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.

This week, I interviewed my friend Elsie, who has just spent the past semester studying abroad in Paris. She had an amazing time and a lot of entertaining stories to tell me.

Ever since she’s been back, Elsie can’t stop talking about the Parisian food. She learned that the French have a very different attitude toward food and eating than do Americans—specifically that they eat less than Americans; that they simply eat to survive, not to indulge. Comparing this to my attitude toward food; that I eat when I’m bored, I think that I would benefit from a trip to Paris. During our conversation, Elsie described to me a typical food day in Paris.

Breakfast: cappuccino and a piece of baguette

Lunch: baguette sandwich

Dinner: croissant, salad, wine and cheese

all photos taken by Elsie Chung

Now compare this to a typical food day in the American life of Marissa, such as today:

Breakfast: chocolate strawberry waffle and coffee

Lunch: garlic knots, pineapple, orange, chocolate chip cookies

Dinner: pasta with meat sauce, rice, a giant slice of cheese bread, chocolate milk and ice cream

This isn’t to say that Elsie didn’t try to have a typical American meal every now and then. One day, she saw a sign advertising a restaurant that served GIANT burgers. Naturally, she headed straight to that restaurant to get her hands on that burger. When she arrived, she was presented with two choices: regular GIANT burger, or larger GIANT burger. Since she was already ordering a giant burger, shoe chose the regular. When her order was up, Elsie was so excited to have a GIANT burger full of beefy goodness. She opened the box however, and there was a tiny burger. To someone who had been expecting a GIANT burger, it seemed like a slider. She finished the burger in two bites and never returned.

When she wasn’t out hunting burgers or in class, Elsie was travelling through Europe. All in all, she visited six countries other than France. Her favorite city was Rome, mostly because it was warm and had cheap, delicious food. Her assessment of the other Italian city she visited was less than stellar, however. Elsie did not like Milan because it was dark and grey; “an uglier version of Paris” although everyone there was very well dressed (including Elsie).

One of the most stressful parts of her visit came when she was visiting Amsterdam. She had planned to spend a day there and then return to Paris. However, by the time she got there it was the end of her week long break and she was tired from the other cities she had visited. After travelling around the city in a fatigued haze, she realized that she had to hurry to catch the bus to Paris or she would miss it. She rushed through Amsterdam to the bus stop and barely made it on time. When the conductor looked at her ticket however, he informed her that they were for the next day. Elsie ended up spending the night in Amsterdam and next day, better rested, found that it is a very charming city full of friendly people.

Obviously, one of the things that Elsie was most excited about were her classes. A French and Political Science double major, she took her political science classes in French. A typical Bryn Mawrtyr, she found that the extra challenge of taking classes in her non-native language made them more fun and engaging.  One of the most interesting classes that she took was a class about the Holocaust. The class was actually taught in a building in Paris that had been occupied by the Nazis. This made the topic more present than it was when she studied it in America. She found that the topic was more personal to the European students because what they were learning about had actually happened in their backyards. This meant that the topic was treated differently and made it a very interesting experience.

In Elsie’s own words, her semester abroad made her “realize that there are so many interesting people in this world and [she] really enjoyed meeting all of them because everyone has such great stories to tell”.

This winter break I stayed in Connecticut. My sister did not. She visited California, but had forgotten to bring warm weather clothes home from school so she stole all of mine. I’m not bitter at all.

Christmas was fun; I got Despicable Me 2, a minion shirt, a minion stuffed animal and a minion tree ornament. My family knows me too well, and luckily they don’t judge me for being overly obsessed with a children’s movie.

While in Connecticut, I got the opportunity to volunteer at a preschool in my town. I spent six hours a day keeping 15 germ factories from throwing sand and drawing on tables. On the other hand, they were the most adorable kids I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, despite the fact that I am a little nervous around kids.

Most of the rest of my break consisted of decompressing after a long semester and catching up on sleep.  I visited Mawrtyrs and we complained about how we weren’t on campus and wished we were. I visited friends from high school and we caught each other up on stories from our semester and made sugar cookies.

The thing that is great about winter vacation is that it is supposed to be restful; I feel like I’m supposed to relax and spend time with my family and friends and don’t feel pressured to be doing resume-changing activities. It was a great time to get caught up on Netflix, watch the Golden Globes and fall in love with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and resent the fact that Bryn Mawr got more snow than my hometown did. The last point was actually a good thing; it is much easier to run in the bitter cold and wind than through the snow. It’s like running on the beach because your feet slide backward with every forward step, but much colder. Luckily for me, I had snow-free streets and a stationary bike from the 80’s in my basement, so my track season is safe.

Although break was restful, I’m now back on campus and excited for a new semester, especially with Hell Week right around the corner.

This week we had our first real snowfall, something that is always fun to be on campus for because all of the Californians who have never seen snow are so excited, and also confused. My friend and I were in Philly, going Christmas shopping, so we headed over on the SEPTA with all of the Eagles fans who were going to see the Eagles/Lions game (the game was interesting; it’s hard to play football in several inches of snow). The snow in the city was fierce, and after a delicious lunch of pizza (pictured), we decided to head home.

This involved a stop at Insomnia Cookies, since we passed right by the shop and the snow was coming down pretty fast. Most people in the city weren’t super excited about the snow; we passed a man on a bike letting out a few choice words, but there were the occasional college students sliding down the sidewalks though the drifts, clearly just as excited as we were.

That night we had our cross country banquet, to which Coach brought a chocolate fondue and many running-related jokes. That night, I also got another hellee!! Or, I should say, my hellee got a hell sister! I was dragged out of my study hole to the library, where a Christmas tree was set up in Taft with gifts under it and Christmas music playing. It was very exciting and my hellees are in for a great hell week!

Then on Tuesday, when it snowed again, I took my hellee sledding for the first time (she’s from California so hasn’t had the pleasure). We showed up to our Spanish class covered in snow and rosy-cheeked, and I think my professor was pretty jealous. The snow day wrapped up when we returned to the hills of Bryn Mawr to make snow angels, sled, and have a pretty intense snowball fight.

This weekend I went home for Thanksgiving. Since my parents love to see that I actually have friends, I brought two friends home who live too far away to go to their own homes for Thanksgiving, and my sister did the same. The end result was that my poor brother was stuck with 5 girls for the weekend.

While Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday, it does mean that my favorite holidays, Christmas Eve and Day, are approaching, so I was feeling appropriately festive. Thanksgiving morning started off like any typical vacation morning: I rode on a stationary bike while watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and then did a brutal core set with my friend from the team, my sister, and her friend. My mom took a lot of pictures, and even a video of my dog freaking out at us (with my sister and me gone, he isn’t used to seeing people working out). Then I took my friends to see the beach. This isn’t as exciting as it sounds—a beach in New England in November is pretty cold and windy. But it is pretty; see below.

Finally it was time for the main event—cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone in the house had to make at least one dish, and I make the same one every year. Here is the recipe:

Marissa’s Holiday Ambrosia

Ingredients:

1 can pineapples (tidbits or rings, it doesn’t matter; tidbits are less work though)

2 cans mandarin oranges

1 jar maraschino cherries

1 bag mini marshmallows

Vanilla yogurt

Cool whip

Directions:

Cut the fruit into bite-size pieces. This usually means slice the oranges and cherries in half, and cut up the pineapple rings. Mix oranges and pineapples, but keep the cherries separate. Set aside. To make the sauce, mix equal parts vanilla yogurt and cool whip. It is important to not put too much cool whip in the sauce because the tartness of the yogurt balances out the sweetness of the rest of the ingredients.

Approximately 20 minutes before serving, mix the oranges, pineapples, cherries and marshmallows together. Don’t use the whole bag of marshmallows; it should be equal parts pineapple, orange and marshmallows and slightly fewer cherries. Add sauce until the fruit and marshmallows are completely coated. Keep in the refrigerator until serving.

This dish is the only dish we serve at Thanksgiving that consistently is finished every time.  I take full credit.

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.