Hello! Welcome to my first-week-of-classes blog post. I’m writing this before my Friday classes start during the first week. This week has been a flurry of finding my classes (even though I’m a sophomore, this is the first time I’ve ever had to find classrooms), dealing with a wasp debacle in my room, catching up with friends, and frantically trying to establish a new schedule so I have a sort of routine from week to week. Let’s get into it:
New Classes
I’m taking four classes this semester: History of the Middle East: 500-1700, Organic Chemistry, Molecular Genetics, and Literary Masks of the Late French Middle Ages. I am an aspiring biology and French double major, so molecular genetics, organic chemistry, and the medieval French class all contribute to my major requirements. The most challenging thing that I’ve experienced this first week is coming to terms with the amount of reading I will have to do this semester. I love reading (when I read for fun), but I’ve never had a semester with a significant amount of reading. This semester, both my history and French classes assign an (in my opinion) absurd amount of reading between classes. It is all interesting, but so time-consuming! It will definitely be an adjustment, but I am looking forward to this semester. I am thrilled to have in-person classes, and I don’t even mind the speed-walking I have to do to get from one part of campus to another in the ten minutes I have between my history and molecular genetics classes.
Friends
I have never had the opportunity to be super social at college; last year, because all of my classes were online, it was really hard to meet people through school. Even so, I feel like whenever I walk across campus I pass a friend and say hi, and I’ve loved getting to catch up with all my friends over meals and between classes. I can’t wait to spend more time with them this semester.
New Routine
Between my busy schedule, my extracurriculars, seeing my friends, and getting enough sleep, I have struggled this week to balance my obligations. I think that settling into a routine will be key for having a balanced lifestyle and not falling behind. I also need to work on saying “no” more often. I overextend myself by making commitments to too many things, and need to practice being okay with not being able to do everything.
Views
One of my favorite places on campus is at the war memorial, overlooking Memorial Field and mountains in the distance. I walk by it every time I walk to the gym, and the view never gets old — even though it sometimes disappears entirely.
Here are two photos of the war memorial; one on a clear day and one on a foggy day:
