rt7's blog

A lot (maybe all) of my posts so far have been about my quarantined life at Williams during a time of a global pandemic. Which is what I attempted to highlight, but it’s easy to forget that there is so much more happening outside in the world. During the fall semester, sometimes I would catch myself slipping into the purple bubble and tried to climb back out by carving out time to read the news or call my friends in different parts of the world. But with COVID-19 dominating the headlines and being stuck on campus with not too many other people, I ended up not taking notice to the events happening all around in the background. Now that I look around, so much is happening. I’m privileged to live a life where events like these didn’t really interfere with my learning during the semester, but now that I have the mental capacity to be sad and angry and disappointed at the world, I will do my best to learn and help as much as I can.

I’ve been reflecting a lot today on my first year at Williams. I’ve said it again and again but, what a wild ride huh? There was a Record article looking back at all of the major events that the senior class went through, starting with Trump’s inauguration and ending with a global pandemic. Class of 2020 went through a lot too but to start off college with a pandemic? Next level.

In the moment, it seemed like it was all me handling all the challenges that the world shoved onto me. But when I thought about it, I couldn’t have done it with everyone else. The professors who adapted their curriculum for remote learning and were understanding of late submissions, the dining staff who would deliver meals to dorms, custodians who continued to take care of the buildings, friends and family who supported me in every way possible. Covid-19 may have brought out the worst in humans (saving lives as a partisan issue?), but it also brought out the best 🥰 Although the negative dominates the news and our minds, I think it’s healthy and important to remember the positives as well 🙂

It is officially hot enough to sweat outside. Wow. To think that it was snowing(!) a couple of weeks ago is unfathomable. But it is indeed summertime, and as a result of the inescapable heat, I treated myself to my fourth Lickety ice cream in five days #supportinglocalbusinesses.

I’m going to be working on a programming project this summer with some other students, so I started preparing for that since it starts next week. Kinda crazy to start thinking of work again, but it’s Williams so the #grind #dont #stop y’know. It seems like almost everyone else on campus is going to be doing some sort of remote project / internship, so it’s nice to be in that sort of environment. Some are moving dorms in a couple of days (not me luckily) but after that, we’ll all be improving ourselves in some way! Or recovering from a stressful semester, which is also very valid. I think I’m gonna go up Stone Hill again tomorrow to take another break, and slowly ease myself into a semi-productive state that should last me through summer.

It’s officially summer! To start things off on the right foot, I woke up at (gasp) 9 am! After cutting my hair and getting breakfast, my friend asked if I wanted to go on a walk to “the meadows.” I didn’t know where “the meadows” were, but of course I said yes! It turned out to be half an hour walk all the way north past Mission Park, almost veering into Vermont. It was an almost-too-hot day so we were sweating a little by the time we came back, but it was well worth the mental break. Later, I decided to get ice cream (again) and threw a frisbee around. In the moment it’s nice to not think about anything, but once I pause and let my thoughts take over, I’m thinking about my plans for the rest of the summer and fall semester and beyond again. You’re killing me Maud! But for now, I will do my best to keep head empty and enjoy the weather while it lasts.

It’s here folks. I am done. Done done done done with freshman year! What a wild ride it’s been. I’m currently in Sawyer but can’t really celebrate because some of my friends are still taking their finals, but we’ll all be done by Wednesday-ish! I’m gonna take a break tomorrow and figure out my plan for this week, and sometime this week I’ll figure out my plan for the rest of the summer. I very much need to rest right now though will reflect more later.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I have three essays to do by tonight and I also have an exam tomorrow but at least after that it’s over? I forgot how stressful finals weeks were looks like not much is changing with online P/F classes. We. will. get. through. thissss

Willytown’s one and only ice cream shop is back up and running! It was open until 9 PM, so I waited until after dinner to grab some. Surprisingly, there was a decent line up the ramps to the window, and so I waited around ~5 minutes. It seemed to be a mix of on campus students, off campus students, and locals which is not so great, but we were all 6 feet apart and wearing masks so I guess that’s better. After asking around for flavor recommendations, I got three unanimous votes for Cookie Combustion and let me tell you, it lived up to the hype. I think this was my first real non-Mission ice cream since last fall when Lickety went into hibernation, so it tasted amazing. The weather has been absolutely perfect the last couple of days and will be for some more, so I’ll be heading back to get another scoop soon!

Looks like I’m officially going to be spending a couple more months in Sage! Everyone on campus got an email from our favorite housing coordinator Doug, on housing plans for the summer. Apparently 2/3 of students are staying for at least some portion of the summer, which translates to ~70. A couple of people are moving out of Sage, and couple more are moving in to replace them! The email said they’ll continue to provide everyone with their private rooms and bathrooms, but it seemed like a lot of people were assigned to Hubbell despite it being quite small. Maybe they have private bathrooms in there? But nonetheless, moving everyone on the same day to locations where they’ll have to interact with each other might not be the safest method. Maybe they’ll reconsider it so the moving in days are more spread out. #thankful for not having to move again tho!

My Philosophy midterm was three 1000~1200 word essays within 24 hours. I usually take a couple hours to write one 400 word essay so as you might imagine, it took me the whole 24 hours to finish. I didn’t sleep during that time. This was right after spring break as well, so a rough transition to say the least… Our finals was supposed to be the same format, but it wasn’t released the day it was supposed to. The next day, he sent us an email saying that he was gonna shorten the exam to three 500~900 word essays within 72 hours! You cannot fathom the amount of stress off my shoulders. I’m super thankful for him understanding our situation, and I hope to knock these bad boys out one after another so I have time to prepare for my final(!) final exam which is on Sunday!

At 15:31 EST, Maud sent a community wide email about the model for the academic year starting next fall. In a surprising turn of events, none were the options listed in the memo from last week. On paper, the changes are: three classes per semester (regular-length semesters on a normal schedule) and no Winter Study (😢) This is gonna be regardless of whether it’s online or on campus. Understandably, a lot of my friends are disappointed that there’s no Winter Study. But if that means we get to stay on campus, hell yeah! It seems like the school is trying everything to make sure we get to come on campus, because too many people will take a gap semester(s) if it isn’t, myself included. I have a feeling if we are on campus most of us will end up taking the normal four courses though, but who knows? Guess we gotta wait another month or so to find out if we will reconvene in Willytown (please let us).