The tables have tabled. Last week I was feeling a little mopey despite there being several things to be happy about (eleven on my list), and this week I’m feeling pretty good despite there being fewer things on my list, but there have been several entries on my secret Tumblr where I note down all my random thoughts. They’re mostly about personal relationships, people saying hi, running into people on the way to class, a good conversation, and other small things like that about the people in my life who bring me joy–people that I’m not yet close enough to mention here, but working on growing a relationship with.

1. Free coffee with Vanessa on Monday morning! Such a great way to start the day/week off productively. She’s working with President KCass by conducting interviews with students “to get a better understanding of [our] experiences as Bryn Mawr student[s] [as] part of an effort to make the school an even better place for all students, current and future.” Just last week I was basically fangirling over her, so when she reached out to me this week, I was more than happy to help out. I wouldn’t have accepted the free coffee, but it was part of her budget, so who was I to refuse? She interviewed me over coffee at Uncommon Grounds, and that got the ball rolling for the rest of the day/week. I feel like I should do this more often, but also $$$.
2. I spoke up in both of my Wednesday classes, Intro to Semantics and Phonetics & Phonology. And this time, I got the answers right! I mean, I probably spoke for a total of a minute combined, so it’s nbd, but it’s still a step forward from two weeks ago. I’ll be giving in-class speeches in no time! lol jk. Slow and steady wins the race.
3. As I mentioned last week, I’m in charge of Tri-Co outreach for the Bryn Mawr Concert Series‘ Tri-Co Battle of the Bands. Last Sunday we planned out the whole timeline, so this week has been all about implementing it, first by preparing for our info session. At the info session this Saturday, six band representatives from Swarthmore came to our meeting, and two more emailed us saying they couldn’t make it but were interested. Unfortunately, no bands came to represent the Bi-Co (Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges) (although we do know that there’s at least one; he just didn’t show up to the info session). Last year was the first year of Tri-Co Battle of the Bands, and it only reached one band from Swarthmore (it’s the furthest away at 30 minutes; Bryn Mawr and Haverford are only 10 minutes apart), so I feel like I’ve done my job. I can’t take the credit though. My lovely Swarthmore Chavers were the ones sticking posters up around campus while I covered Swarthmore emails and newsletters.
4. Finally did my laundry, so now I have clothes to wear again. I do laundry so rarely that it feels like an event every time I get around to it. When was the last time I mentioned laundry on my blog? That was probably the last time I did it.
5. After the craziness of Hell Week (one of Bryn Mawr College’s most beloved traditions, but newly lamely renamed by the administration as Welcome the First-Years (WTF) Week), my Hell Family got together to go out into the city. There were many parts to this adventure.

• The SEPTA ride there: I’m always scheming up ways to avoid the ticketer, because SEPTA tickets are expensiveee. I’m a fan of NYC’s Metro. Anyways, the first plan was to travel in a big group (we travelled in a group of nine) so that the ticketer would be too lazy to individually check each of our tickets and would be satisfied if we flashed an Independence Pass (all-day pass) without checking the date punched on it, which means that we could reuse an old pass. But the SEPTA was feeling pretty calm, so there was a fat chance of that. For the next plan, Romy and I went all the way up to the front of the SEPTA, hoping that the ticketer wouldn’t reach us before we reached our station. There weren’t many free seats, so we sat next to a guy in a row of three. His friends were sitting in the row behind him. The guy next to us was trying to draw us into the conversation and asking about Old City, which I’m usually all for, but then he was really obnoxiously loud and went on to talk about about going to bars and picking up babes. What really moved me was when he described Philly’s skyline as “really sexy… like glass” (???) lol write a poem. But whatever, it’d be worth it to evade the ticketer right? Nah, the ticketer caught us a stop before our station. So close!!!
• We had planned to eat at Cheesecake Factory, but when we called in for a reservation, there was a three hour wait, so we ended up at Ruby Tuesday. I stuffed myself with a delicious Smokehouse Burger, but that didn’t curb my desire to get bubble tea from Chinatown, just a seventeen minute walk away, according to Google Maps. That left only just enough time to catch the SEPTA back to Bryn Mawr. So what did we do? We speed-walked. Romy, Claire, and I took the lead, lost the rest along the way, made it to Kungfu Tea five minutes before our train, ran down to reunite with the rest of the Hell Family at the station, and hopped onto the train just in time with bubble tea in hand. The night was a success.
• The SEPTA ride back: Romy, IJ, and I sat in seats facing each other, leaving one open seat, which was later taken by this old white guy from Princeton who was new to Philly and experimenting with public transportation. IJ invited him into our conversation (she’s great at talking to people on public transportation), which evolved into a riddle about his class tie (like a class ring but a class tie), which he was carrying in a large plastic bag of today’s newspapers. He gave us a copy of the The Daily Princetonian as a souvenir (for meeting him?).

I want to make an effort to remember the little joys in life, so my 52 week challenge for 2016 is to write weekly Happy Lists.

PS: 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.