Achillea Elizabeth

It was early Monday morning when I opened my eyes dreamily, fumbling for my phone to check emails as usual. "Smith Announcements: September 27, 2021: Today is Mountain Day!" The subject read. Surprised, confused, and angry, a turbulent wave of emotions washed past my head. No one expected this. Mountain Day on a Monday? We did not even have quad riot and what's worse, there is a 30% chance of rain! 

You might also be confused. What is Mountain Day anyways? Mountain Day is a cherished Smith College tradition where on the morning of an unscheduled, sunny autumn day, the president rings the bell to signal the cancellation of classes. (I heard that many other colleges in the area such as Mount Holyoke College also hold similar celebrations. Mercyhurst University in Erie, PA, where I went to high school, celebrates Hurst Day that is also like Mountain Day. I guess we aren't that original!) Students go to the President's House and get free donuts, apple cider, and Mountain Day t-shirts. Typical activities include (apple) pie baking, hiking, bike riding, and nature walks. In the normal times, college would also schedule buses to an orchard for apple picking. This year, we had apples delivered to each house. In the afternoon we had a pop up tea event on Chapin Lawn where there was more Westhampton cider and desserts such as apple spice cake and Hadley ice cream sandwiches. Yum, local food!

Now, what is quad riot? The night before Mountain Day, people have a water fight in the quad before marching to the President's House to demand Mountain Day. I was a little disappointed that Mountain Day happened this year not in the middle of the week and without quad riot. The weather was not perfect since it rained around noon. But a few drops of water could not stop us. Me and my friends went on the Paradise Pond trail. The rain magically stopped once we were in the woods and the weather cleared up. We had a fun excursion. Mountain Day 2021 did not turn out to be as bad as I thought!

ποταμοῖσι τοῖσιν αὐτοῖσιν ἐμβαίνουσιν, ἕτερα καὶ ἕτερα ὕδατα ἐπιρρεῖ.

You can never come to the same Smith twice, for it's not the same campus and you are not the same person. --- Heraclitus

The pandemic certainly did not help in terms of predictability and adjustment. The summer spent in four different states (MA, NY, FL, and PA), working, traveling, has been a wild ride. The novel feeling of beginning the first full year of in-person college as an unfledged upperclassman. The tingling excitement of returning to campus and interacting with classmates and professors outside the 2D rectangular frames. The receding memories of the year lost to the pandemic, online classes and isolation. The ongoing processing of the happenings this summer. Half of the faces of past juniors and graduated seniors that I used to know are replaced by the half-covered faces of first-years and sophomores, more than half of which have never lived on campus. Was it a lost year? I tried not to spend too much time ruminating and instead steered my focus to the present. I am ready to ramble about my classes, the new house, and food. (Maybe I will write about convocation another time...)

Schedule

 This semester I am taking a total of 20 credits. The courses are listed above. My witty comment in the parenthesis does everything but help you understand what each course is about.

EGR 374: Fluid Mechanics (it isn't as formidable as circuits, yet), PHI 124: History of Ancient and Medieval Western Philosophy (I wish I could read in Greek), EGR 388: Photovoltaic and Fuel Cell System Design (Excel is my best friend and worst foe), CHM 312: Polymer Chemistry (rubber bands contract when heated! Hooray entropy), MUS 951: Introduction to Choral Singing (Bring me Little Water Sylvie is my latest earworm), and MUS 930Y-01: Advanced Performance - Violin (It's been long; does my violin remember me?). 

Note that the schedule attached does not include my violin lessons (this year the music department is offering Smith students private performance lessons free of charge), work schedule, extracurriculars.  It is unlikely that I will cover anything beyond course content when it comes to schedules, thus if you want to learn more about Smith faculty, you can check out this website and read their bios.

(tl;dr: I am taking 3 stem classes, 2 music lessons, and 1 philosophy class. Nice decrement by 1, right?)

Abode

In the past two years I have lived in Hubbard, Northrop, Chapin, and Capen. Every year I aim to try something new. Built in 1876, Washburn House is my 2021-2022 pick for two main reasons. 

1. The facilities are most recently renovated.

Washburn is one of the very few houses on campus that has heat exchan-, no, air conditioners (other houses being Cutter/Ziskind and Chapin). With the blessing of the cool summer breeze also comes the curse of never-ending arctic winds. For half a week, I was not able to turn off the AC. Luckily, Smith College has a facilities management team ready to save the day. We enter work orders to submit maintenance requests. Within a day or so, they will email back to indicate the approval status and level of importance which affects how fast they will process your request. More information can be found here. 

Besides the AC issue, Washburn also experienced a house-wide sewage problem (our shiny bathrooms were out of service for a few hours) and the brand new laundry room whose OneCard machine has been broken for 3 weeks already, so we had to use quarters. The opposition of the comfort the new house brings and the trouble its residents have to go through might muse the Greek philosophers. Maybe I should move on to the second reason in favor of the house!

2. The location is impeccable for hardworking students.

From Washburn, it is only about 5 minutes walk to most academic buildings/ libraries. It is flanked by the recently opened new Neilson Library (read this article on NYT about the library and its architect) and Seelye Hall (where I take my philosophy class), with Hillyer Art Library in the front and Alumnae Gym (mind you, it is not a real gym, but an extension of the Neilson Library) in the back. What does this mean? Any direction you go from Washburn, your destination would not lack bookshelves and comfy chairs with footrests. The joy of living on Green Street! 

Feasting

There have been a few updates and downgrades on campus dining this year. Three dining halls are closed until further notice: Wilson, a quad dining hall too far to walk to from Green Street, Northrop/ Gillet, home for vegetarian and vegan dining, Hubbard, the house Julia Child (and I) once lived in and best known for its weekend brunch and morning chocolate croissant. I was particularly saddened by the closing of Hubbard, partly because it used to be my favorite Sunday brunch option (they serve eggs benedict!) and would have been the most convenient food location for Washburn residents. 

But one mustn't be disheartened, for behold, inside Neilson, the birth of Compass Cafe! It isn't just like the pre-existing Campus Center Cafe, but better, for it serves sushi! 8 rolls of freshly cooked rice packed with salmon and other yummies, wrapped in seaweed, will be yours at the donation of one meal swipe only. The menu of other dining halls except Lamont changes every day now like in the old days. My favorite place is Comstock, the DIY-stir-fry house. It provides electric hot stoves, cooking utensils, ingredients, and condiments. You have the autonomy to stir fry however and whatever you desire under the supervision of a dining hall staff.  

For visualization, I also inserted a picture of my past meals, you're welcome.

Top meal: Eating out in Amherst

Middle meal: Sushi from the Compass Cafe

Bottom meal: Stir-fried ramen at Comstock

(only for a little bit)

It has, alas, been another few weeks since I posted. I have an excuse for my unpunctuality: I've been spinning non-stop like a top. The conclusion of the last Zoomester and the start of summer are to blame. I have seven partners in crime.

Culprit 1: Puppetry Workshop

Towards the end of the year, DTI (Design Thinking Initiative), in collaboration with the Theatre Shop, hosted an in-person puppetry workshop where a small number of people could participate per covid protocols. In-person events were few and far between this semester, so of course I rushed to sign up. The workshop ran for about 2 hours on three consecutive Mondays. We met in the theatre shop inside Mendenhall Center for Performing Arts.  

The first day we made shadow puppets (and mine was a bee); the second day we made hand puppets (mine was a ... cyclop ghost king?); the third day we made marionette or string puppets (I attempted to make a teru teru bōzu, but everyone thought it a ghost). I had a lot of fun trying different fabrics, re-learning how to use a bandsaw, and magically joining things together with the help of a hot glue gun. (Side note: Polymer chemistry is the magician behind the scene, and I will be learning more about the science of hot glue guns in the polymer class I am taking next semester!) The workshop was surprisingly not as popular as I anticipated, maybe because people were busy as the semester came to a close. The good news is that DTI will be running the workshop again in the fall so more people will get to participate.

(Is she a ghost or teru teru bōzu?)

Culprit 2: Spring Piano Recital

I did not expect to attend a live concert this semester, but I was invited to the spring piano recital as a "special guest." It is a habit I developed while working as a concert crew at Sage, to sit outside the Sweeney Concert Hall and listen to the rehearsals after I finished setting up the stage. That day I was going to do homework outside the concert hall while waiting for my performing friend to finish. The piano instructor spotted me and asked me if I wanted to join. Disbelieving in my good luck, I accepted the invite. About ten students were scattered in the almost empty concert that felt sad and lonesome, but soon music filled the air. I thoroughly enjoyed every performance. Lots of Chopin were played, but my favorite one is Rhapsody in Blue which just entered the public domain this year. All pieces are about or more than a century old, which is not a surprise, but refreshingly, there is a piece by a female composer, Amy Beach, whose granduncle co-founded Bates College. You can find the full program here.

Culprit 3: End of Classes

The end of classes was epitomized by professor-resembling pixels on our computer screens bidding us goodbye. Usually professors would plan something fun for the last day of classes, virtually as well. 

I remember last semester my Multivariable Calculus professor changed his virtual background to a wall of donuts, explaining that during the pre-pandemic times he used to bring a box of donuts for students on the last day. This semester in Mathematical Methods for Physicists and Engineers, we explored the applications of Fourier Transform by looking at the velocity of a star and detecting the number of planets around it. Our last Circuit Theory lab was in person, where we got to listen to a song/piece of our own choice through the low pass filter and the high pass filter pictured below. The professor handed out prizes (cool items she accumulated in conferences) to students to reward them for their participation in the pre-class trivia games. I received a mini glow moon. In addition, our circuits professor left out end-of-class fun packs with origami papers and stickers outside her office. Our last Organic Chemistry lab was also in-person, where each lab group presented their experiments and findings (through a projector rather than Zoom screen share!) My presentation group decided to dress up for this special occasion after a long year of virtual school. Lastly, for Organic Chemistry, we played organic chemistry jeopardy in our last lecture.

With all the professors wishing you a happy summer, you start daydreaming about the sunny beach and breezy wind. Oh wait, you still have final exams to take. All in three days!

Culprit 4: Final Examinations

This semester we had a three-day final exam study period (or reading period) when professors are not allowed to assign any homework or set deadlines. Right after the reading period is our final exams. Smith is known for its flexibility when it comes to exams thanks to its Honor Code system. Many exams are self-scheduled. Some are open-notes, and some are untimed. In a normal year, students go to Seelye Hall to print out and take the exams when they feel prepared. 

For the classes I am taking this semester, I had three hours to take my Math Methods final, a whole day to take the Circuits Theory final, and the entire finals period to take my Organic Chemistry I final. Besides the exams, I had several other writing assignments to turn in. I was very fatigued at the end of the semester, so even though I only had three exams, I struggled to muster up mental energy to study. To make things worse, I got my second Pfizer shot during the reading period and had a pretty bad reaction. As a result, I asked the class dean to give me an extension on an exam, which was generously granted, and I was gratefully less overwhelmed.

Culprit 5: SmithCycle

The finals are now over, but my vacation didn't start yet. I am staying on campus for a few extra weeks to work for SmithCycle. SmithCycle is a program that collects, sorts and redistributes gently used dorm items students donate in the move-out process at the end of each school year. It gives purpose to items of reusable value and creates a more sustainable campus. In the past week, we have collected hundreds of bags (no exaggerations!) of items. Besides clothes, books, school and dorm supplies, some of the unexpected items include coffee makers, brand new water filters, and a monitor. One of my coworkers commented that first-years shouldn't have to shop clothes hangers again while they were going through three boxes of donated hangers.

The winter clothes we collected are going to the International Students and Scholars Office. They have an event called Winter Clothes Closet every fall where international students "shop" for free to help them get accustomed to the New England weather. School supplies will be moved into the Common Goods Resources Center which CEEDS hopes to launch in Fall 2021 (very exciting!). I cannot plug SmithCycle enough. If you are an incoming first-year, visit the Common Goods Resources center before you head to Target! 

I have always been interested in sustainability and renewable energy and want to get more involved. When I saw the SmithCycle worker position posted on Workday, I immediately applied. Every SmithCycle worker's job varies. I am mainly responsible for washing and drying the linens and blankets. When waiting for the washer and dryer, I help with unloading the van that circulates between houses to pick up bags of donations. I also help with sorting. Pictured below is the inside of Scott Gym where all the items are currently stored.

Culprit 7: Summer Housing

As college transitions into summer, students who are staying on campus for some part of the summer had to move out of their spring housing assignment into their summer housing. I moved from Chapin, the house in central campus, to Capen, which is on the periphery of Smith. I know Chapin and Capen sound alike, but they are very different houses location-wise and personality-wise! To make up for its distance to the academic buildings, Capen House has its own garden, Capen Garden. The garden a gorgeous place many current Smithies are missing out on. There is a mini fountain, hedges, a garden temple, a plant arch, and a bizarre owl statue. Look at the last picture of the garden in this blog, and you will agree with me that the Paradise Pond is overrated.  

Built in 1825 and acquired by Smith in 1921, Capen House is named after Bessie Capen, the second woman to be admitted to MIT. She taught chemistry at Smith College. Fun fact: Bessie Capen was once the associate principal of the Mary A. Burnham School for Girls, now Stoneleigh-Burham School; I went there for horseback riding lessons during my first year at Smith. Small world, right?

Case Closed

Thanks for reading this long-ish explanation. I hope my tardiness in delivering this post may be justified by the causes above. To compensate, I will write about my other summer plans and updates in the next few weeks. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, enjoy your summer!

We are seeing the beginning of the end of the pandemic. We just need to hold on for a little longer, but the unexpected always happens.

Quarantine Vol. 2: The Ellery missed me

Two weeks ago on April 10th, I transformed into a number on the Smith College COVID-19 Screening Data: Smith College's contact tracing team contacted me about my possible exposure to covid and the urgent need for me to quarantine. (Note: Isolation is for students who are tested positive; quarantine is for students who are identified as a close contact with someone who is tested positive. I did not know the student in isolation, but I hope they were doing okay.) One hour after receiving the sudden notice, I was picked up by a car. Back to the Ellery (one of Smith’s quarantine locations) I went. This time, I was to stay there for a week.

Due to confidentiality reasons, I won't go into details about how I was identified as a close contact; rather, I will focus on my own quarantine experience.

Being trapped in a hotel room during the semester when the sky was blue and the weather was warm was not the most pleasant experience, but I learnt to see the glass half full. A private bathroom, a king-sized bed, a mini-fridge, and a Roku TV were all at my disposal. I could sing karaoke, roll on my bed, or turn the hotel room into a movie theatre, whichever option I desire.

 Every day in quarantine was surprisingly different. The first day I had a few miniature invertebrate visitors to my lonely abode: ants (because I forgot to bring in my dinner delivery on my doorstep in time.) The uninvited little friends were carefully squished into a mush before they had the chance to enjoy the night. The second day my friend dropped off a greeting card with a personalized crossword puzzle abound with inside jokes outside my room to help me pass time in isolation. On the third day, a contact tracer came and handed me a covid test kit; I was later tested negative. On the fourth day, the quarantine hotel saw new arrivals and I had some neighbors. Later that day when I checked the covid screening dashboard, the number of students in quarantine did jump, reflecting what I witnessed. This time the change in numbers on the screening data felt more personal: These were real people, and they were living down the hall! If we weren't in a pandemic, I would knock on their door and ask what brought them here. On the fifth day, I was tested again and received a negative result, which heralded my release from quarantine on the next day.

The pandemic reveals the best (and the worst) of humanity. During my time in quarantine, I combated with the fear of being judged, as exposure to covid often suggests defiance, irresponsibility, and recklessness. It is associated with shame and guilt. I constantly felt the need to justify, to emphasize that I did not attend a group gathering or purposefully break social distancing guidelines. Stereotyping people who have been unfortunately exposed to or contracted covid does not help battle the virus. My friends and professors, to my relief, showed me genuine care about my well-being and offered me support, all of which warmed my heart.

Getting vaccinated

On April 19th, two days after I returned to my on-campus housing assignment, Massachusetts entered Phase 3 of the vaccine distribution plan, which means that everyone over 16 is eligible for the covid vaccine. Snatching a vaccine appointment became the central theme of the week. It was everyone's dinner topic. Covid vaccine opportunities channels were created on Discord. Guides to finding available appointments were circulated. Request to Leave Northampton Area Forms were filled by students who got appointments in clinics miles away from campus. Rides were arranged in Facebook group chats. Classes were skipped to call parents regarding insurance information.

I, as a socially predictable human being, also did everything to secure a spot to get vaccinated. My effort paid off. I successfully found an appointment for the next day at a vaccine clinic 20 minutes' walk from Smith, and I patted myself on the back for my quick action and resourcefulness.

My brief moment of pride and ecstasy didn’t last long. Only one day after I booked the appointment, Smith sent out an email announcing that there would be a vaccine clinic open to all students, staff and faculty, on campus, this weekend. While others were overjoyed, I was lamenting the time lost to trying to find a vaccine appointment myself. Now I faced a dilemma: To cancel my old appointment or not to cancel? Should I walk for 20 minutes the next day which was forecasted to be thunderstorming, or should I wait for the weekend?

It was a difficult decision to make. My one friend, who also scheduled for a vaccine at the same place on the same day as mine, wisely reminded me that it would be rude to give such short notice to the clinic. So I listened. With two friends who were former Hubbard residents like me, I walked to the clinic on a windy Wednesday afternoon and got soaking wet in the rain on the way back. The trip was worth it, though, to get the spike proteins churning. Besides a sore arm, I didn't experience other side effects. I so look forward to my second dose, the longed-for immunity, and the liberty we all might soon enjoy again.

Thanks, science and technology, for illuminating the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's crazy that we are 6 weeks into the semester already. Before returning to campus, I was dismayed at the prospect of being trapped in solitary confinement on campus, but the freedom Green Mode brings and the lovely Northampton spring I didn't get to experience during my first year have been overall a delightful surprise. Exhilarated, I’ve been trying to spend as much time as possible outside my room. I am always on my way somewhere: to a dining hall, to an academic building, to the gym, to a friend’s house, etc. A migrating homo sapiens I have become indeed. 

The list below answers the question: What are some of my blog-worthy destinations? 

SCMA: Search for Identity

As one of the perks of Green Mode, Smith College Museum of Art is open to students and faculty in the testing protocol. Last Thursday two friends and I signed up to visit the lower level and first-floor galleries where Monet's La Cour d'Albane and Picasso's Table, Guitar and Bottle were on view. The quietness of the uncrowded museum allowed me to feel calm inside and be immersed in art.

 A piece that struck me the most during the visit was Birth Certificate by María Magdalena Campos Pons, a Cuban-American artist. The giant woodcuts of fingerprints and palms of her art confused me at first, but the meaning became clear to me after I read the texts in the frames below the woodcuts: Even If My Hands Are Clenched By Mud My Finger Prints Are My Own Let Me Be Myself Let Me Be Alone. In my head I was picturing a giant (in the cold, sunless Jotunheim, far far away from Asgard), or a misfit, an outcast, who stumbles in the darkness, seeking a place where they belong, staunchly repudiating assimilation and invalidation. The caption helped me better understand the work: It represents the symbols of personal and national identity and how they are communicated to the world. The message resonated with me, since as a non-US passport holder, I am sensitive to the subtle ways where my identity is perceived differently in a country that isn’t always friendly to foreigners. 

Sage: Sound of Music

Writing about the art museum provides a perfect segue into the next place I have in mind: Sage Hall, home to the music department. It is unofficially my second home that I visit almost everyday. There I take private lessons, practice the violin (and sometimes fall asleep on the piano. Shh!); before the pandemic, I also helped set up the stage for rehearsals every week as part of the concert crew. Sage the only building on campus that has a cool dome (the rooftop observatory of McConnell doesn't count). This semester, the practice rooms and the locker rooms are accessible to students, the only significant difference being that we need to sign up in advance to use the practice rooms. Isopropanol wipes, paper towels and hand sanitizers are placed in every practice room to keep the shared space clean. A typical practice room (pictured below, where my violin made a cameo appearance) has a grand piano, chair, and music stand.

Ford: Getting Hands Dirty

The third place I spent a significant amount of time in is Ford Hall, the home for the Picker Engineering Program. I had my first in-person lab of this school year two weeks ago in the organic chemistry laboratory on the second floor of Ford. My orgo professor also held in-person office hours in a classroom in Ford. It was nice to see the professor and classmates in 3D. 

It is worth mentioning that a few changes had been made to my previous schedule: I dropped the 4-credit Classical Mythology and took a 2-credit special studies instead to make my workload more manageable. So now I go to lab with my special studies partner/ lab buddy about twice per week. I actually like working with chemicals while masked (once I found a way to make the goggles less foggy). It offers an extra layer of protection. The special studies focuses on the synthesis and characterization of different types of nylon. Ultimately, we’d like to design a lab for polymer chemistry students where they can repeat our experiment during two lab periods. (I might write a blog about this in greater detail.) Although I am only a first-semester organic chemistry student, the two professors I am doing the special studies with and the senior chemistry major working on the same project are super friendly and patient as they explain to me the science of polymers. 

When does the present become history, experience memory?

A year ago, on March 10, 2020, we received an email from President McCartney that marked the beginning of what we all know now as the pandemic world: students were sent home for remote learning, and we had to untangle all the mess during the extended spring break. One day later, WHO declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.

The email to the community was sent out at 1:18 PM, two minutes before my anthropology class in Seelye started. I was walking briskly on Green Street from Tyler to Seelye, climbing a hill that went around the Neilson Library construction site, running late as usual, after having a spontaneous, joyful lunch conversation with someone on the topic of our favorite childhood cartoon shows (mine is Legend of Nezha that aired from 2003 to 2004).

The moment I walked into the classroom, I immediately sensed some strange air around me. Are people looking at me weirdly because I am late to class again? I thought to myself, half blushed. As I froze at the entrance, a girl rushed out of the classroom holding her phone and started sobbing. I also saw another girl down the hall talking to someone on the phone, her eyes red and watery. Perplexed, I walked into the classroom and settled down in the seat where I usually sat. Then, I whispered to the person sitting next to me: What happened? “Have you checked your email?” She asked. Still dizzy and out of breath from sprinting to class, I pulled out my phone instinctively and saw the headline of the email notification. My heart sank. We were kicked out.

The rest of the day was a blur. What I learned from the lecture I don't remember; I only remember the prof expressing his frustration and the look on students' faces that showed their minds elsewhere. Having just returned to the states from China, the then-epicenter, I was having a major déjà vu. A day later, I wrote: "I saw it coming. But when the eviction finally hits, I am still overwhelmed. I've kind of been preparing for this mentally [after Amherst announced their plan to evict students], but I know I am never mentally ready to deal with this. [Keeping myself distracted is] the only thing that drags me away from the edge of insanity. I need to be busy." 

Since the start of Spring 2020, I had been trying to keep myself busy and staying engaged. It was mid-March when I finally got a good sense of my schedule and figured out how everything worked. I knew what assignments I was supposed to turn in each week by heart, where I needed to be for practice without a reminder, when my work shift started, and who I could hang out with on the weekend. Suddenly all aspects of my life came to a pause.

It was only my second semester at Smith. The flowers outside Northrop-Gillet were budding. The New England earth was coming back to life after its long wintry slumber. Spring was so close, but I had to wave goodbye to it all.

Made it through the first two weeks of Spring 2021 and the initial operating mode! Hello March and goodbye Blue Mode! 

The start of the semester was like a whirlwind. The strangeness, excitement and novelty of this hybrid semester took me a bit to get used to, especially since I am living on campus with covid restrictions.

Different Food, Same Food 

Today (Feb 28, almost March!) is the last day of the Blue Mode, so food is still for take-out only. In a normal year, students go to the dining hall of their choice to have meals. As of now, however, we order food using Grubhub. The app gives us several dining hall options that each have their own menu. We can customize our meal order on Grubhub, and the app will notify us once the food is ready. We then pick up our food packed in paper bags and eat in our rooms. Just like a real restaurant, the dining halls only open during certain hours. Because the menu rarely changes, some students invented monikers for each dining hall in accordance with the cuisine. Here are some examples just for fun: Cutter Ziskind - McDonald, Tyler - Pizza Hut, King Scales - Taco Bell, Lamont - Chiptole, Comstock - Panda Express, Chuckett - Panera. (Note: Dawes Gluten-Free Dining and Kosher Kitchen are not included in the list above, but they are open too.)

Positively, thanks to the low positivity rate on campus, some academic buildings have been open to OneCard holders already. So in the past few days instead of eating in my room, I've been going to Seelye by myself to eat in an empty classroom. I also noticed that the staff have been setting up tables in the dining hall for social distanced (can we call it physical distanced instead?) seating in preparation for Green Mode which starts on March 1st.

Spring 2021 Classes

While I eat in the classrooms, I study and attend classes in my room (which is kind of ... weird??). This semester I am taking a total of 21 credits, which include three classes to fulfill the requirements for the engineering major: PHY 210: Math Methods for Physicists and Engineers, EGR 220: Circuit Theory and CHM 222: Organic Chemistry. On why I chose to take the notoriously hard chemistry class as my lab science, the decision making process of which took a good couple of weeks, one: I like challenging classes, two: I want to explore the field of chemistry and the possibility of being a chemical engineer, and three: a lot of my unbiased chemistry major/ minor friends recommended it and told me they had fun; I believed them. 

For circuits and orgo, I received a lab kit and a model kit (a semi-fair compensation for online labs?). Both classes are demanding and the online labs are sometimes confusing and frustrating. I turn to find solace in drawing the hexagons in organic molecules and rectangles in circuits. 

Classes I am taking just for fun:  CLS 227: Classical Mythology, IDP 132: Designing Your Path, and MUS 924Y: Second Year Performance. 

Pictured above is the breadboard we use for EGR 220 lab. It is affectionately nicknamed Adam (short for ADALM 1000 Evaluation Board). Pictured below is the molecular kit for CHM 222. Students use the kit to help them visualize 3D molecular structures.

An Evening with Trevor Noah

Last Tuesday, all students were invited to a live virtual event: An Evening with Trevor Noah: A Moderated Q&A with Heidi Gardner. I am just throwing out some highlights here. Blogger's favorite line: If you're crazy alone, you're just crazy; if you're crazy with a bunch of other people, you're having fun. Trevor's definition of growing up: A mini drunk person getting sober. A piece of advice for future leaders: Listen to the voices of the people you are leading; be decisive; acknowledge when you're wrong, accept criticism, and know to differentiate between haters and critics. The Q&A session was a nice, short study break on a busy weeknight.

Virtual events are better than no events, but nothing beats in-person activities. I really look forward to finally moving to Green Mode!

Blogger’s Note

Next week is the last week of interterm and the first week before the spring semester starts!

Interterm (also known as J-term) this year has been a pretty unique one in terms of length, course offerings, and mode of instruction. It lasts for five weeks, starting on January 4th and ending on February 11th, during which students move into their on-campus housing in staggered arrival time blocks. More four-credit courses are offered and the course selection has a wider range. Students can take classes like Engineering Thermodynamics, Intro to Psych, and Calculus II, which are not typical J-term courses. Moreover, our special 2021 gives us a special, first-ever, remote-only interterm. That said, no classes are in person.

Quarantine in the Ellery

As I briefly mentioned in my first blog, I came back to Smith two weeks ago after spending about ten months in Southern Pennsylvania. Spoiled by the mild winter living so close to Maryland, I forgot how cold Northampton is. Shuddering in the New England wind due to the lack of layers, I still took advantage of my short time of freedom before entering quarantine by taking a tour around the new library.

I spent two long days quarantining in the Ellery before I got released a little after noon on the third day. We had food delivered to our door twice per day (lunch, and then dinner, which included breakfast). (As an entertaining interlude during the solitary hours in the hotel room, the dining hall staff forgot to deliver my lunch on the second day initially. My friends and I collaborated to solve the mystery of the missing meal. In the end, fortunately, I was timely fed.) A fellow Smith by Smithies blogger posted about quarantine food in more detail, which you can read here.

Moving into Chapin House

Drawn towards its central-campus location, the prospects of getting a room with a view of the Paradise Pond (that is sadly not as “beautiful” on the inside), and the excitement of trying different houses and experiencing a new community, I decided to move to Chapin House. Although I did not get my dream room with a south-facing window and a view of the pond, I like my current spacious, sunny dingle (i.e., a double occupancy single room. It is another pandemic special! See below the picture of my room freshly taken today.) I was one of the first three residents to move in. It was oddly quiet the first week, but now with more people moving in, the rooms are being filled slowly and it starts to feel more like a real house!

J-term Latin class: Asinus Aureus

This interterm I am taking LAT 212: Intro to Latin Prose and Poetry with Professor Scott Bradbury. It is a small class of only 9 students, and we meet for 75 minutes each day, five days a week. The course title may be a bit misleading, since we are reading a novel in class: The Golden Ass (or, in a less catchy translation, the Metamorphoses of Apuleius). The story centers around the protagonist Lucius, who is turned into a donkey, hence the title. The Golden Ass is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.

Greetings from Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA, Earth, The Solar System, Orion Arm, The Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Cluster, Virgo Super-Cluster, Universe One(?) on Jan 27, 2021 AD! 

My name is Achillea Elizabeth Huang and I use she/her pronouns. I am an engineering major (the only BS at Smith!) from the class of 2023. I lived in Hubbard House as a first-year, and now I am living in Chapin House.

Places and Names

Besides Smith, two other places are home to me: Jiangxi, China, where I spent my childhood and the first half of adolescence, and Erie, PA, where I lived and studied before coming to Smith. At home friends and family call me by my Chinese name. In the states people know me as Elizabeth. Now that I am in college, I've been experimenting with a new name in Latin: Achillea, the feminine form of Achilles, aristos achaion. If you are into trying different names, Smith is a great place!

What have I been up to?

Three days ago on Jan 24, I was happily released from my two-day quarantine and moved into Chapin.

Before coming back to Northampton, I had been living with my Hubbard friend's family in Shippensburg, PA since last summer. Long story short, pandemic travel restrictions thwarted my original plan to fly to China; luckily enough, my friend's family (and their two fifteen-year-old cats, Sandy Caper and Sonoma Pickle, whom I hope will remember me when I visit them again) showed me great hospitality and welcomed me into their household.

Why blogging?

Smith by Smithies isn't new to me. My roommate from last year is a blogger. I find her blogs entertaining to read because they narrate her story in such a different format from our casual conversations. Back when I was a senior in high school, I also checked out the blogs and asked a few questions (anonymously, of course. The option to stay incognito was a blessing.)

Writing outside school isn't a newly developed habit either. I have always kept a journal, which over the years has unfortunately become my primary venting space, where I record my frustration, insecurity, and overreactions in great detail. If you want to learn about my life through my diary entries, you would mistakenly think me a miserable person.

The idea to start writing blogs myself, however, didn't occur to me till very recently, when I was in my quarantine hotel (the Ellery), scrolling through Smith by Smithies, procrastinating on a class assignment. I thought to myself, maybe Smith by Smithies would encourage me to record the fond memories I have at Smith, events I look forward to in the future and the progress I've made in the past. Suddenly I came to a productive realization that I should join the bloggers and share my own collegiate experience with the audience of Smith by Smithies, be it a prospective student I once was, or an amused roommate of a fellow blogger (I also once was).