Owl That And Mawr

It feels weird sometimes that I’ve gone from being a first-year to a senior. I’ve skipped over the sophomore slump, but at the same time, I feel like I’m feeling those feels just as hard as my 2017 friends. Did I forget how to school over the summer? Yep, I sure did. Everything is harder this year, from coming up with paper topics to getting out of bed. Sure, some of that is just senior stress, but a little of it is that whole not-a-special-first-year thing.

To reconcile these feelings with my extremely limited time at the mothership, I’ve started to just say yes to everything. Should I write this blog while I still have time? Yes. Should I go to as many events on campus as possible, even if they have literally nothing to do with my life? Yes.

Should I be a swinger at Lantern Night? Yes.

So I made my traditions mistresses aware of my desire to work my arm muscles until they twitched swinging my lantern to celebrate the Class of 2018. I don’t know many first-years, but I remember my own Lantern Night, and I wanted to be as involved as possible in making them feel the same sense of deep tradition and welcoming that I felt last year. I learned the words to Pallas Athena, even though it starts at notes I haven’t been able to hit since age 12. I stood next to one of my nearest and dearest, Miranda (Class of 2016), and I lit my dual-colored lantern with other Mawrters.

It was pretty magical, from the beautiful night sky to the complete lack of precipitation. The weather held, for what I’ve been told was the first time in four years. At Step Sing, which was significantly less full than it was on Parade Night, the McBrides enlisted the help of every class to sing our song, “Stand By Me.” We’re a small bunch anyway, but on Lantern Night, there was an especially little group. We’re pretty mighty, though, and we were yelling out those words like our lives depended on it. In all, a good night. Have any of my readers been swingers? What was your favorite part of Lantern Night?

It seems a little bit nuts that break is over in a few hours. I’m not ready! I told Twitter as much yesterday:

fall break can’t be over yet. i haven’t gotten through any full seasons of anything on netflix.

— jj thoman (@jjdactyl) October 18, 2014

I feel a little bit like a failure, because I didn’t demolish any full series, I only ordered takeout once, and I only went out for beers one time- and was home by 9:00 that night. Even my GRE experience was kind of anticlimactic. After a week of stressing out about it, and taking practice exams, and blocking out piles of time to recover, the exam came and went with very little fanfare.

I will say, though, that now it all feels kind of real. Prior to this week, I was approaching the process of applying to graduate programs with an, “I have lots of time, and of course I’m going to get in!” attitude. I don’t know where it came from, and that kind of weird confidence isn’t actually productive; feeling like it was a given was making it really hard to get anything actually done. Now that one of the biggest parts of the process is over, and I feel good enough about how I did that I’m not going to bother taking the exam a second time, it feels like…

I’m hoping that the fact that I’ve quit my off-campus job is going to help me get through the next two months in one piece. I didn’t really realize how much time I was spending with my brain only half devoted to academia, because of that job. It’s hard to see a problem when you’re knee-deep in it. Now that I’m on the other side, I feel like a giant, epic weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I know it seems silly, that my retail job was so much extra stress, but it was. Now that stress is gone, and even though it’s a bummer that I won’t get a discount on soap anymore, it feels worth it for the sanity that I might have regained.

Come back to me in two weeks, when November is here and all of a sudden I only have a month to finish my applications. That sanity may or may not still be around.

So far, this semester has brought just about the exact amount of stress that I was expecting. I may have thought my friends were exaggerating last year, when they complained about the overlapping deadlines in classes and thesis, and the ridiculous extra work that goes into applying to graduate programs…

Sorry if I doubted you to your faces, 2014. That was not cool. I am filled with regret, and the only thing making it better is the way my cat, Wilson, has decided to not remove himself from my lap for the duration of Fall Break.

Many of my friends are traveling this week, either to their homes or to awesome vacation spots (shoutout to Syona in Copenhagen!). I’m jealous, because I miss my parents and my sister a lot, and I miss seeing the Hudson Valley in the Fall. The way the Catskills look when the leaves are changing…truly, there is no place on Earth more beautiful. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have grown up in a place so gorgeous, with New York a quick ride on the Metro-North away, and more cider donuts than I could ever eat (not for lack of trying). I’m not there this week, though, because I still have work. No such thing as mid-October break when you’re working.

I think I’m managing to make the best of it! I scheduled an appointment to take the GRE on Friday morning, and the days and nights before then are filled with practice exams, thesis reading, and preparation for the following week. Don’t worry- I’m scheduling in some fun, too. On Tuesday, I’m meeting up with a friend to build a board game based on the Bryn Mawr bucket list, and on Saturday, I get to drink away the sorrow of my GRE experience.

It won’t be that bad. Maybe. Tell me about your standardized testing/grad school/lap cat experiences!

I can’t believe the first month of school is over. I’m not really sure how it happened so quickly, but it did, and here we are.

It’s been rough, but I also feel endlessly grateful to be a part of a community that has (mostly) banded together to actually make change. The demonstration was amazing, and affirming, but it was only the beginning. Today at Plenary folks actually showed up and used student power to pass some really important resolutions. I got misty when the recommendation to increase faculty diversity passed. The passion and commitment shown by so many in the community is really touching, and it makes me overwhelmingly proud to be a part of it in whatever small way I am.

One of the major things I’ve learned over the past few weeks involves self-care, and the way we talk about it at Bryn Mawr. I’ve always had a little bit of trouble with the “eat! sleep! drink water!” model of self-care. There’s this idea that you should be able to make the choices to actually get enough sleep, but for so many, that isn’t really a choice that exists. If I have three papers and a midterm and 200+ pages of reading, I’m going to be up pretty late, right? And if our model of self-care is what I’ve outlined, then totally irrational guilt and shame about not making the “smart” decision to sleep more get added to my stress pile. I’m not saying that sleep isn’t important (it is!), I’m just saying that sometimes self-care needs to take other forms.

One of my main outlets is Bikram, a style of yoga that privileges strength and focus over flow and flexibility. Each class is 90 minutes, heated to around 105 degrees, and extra humid. I’ve had a pretty dedicated practice for about four years, with occasional breaks when life has gotten in the way. I used to beat myself up about missing classes, to the point where I took about six months off because I was convinced that I couldn’t go back because my teachers would judge me for disappearing.

That’s ridiculous. Of course they didn’t. Over the summer, I was going to class twice a day, and told myself that I was going to try and continue through the semester. I have, but not every day. And that’s okay. Part of having a dedicated yoga practice, for me, is understanding that every day I make choices about how I treat my body, and sometimes those choices can’t include going to what ends up being, with commute, at least a two hour class. Sometimes, I need to eat, or play with my pets, or finish reading something, or call my mom. For me, self-care is about continuing to make the choices that meet my needs at any given moment, whether it’s the “healthiest” or not. This weekend, I went to New York to see one of my favorite bands, playing one of my favorite albums, with one of my favorite people. The trip was only around twelve hours, and I didn’t sleep enough, and I had a few (terrible, expensive) beers at the Hammerstein, but every single minute was worth it. I got to spend actual, real time with my best friend. I got to see, briefly, the skyline that moves me to tears every time I see it.

All this is to say, we don’t all have to do this whole self-care thing the same way. No one should make you feel like what works for you is inherently bad- it’s not. Sure, drink more water. Or don’t, if you hate drinking water. Get some sleep, if it’s not going to stress you out to have lost that time. Maybe you are one of those people who actually only needs four hours a night. Cool. I support your choices, Mawrters.

I’ve been feeling really connected to the McBrides for the last few weeks. One big reason is that the work that the EBoard has been doing has actually resulted in visible change for the community, in ways that feel affirming and important. Customs was an absolute blast, there are new cubbies in the lounge (replacing the giant, ugly lockers that used to dominate the space), and we actually put up legit useful bulletin boards in the beginning of the semester! There’s an info board that is actually being used for (you guessed it) information! Maybe that sounds like it’s a small thing, but last year it was a little like the boards had taken up residence on the Island of Misfit Toys. I think there was a Tiffin menu hung on one of them for most of Spring. I feel like the changes we’ve been making this year are going to be positive in the long-term, leaving a legacy for the next handful of McB’s to come through the Mawr.

One of the best things to happen this semester, though, has been the design and sale of the super cute t-shirts in this picture, being modeled by Pam and Syona.

Someone submitted the text on the shirt to last year’s college news wishue, and the McB’s were so tickled and touched and flattered and happy that we made the sentiment into a t-shirt. Also, I might have framed that little section of the news. It’s the little things, friends.

For the first time (as far as I know, alums correct me if I’m wrong!), we’re selling swag specifically for everyone else. The response has been overwhelming! We’re going to have to order another run of shirts. Sometimes we McB’s get a little down about our separate-but-not status on campus, and it feels really excellent to have so many students show us love. If you’re interested in a shirt, get in touch!

At the college welcome for the Class of 2018, Peaches and President Cassidy (#kcass) both made a point of saying that Admissions does not make mistakes. They called out that awful thing that every Mawrtyr thinks during especially hard exams or impossible papers, “I must have been the admissions mistake.”

Maybe the sentiment didn’t resonate with the Class of 2018 (and transfers and new McBrides!), but as I looked around the room at Customsfolks and DLT and assorted other stragglers, I could tell that something had struck a pretty serious chord. Maybe it was that all of us were being validated at the same time, in a really intense way. Or, ya know, maybe it was just me, and I was projecting my epic feels out onto everyone I saw…

I remember the first time I confronted my own “THEY WERE WRONG” mindset. It was during my Customs Week, last year. The giant crop of new McB’s was heading into Erdman to eat lunch, and I stayed behind to hit the bathroom. One of the McBride Traditions Mistresses was waiting with me, and we were trying to have a conversation in all of the noise and confusion and crowding that is Erd during Customs. It was probably not the best time for me to have asked this question, but I’d been thinking about it all day, and I couldn’t hold it in.

“So…admissions requirements for McBrides are different, right?”

After two days surrounded by students who were (in my mind) better, stronger, faster, I couldn’t really understand how I got in. I was definitely the fluke. That, or they were just taking anyone. Because that makes sense.

Noa kind of laughed, but then she looked straight into my face and said, “No. Admissions for us is the same as it is for them. You’re here because you belong here.” And then the bathroom was free, and the moment was over. It wasn’t a super emotional heart-to-heart, but that answer stuck with me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week, as I help to usher in a new McB cohort who are all probably thinking the same things I was last year.

I’m not immune to feeling like I’m not good (or whatever) enough to be at Bryn Mawr, for sure. It comes up a lot, especially when I’m waiting for papers to come back or for grades to post. It sure does help, though, to hear from the President that we’re all supposed to be here.

I recently posted a picture on my Facebook page of my Customs Week schedule. I think it might be a pretty good indication of what it’s going to be like for the rest of the year. I’m hoping to maybe perfect my ability to effectively time manage, but that’s probably asking for too much.

You know how on New Year’s Eve people make lists of the things they’re going to change as the year turns over? Resolutions, but also larger things, bigger goals about improving one’s life. I’m thinking that it might be useful to put a list like that here, so that I can make the most of my final year at the Mawr. Something to keep coming back to, like an epic to-do list of awesome. At the very least, it’ll feel good to cross off the small stuff. 

• Continue on this trend of going to Bikram (almost) every day.
• Keep my calendars updated.
• Actually make plans with friends. And keep those plans.
• Read and respond to every e-mail.
• Bring Wilson to campus.
• Remember to drink enough water.
• THESIS.

I know, it’s kind of boring. And short. I’ll add to it, and likely change some things. Feel free to call me on stuff, though- especially keeping plans and responding to e-mails. I’ve gotten a little out of touch this summer.

Speaking of calling me on things, if you see me around campus, say hi! I wanted to become a Banter Blogger for lots of reasons, but one of the big ones is McBride visibility. I’m around all the time, and though I’ve been told I’m intimidating, I refuse to believe it. I’m friendly! And I like friends. So say hi. Bright hair, big tattoos, very loud laugh that I can’t seem to control.

Legit intro post (who I am, where I’m from…) coming soon.

Welcome back, Bryn Mawr. <3