Lepisosteidae

I went to a meeting with a biology professor today – she’s one of the top geneticists and she’s basically a huge portion of why I wanted to go here, and I’m blown away by this campus yet again. One of the higher ranking professors made time to meet with a freshman about essentially nothing, and another TA, a professor/lab instructor, and a Peer Lead Instruction instructor all invited me into the (admittedly hilariously shabby) biology lounge to chat. I’m dubious about spanish, in agony over how much I’m having to spend on books, and frustrated with banking in general, but the half hour I spent in that department felt so incredibly good. It’s what I love, and I’m finally in a place where I can let that love grow to its full potential. Work expands to fit the time given to it; the way I feel about cells and anatomy and natural selection is being given proper due and it’s growing. That’s worth every bit of the homesickness to me.

My CSEM read an exert from Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature and as much as it pains me to admit it, the introduction to that text explained – succinctly, beautifully, and perfectly – why I write, why I read, and why I view creation of artistic works as something that’s essential to human nature.

“Time and space, the colors of the seasons, the movements of muscles and minds, all these are for writers of genius not traditional notions which may be borrowed from the circulating library of public truths but a series of unique surprises which master artists have learned to express in their own unique way. [...] The material of this world may be real enough (as far as reality goes) but does not exist at all as an accepted entirety; it is chaos, and to this chaos the author says “go!” allowing the world to flicker and to fuse. It is now recombined in its very atoms, not merely in its visible and superficial parts. The writer is the first man to map it and to name the natural objects it contains. Those berries are edible. That speckled creature that bolted across my path might be tamed.

“It seems to me that a good formula to test the quality of a novel is, in the long run, a merging of the precision of poetry and the intuition of science. In order to bask in that magic a wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle even though we must keep a little aloof, a little detached when reading. Then with a pleasure which is both sensual and intellectual we shall watch the artist build his castle of cards and watch the castle of cards become a castle of beautiful steel and glass.”

After some initial homesickness and roommate issues, I’m pretty happy. Not, per se, madly and passionately and deeply in love, but I think how I feel about Bryn Mawr is a slow thing – it’s not liable to burn out any time soon.

Two of my three classes today were excellent; biology thrills me, and I have a meeting with an amazing professor tomorrow just to talk about majoring and so on. Anthropology seems like it’s going to be amazing. I went into intensive spanish and immediately started freaking out, so I’m going to drop down to a more manageable level with a professor who is rumored to be excellent.

I think some of the things I’m phenomenally glad about right now are my friendships with upperclasswomen; I’ve met some amazing people in my class, but knowing these amazing strong women and being able to drop by their rooms and just hang out – or having them come by mine – is maybe one of the highlights of my life right now. It’s sort of a method of detox – these people really are family to me and being with them is really good.

In other news, parade night was fucking amazing – my favorite part was obvious to BMC people, but it has to be said that the sheer levels of inebriation reached by the seniors pulled a close second.

(ANASSA) KATA KALO KALE IA IA IA NIKE BRYN MAWR BRYN MAWR BRYN MAWR YOUR MOM.