It feels like two weeks have passed, but it’s only been one! This past week was packed. I’ve been saying yes to almost everything, including meeting up with friends, eating out, and going to events, because I figured that even though I could use that time for productivity, I probably wouldn’t, and in fact, filling up my schedule would most likely inspire me to be more productive with the time I had left. Which turned out to be true. But I think I went a little overboard with the fun and the treating myself, and will have to scale back a little to find a happy medium.
Sunday
Kicked off the week at Hothouse Coffee with a honey lavender latte. I spent almost all day there and hung out with three different groups of people. First I met up with Mimi and Yasmine to work on our Human Computer Interaction group project. Next Georgina came over and we co-worked. Then Stephanie arrived to work with her project partner, and sat at the table next to me and Georgina. Stephanie also came with bubble tea for me, as she had gotten in from Chinatown previously :’)
Whilst working at Hothouse, I got a lot of planning done for Her Campus Bryn Mawr:
- I found two team members to take over my role as Campus Correspondent to keep our chapter running next year, as I’ll have graduated. I’m so happy with the two people I chose; they’re two of the most reliable members in our chapter, so it means a lot to me that they’re willing to commit to the responsibility.
- Our chapter got accepted for the partnership between Her Campus and Echosmith!! You might know their song “Cool Kids,” and lately I’ve also been loving “Over My Head.” Echosmith’s band rep is reserving two tickets at every concert for Her Campus chapters, and Her Campus Bryn Mawr claimed the tickets for the Philly concert. I’ll be going with my friend Victoria on April 27, and we’ll be promoting, attending, and covering the concert.
- Our chapter is also participating in a partnership between Her Campus and Bliss! The products finally arrived at my apartment this week. We got 300 minis and two full-sized versions of their lemon & sage body butter and their “drench & quench” (as in 302 of each). I’m especially looking forward to trying out their “drench & quench,” which is a “cream-to-water hydrator for all day moisture.”
Monday
After meaning to do so for weeks, Rachel and I finally caught up over dinner at Goldie in Penn’s new food hall. When the food hall first opened at the beginning of March, the lines were crazy, especially for Goldie. Everyone was raving about their tehina shake. I finally got to try Goldie for myself, and a month after opening, there was no crazy line in sight! I got a falafel pita sandwich with harissa tehina, and a turkish coffee tehina shake. The pita sandwich was so good; the tehina shake is an acquired taste I think. The cashier at Goldie was so lovely. He was so excited to tell me about all the different sauces! I tipped him even though I typically only tip at sit-down restaurants.
In the evening, I finally got started on my Theory of Computation problem set, which was due the next day. I usually finish my problem sets before the weekend starts, but this one was so difficult. I waited for my friend to get back from our professor’s office hours, and then we talked it out together. When it got around to having to actually write out my problem set, I was having difficulty finding motivation, so I found something on Netflix to get me going, and then switched to listening to music once I got through the mindless part of the write-up and had to start thinking again.
The Netflix show I found was Great British Menu. Not as great as The Great British Bake Off, but I’m still into it.
Tuesday
I can’t remember anything that happened on Tuesday. All I know is that I wrote in my Notes app that I passed out at 10PM and woke up at 1AM. (I went back to sleep.) Must have been a hell of a day. RIP.
Wednesday
Kicked off the day with a morning coffee date with Ariane at Green Engine Coffee. The last time I saw her was in Paris over summer break, so it was really good seeing her again! (She’s in grad school in the UK.)
After coffee, I headed to my second aerial silks class! By now I’ve learned the figurehead, titanic, gazelle, and side lean positions from the footlock, the straddle, knee hook, chair, and airplane positions from the backpack, and how to climb. (For sentences like these, I wish English had the different commas like Chinese does, i.e. “、” and “，”: I’ve learned the figurehead、titanic、gazelle、and side lean positions from the footlock，the straddle、knee hook、chair、and airplane positions from the backpack，and how to climb. I like to think of the “、” as a mini comma.) Anyways, those words probably mean nothing to you, but I just wanted to keep track of it for myself. But just looking at quantity, I think I’ve covered quite a bit within my first two lessons of aerial silks! I wasn’t sore after my first lesson, but I was super sore the day after this week’s lesson. I think it was because I finally got the hang of rewrapping my foot (with the silk) for climbing (the silk), which meant that I climbed all the way up and down the silk twice this time, which killed me, whereas I only climbed partially up and down the silk twice the first time (I made, like, three crawls haha).
After aerial silks was my meeting with the theatre department, as I’m their “digital marketer,” though I’m really just more of a designer. The play they’re showing this semester is Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn. I started experimenting with a new variation of designs that morning whilst waiting for Ariane to arrive (I went to Green Engine an hour early), showed them the variation at the meeting, and they loved it so much that they decided to go with that as their main design over the previous designs they selected, and use the previous design as an accompanying “series” if you will. All in a morning’s work! I’m just glad that they liked it. I’m always paranoid that I don’t measure up to people’s expectations…
Thursday
Had Senior Dinner at the President’s house! The best part of the dinner was the cheesy mashed potatoes, but the best part of the night was after the dinner. As Georgina, Victoria, and I left the President’s house and were walking back to Georgina’s room, we passed Goodhart (a building on campus) and thought that it’d be a good place to do a mini photoshoot since we were all dressed up. We got some cute shots, some ridiculous shots, and some scary shots. My stomach hurt so much from laughing! Later that evening, I saw on Facebook that other people had also done mini photoshoots with their friends at Goodhart.
When I got back to my apartment, I found that the theatre department had emailed me, needing me to design their programs by the next morning, even though they had originally told me that they didn’t need it until the end of the weekend. So I stayed up to create the programs. It was chill though.
Friday
I skipped my 9:00AM-10:30AM class for the first time and slept in until 11:00AM–I planned it! Then with what little I had left of the day (as I had evening plans), I scrammed to get a ton of work done for my Digital Cultures class (I’m now a week ahead on readings, and I ticked off two response papers and a one longer paper).
Finally it came time to leave my apartment. First thing to do was grab dinner with Victoria. But it turned out that both campus dining halls had already closed (curse dining halls closing early on Fridays!). Neither of us had cash or card on us, so we couldn’t order delivery. We had Venmo, but nobody takes Venmo. Then we had the brilliant idea to go to Starbucks, because we had the Starbucks app on our phones. I had $10.09 left. Victoria checked her card and realised that she had recently gone through it, and had also recently changed her card information, so she couldn’t recharge it at the moment. So the two of us worked with the $10.09 on my Starbucks card. We shared a turkey pesto panini and a loaf of banana bread, which came to $9.96. It was a glorious meal and well-earned.
And then for the main event: the free Aminé concert on campus, hosted by the Bryn Mawr concert Series! At first I wasn’t sure about going to the concert, because I didn’t get very much school work done on Wednesday or Thursday, I’m not super into his type of music, and I knew there’d be hella people (I mean, it was free!). But in the end, I decided to go because I figured… it’s senior year and I might as well do dumb college things. Plus, a small college like ours doesn’t often get big artists like him. My friends and I ended up waiting in line for over two hours, but at least the weather was really nice. We also saw a dude snorting coke outside whilst waiting in line so that was fun. Anyways, we finally got in and it was so packed. Everyone was pressed up against each other and it was so hot! But Aminé had such great energy and intensity, so it was a good time.
After the concert, my friends and I were totally exhausted and feeling nasty from pressing up against random sweaty people. We decided that this called for milkshakes from Campus Corner. Our delivery arrived at 12:15AM, and I sipped on my glorious mint chip shake and chatted with friends until I needed to catch the 1:10AM bus back to my apartment.
Saturday
Even though I had a late night, I knew a morning appointment was what I needed to get they day started right. Otherwise I would just potato for the entire day. So Louise and I had brunch at Hungry Pigeon at 10:30AM (we arrived at exactly the same time haha). I got a brisket hash (so tender!), she got a mushroom frittata, and we shared an heirloom apple dutch baby. The barista warned us that it was large, but we said we’d be alright. We were wonderful in fact.
I had noticed that Hungry Pigeon was just a few minutes away from Infinite, my piercing studio. I’d been wanting to get my nose stud switched out for a hoop, so I popped in to see if they could do that for me. I had gone two times previous to try to get my nose stud switched out, but both times, my piercing wasn’t fully healed yet. I was hoping that the third time would be the charm. They checked my piercing out and said it looked good and ready, although the hoop they had might be too big for me, but they would try it for me anyway just to see how it’d look. It turned out that my piercing is quite high, so although the hoop fit well toward the bottom of my nostril, the lift of the hoop above my nostril was quite high. So I guess I won’t be getting a hoop. But it’s aight, I like my stud too.
Louise and I planned to see our friend Steph’s ballet performance in the evening, so both of us headed to campus to work in the meantime. We started off at United by Blue, and then moved to her dorm lounge. Whilst making that move, we took several photos around campus, and when we finally got to her dorm, we spent all our time editing photos and sharing Spotify playlists. I’ll be going through both of our playlists to keep me motivated for productivity throughout the week! (Note: Just yesterday, as in the day before this post goes live, Louise texted me to say that she went through all my monthly playlists already and loved all of them :’) Honestly, the highest compliment! We have very similar tastes in music.)
How was your week?
PS: I think I have to ban myself from highlighting “coffee” in the titles of my weekly update posts.
PPS: last week’s updates