For the past few days, there has been a strange noise in my hall. It sounds squeaky, but when I poke my head out of my room, the hallway is empty. Since it’s only been happening for a short while, I deduce that it must be due to Halloween. Perhaps, Rockefeller dorm is haunted. There are two options, it could be a haunting of Bryn Mawr, or it could be a Rockefeller-related ghost. Bryn Mawr legend (i.e. what a tour guide told me when I visited Bryn Mawr) has it that Rockefeller built this dorm for his niece so that she would go to Bryn Mawr. He even had all the doorknobs made a custom height, because she was very short, under 5 feet, and he wanted her to be comfortable here. Unfortunately, she did not end up attending Bryn Mawr, but fortunately, Bryn Mawr got a beautiful dorm out of the deal. The whole story has the feeling of possible bad blood, so there could be a ghost there. A cursory Google search doesn’t reveal any satisfactory ghost stories, so I am going to make up my own.

Once upon a time there was a young woman who attended Bryn Mawr College. In the spring of her sophomore year, she met a handsome man at a Princeton social. He was studying to be a lawyer, and she knew instantly that she had never met a more good-hearted man in her entire life. The love that blossomed between the two was as fierce as it was lasting. They sent love letters back and forth between their two campuses and visited each other as much as possible. They exchanged tokens of their love and spent much time together reading, walking along Rhoads pond, and even a few fabulous evenings at the symphony in the city. The young woman loved to look into the eyes of her beloved and hear her name on his lips. Whenever he visited, they always bid each other goodbye underneath Rockefeller arch, because legend had it that lovers who kissed under that arch would be together forever. When the two finally graduated, they quickly got engaged and set a date to be married. On the day of the wedding, the groom was travelling to the wedding by train, as he had been attending an interview at a prestigious law firm the day before. The time of the wedding came, and passed, but the groom did not show up. The bride was very worried, but she stayed strong because she had faith in her beloved; she knew that he would never desert her. They would be together forever.

Finally, a police officer showed up at the door of the chapel and asked for the parents of the groom. The train had been taken over by a gang of bandits who had robbed, beaten and shot many of the passengers on the train, including the groom. A bloodstained handkerchief, monogrammed with the initials of the bride, was the token that the officer had brought to the bereaved family. Hearing this, the bride fled from the room before anyone could stop her. Blinded by grief, she didn’t know where she was running, but she knew what the last words on her lips would be: “Together forever”.

To this day, the ghost of the brokenhearted young woman still haunts the place where she and her beloved made their promise, and her cries sound distinctly like the squeaky wheel of a hand truck.

Happy Halloween!

My fall break this year was a whirlwind. On Friday, I drove 6 ½ hours through traffic to go home to New England. I spent some quality time with my family and even more quality time the chocolate cheesecake cupcakes that my sister baked. On Wednesday, I drove 5 hours through less traffic to get back to Bryn Mawr. I spent some quality time with my team (kind of like an extended family) and even more quality time with the white chocolate chip pumpkin cookies that my teammate baked. There seems to be a pattern here.

Apple picking with my lovely team!
photo credits to Coach

On Friday, a week after my fall break began, I rode in a bus for 6 hours through traffic to go to New England for a cross country meet. It was the Seven Sisters meet, one of the biggest meets of our season. Seven Sisters is special because even though everyone has a different name on their singlet, we all cheer for each other during the race. After the race, all the teams get mixed up and we have lunch together. The food this year was phenomenal (lasagna and tiramisu for dessert) and the company was even better. My freshman year I met a girl who was also from Connecticut and had the same track coach as me. This year she made the All-Seven Sisters team. My sophomore year I got to sit next to one of my best friends from high school who goes to school over 300 miles away from me. This year, I met a girl from Ohio who taught me how to cheer like a Buckeye (you put your hand over your head like an O, then point them up to the sky for the “hi”, and then put them in an O again). Seven Sisters is a meet where you not only get closer to your own team, but to other teams as well.

photo credits to Matt

On Saturday, I rode in a bus for 5 ½ hours to come back to campus. I hope I don’t see another exit, toll booth, or construction zone until Thanksgiving.

This semester, I am taking a class at Villanova. I’ve found that not many Mawrters know that this is an option, but if you’re motivated, it is! I’m taking anatomy and physiology, which involves memorizing more things than I thought was possible to shove into your brain at once. So far, I really like Villanova. People are friendly, the professor is approachable (she told me that she liked my Eagles shirt on Friday, so she gets extra points).

It’s nice to get off campus for a little bit. Even though Villanova is just 5 minutes down the road, it’s a completely different place. There are many ways I can highlight this, but the best example happened on Friday. Walking out of class, I spotted an interesting event. There was an L.L. Bean sale in the middle of Villanova’s campus, complete with a car shaped like a Bean boot. Coats were being sold, a few students were participating in a Bean boot toss, and best of all, there was a golden retriever puppy. I don’t know where the puppy came from, but it was adorable. This would never happen at Bryn Mawr for two reasons. 1.) Half of the students would be like “excuse me, but what is a Bean boot?” Even though I, being from a small New England town, saw nothing but Bean boots all winter long, the large West Coast, Southern, and international population would be unenthused by a car shaped like a giant boot. 2.) Everyone would be too excited by the puppy to buy anything. If given the choice between petting a fluffy, adorable puppy and buying a practical coat for the coming winter, most people would choose the puppy. But this is how Villanova is different from Bryn Mawr.

Great news! Plenary was a SUCCESS!! And given recent Plenaries, I have very low standards for a successful Plenary. In fact, I only have 1 standard: in order for Plenary to be successful, we have to finish all of the resolutions. There were a lot of resolutions, because some of them had been waiting for a year to be heard. The important thing was, however, that all of the resolutions were heard. The other important thing was that, after 2 years of starving through Plenary, I finally remembered to bring a sandwich to eat in the lobby. That way I didn’t have to join the mad post-Plenary dash to Haffner, only to sit there and eat salad and ice cream until full dinner came out half an hour later. But no matter how proud I am of my food-remembering abilities, I am much prouder of my hellee, who passed her first Plenary resolution (YAYYY!!!) and all of SGA and the Plenary committee who kept an 11-resolution Plenary as efficient as possible.