas and look at the portraits of all the Presidents of the college, you see lots of strong, smart women. Many other colleges didn’t have female presidents in the 1800s. When women at those colleges look at the portraits of people important to their college, they see much less women than I do. And even though it doesn’t consciously affect me, it’s much easier to feel like I belong when I’m surrounded by other women than if I were surrounded by a bunch of old guys.

Back in the present day, to when President Cassidy is setting her own portrait appointment (do they still do that?), I am very excited to spend the rest of my days at Bryn Mawr under her leadership. She is a Swarthmore graduate, so she understands the Tri-Co life, but more relevant to me, she is a psychologist and an athlete. I am an aspiring psychologist and a student-athlete. She has been very welcoming to the athletic community at Bryn Mawr. She participates in the BMC community relay challenge, an event put on by the swim team to raise money and awareness for breast cancer. She probably won’t brag about this, but she is always on the winning relay team. She also invited athletes over to her house for a dinner (I talked about it in this post). As a psychology major, I have actually learned about some of her research projects in my classes, and will not be surprised if I stumble over a citation of her work in one of my textbooks.

Overall, President Cassidy seems to be a true Mawrter in that she knows what is important to us (to read some of her thoughts on her view of Bryn Mawr, read her blog) . She also knows what is best for Mawrters. It seems that President Cassidy is one of our biggest advocates when it comes to having fun. She is involved with many events aimed to let us take breaks from studying and enjoy the wonderful community that exists at Bryn Mawr with events such as the upcoming Valentine’s tea, or the various pop-ups that have sprung up on campus recently (for more on pop-ups and K-Sass, read this post). In short, I’m glad to have Kim Cassidy at the helm; congrats, K-Sass!

It’s been a rough winter in Bryn Mawr. Even as a New Englander, I’m impressed with the amount of snow that we’ve gotten. We’ve had several snow days, but one of the worst weather days was on Wednesday. Early Wednesday morning, a half inch of ice covered the 8 inches of snow that were already on the ground. This caused all sorts of mayhem around campus; slippery roads an paths, falling tree limbs, and perhaps the most devastating, several headless snowmen.

Classes were cancelled, and around 12:30 almost all of campus was gathered in the dining hall for lunch. I was microwaving my hot chocolate when the microwave sputtered and died. The lights went out. It was as if eight people had dropped dishes at once. There was the customary beat of silence, and then everyone started talking excitedly. There were even a few shrieks. Luckily, the backup generator came on soon afterward, powering a third of the dorm and keeping the heat and emergency lights on in the rest of the dorm.

I didn’t have lights in my room, but at least I had heat. Unfortunately, when I turned on my computer, I was presented with this notification:

While the dinosaur is cute, I was not impressed. It turns out, a snow day without Wi-Fi is super boring. Even more so when it’s a blackout and you can’t read past 5:30. The upside was that Erdman, which is usually the least social dorm, turned into one of the most social dorms, as everyone huddled around the one hallway outlet that was still working. Later in the night, we found out that there were about 10 square feet of Wi-Fi right in the doorway of the dorm, and though it was a drafty place to be, we all agreed that the access to humanity was worth it. It turns out that an ice apocalypse brings out the best in Mawrtyrs.

Luckily, movie-watching is something that is supposed to be done in the dark, and I had just enough charge left in my laptop for a Mulan viewing before we went to bed, hoping we would wake up without the roar of the generator.

The Erdman residents did not wake with power, although a few lucky dorms did. I was only a little bitter. After breakfast and brushing my teeth by lantern-light one last time, the power came back on just in time for me to check my Facebook before heading to class.

Hopefully, the next snowstorm/ice-apocalypse (scheduled for Monday) will not bring as many difficulties as the last one.