Today was a
pretty excellent day. I got to sleep in late (until 9:30, which feels late
here!) and lounge around my room for a while. During this time, I finished
watching WALL•E, which I had been
inspired to re-watch (along with Ratatouille)
because of the lovely Pixar stamps my father has been sending to me. Goodness
me, I love Pixar. They make such charming movies (although Up obviously remains the best). Then I had lunch with my roommate,
where she said this:
"I don't know why anyone wouldn't
want to eat vegetables! They're so colorful!
That's how we should convince children
to eat their vegetables—‘they'll make your plate pretty!’”
which made
me extremely happy and where we decided that too much of our amazing language
is neglected in everyday speech and writing, so we’re going to fight a losing
battle here and add to our vocabularies. Each week, we’re going to pick one
archaic word, write it on our whiteboard, and then use it as often as possible
that week (and after, of course!). This week’s word is cosmogyral:
our whiteboard, beautifully decorated with the word of the
week
(By the way, I just discovered today that, if you click on
any of the pictures in my blog, they will become much larger! Unfortunately,
they will also navigate you away from the blog, so be prepared to open the
picture in a new tab/window or to press “back.” Now you can see my pictures in
all of their large glory!)
Even more excitingly, at lunch I discovered (once again) that my
college is adorable, and knows how to celebrate the important holidays! Today was apparently “National Ice Cream Cone Day,”
so my college duly ordered much ice cream and many cones and set up an entire
station with toppings available. The toppings were perhaps my favorite part,
because they had ground nuts (eww!), fall leaf-shaped sprinkles, and a mix of
blue and orange (Mac colors) sprinkles. So cute!
my delicious Mac strawberry ice cream cone.
After lunch,
I went to my first real day of lab
(last week was the official first day, but all we did was an incredibly—and I
mean incredibly; remember those “how to make a peanut butter sandwich” projects
they have fifth graders do?—detailed Excel lab. “1. Grab a comfy seat at one of
the Chemistry Computer lab’s Mac computers…”) with my excellent lab partner,
Keo. Then we acquired another excellent lab partner—Rachel—and began our lab. The
lab project was to develop a system for separating toxic ions out of nitrate
solutions so that they could be disposed of properly and then to test it on an
unknown. We did so successfully and were able to leave lab extra early, even
with all of the administrative things that must happen on the first day of lab,
like getting goggles and checking out a lab drawer. “A lab drawer‽” you ask.
Indeed! We had to “check in” to a lab drawer in the same way we have to check
in to our dorm rooms at the beginning of the year—fill out a form saying that
we have everything and it’s in good shape and then sign it, so that if we break
anything, they can charge us at the end of the year. This fancy drawer has all
of the lab equipment we’ll be using—beaker and test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks
and more!—so it also locks. And I am now the official Keeper of the Keys! I
feel like I should get one of those giant key rings and then carry it around
with me so that I look cool.
After lab,
Keo and I hung out in her room with her roommate, Emma, where we had tea—delicious
cheese from the nearby cheese store that Keo deigned to share with me(!) and
crackers and Milanos that I brought to make it a party. It was all very
exciting, and after tea we just hung out in the room, avoiding our insistent
homework demands. Actually, Emma was working, but I was watching Keo try on
scarves and decide whether she looked “chic Jewish” or “orthodox Jewish.”
Then I sadly
returned to my room to work, where I successfully avoided work until dinner.
And then after dinner. Although I did go on a scavenger hunt for a video for my
French class! It was not an intentional
scavenger hunt, you understand. I had previously looked up the movie in the
library catalog, and was told that it was located in “Media Reserves.” So, this
evening, I walked into the library and went up to the desk that said “RESERVES”
above it, where I was told that no such movie existed. Baffled, I insisted that
it did, and it eventually came out that there is something else called Media Reserves that lives halfway across
campus from the library. So I trekked there (uphill both ways and in the snow)
and up to the third floor, only to discover that they lock the third floor (on
the side closest to EVERYTHING ELSE ON CAMPUS) at 4:30 and only leave the other
side open later. So I walked back down and around the building over to the
stairs that actually worked, walked through the entire third floor, and…still couldn’t
find this elusive media reserves!! So, eventually, I asked someone, who told me
that media reserves are actually on the fourth
floor, so I walked back across the building, climbed the stairs, and FINALLY
reached my destination! Phew! After which I walked back to my room, continued
to mess around with my blog instead of doing my homework, and then wrote this.
It is now rather late, and I must get some homework done if I would like to
sleep at all tonight.
À bientôt!
P.S. I completely love having a whiteboard on our door. This is yesterday's whiteboard (sorry the picture is so dark):
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