Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

On Friday I had the privilege to listen to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who was at Bryn Mawr to receive the Katherine Hepburn Medal. She started out by telling us the key advice that we could find in her book. The advice that stuck with me the most was her advice about friendship.

Justice Sotomayor said that in college we would make some lifelong friends and that we should cherish them. She also challenged us to have meaningful and deep conversations with our friends and then to stay in touch with them as we go throughout life.

This touched me because lately I have been thinking about and evaluating all of my friendships. Why? I want to make sure that all of my relationships are purposeful and meaningful. I also want to know that who I choose to surround myself with are people that can encourage me to grow and people that I can encourage to grow.

Besides the advice about friendship, Justice Sotomayor had a message of perseverance and sticktoitiveness. She also talked about owning her cultural and gender identity and recognizing that there are glass ceilings in the “real world” but that she has been able to permeate those spaces.

Home for a Holiday

This past weekend I slipped away from campus to go home for Easter. Besides Greyhound’s notoriously late service, the time home was great. While I was home I was able to spend time with my family and my church family and we laughed, danced, ate, and had a generally good time. I managed to not get a single thing checked off of my to-do list but I am okay with that.

It gets really easy to become overwhelmed with school work and activities, especially as we get closer to the end of the semester. It always seems like papers appear out of  nowhere and everyone wants to meet with you at all hours of the day. So, every now and then I have to go home and get rejuvenated so that I can jump back into all of the homework and meetings that my college life has become.  Being at home gives me time to step back and I love every minute of it, then I come back to Bryn Mawr and start all over again.

 

Easter
This is one of my favorite pictures from Easter. Each year we choose a color to wear and this year it was purple. Pictured is myself, my little brother, and my four cousins.

I’m Almost a Senior

Today the 2016 class presidents sent an email out with a poll about who should be our commencement speaker. Our commencement speaker. I am about to graduate from college in a little over a year. I often joke about how I’m ready to leave Bryn Mawr but the time is starting to escape me. There are so many people that I still have left to meet and so many more that I am not ready to say goodbye to.  I guess I still have a little over a year left to make the most out of my undergrad college experience.  So here is a short and incomplete list of things I want to do before I graduate…

1. Live in Perry House

2. Take a class at Penn or Swat

3. Write down all my suggestions for how Bryn Mawr can improve, then do it.

4. Choreograph a dance or two with Rhythm N’ Motion

5. Explore Philly

and finally….

6. Figure out what I’m going to do after college.

 

Moving Forward – A Call To Action

Last week we had our first Community Day of Learning where the campus paused so that we could dig in and have difficult conversations about race and ethnicity. In our closing session, we wrote down what our hopes are moving forward. My hope is that this wouldn’t be something future students would look back on and say that this is something Bryn Mawr used to do – I don’t want future students, like myself, to discover all of the programs and discussions that Bryn Mawr used to have. I also don’t want students to find themselves repeating history by having the same conversations about the same problems that I experience now and that students who graduated before me experienced.

So what now? It already seems like the energy from last week is starting to fade and I urge people to keep going. Anyone and everyone can be responsible for continuing the conversations and moving words to action. I think it would be great if we could bring back some of the presentations that were given during the community day so that people who didn’t get to attend can go and learn. What if we made these types of sessions a norm? What if we always got to hear from faculty and staff about their experiences? What if we always had workshops available for community members to be enriched and talk to people they may otherwise never encounter? What if community members always had a chance to learn about where people are participating in activism?

As a community we need to bring the energy and willingness to learn and act with us throughout our time at the college because there is always #Mawr2Learn.

What I’m Looking Forward To

So if you haven’t noticed already, I really like making lists (a lot). So here is a list of short term and long term events that I’m looking forward to.

1. Posse Plus Retreat – It’s this weekend and I cannot wait to get waist deep in discussions.

2. Spring Break – I’m going home as usual and I plan to eat food and watch TV all week.

3. Easter – I’m going back home for Easter. Every year my family gets matching outfits and this year we are adding Sunday hats to our ensemble.

4. Decision Day for Customs – Although this will be stressful I’m looking forward to start planning with a new cohort of customspeople.

5. May Day – No explanation needed. This is my favorite tradition.

6. Summer Vacation – I’ll be going home for the summer and hopefully doing an internship.

7. Senior Year – After summer break I will be a senior at BMC!!!!!!

10 Reasons Why I Could Use A Snow Day

I don’t just want a snow day… I need a snow day. I feel like I’m so behind on like everything. So here is a list of 10 things I could be doing today if classes were cancelled.

1. I could be sleeping.

2. I could be doing homework.

3. I could be reading customs applications.

4. I could be wasting the day away by watching reality TV on hulu.

5. I could be finishing off these schedules for Hell Week.

6. I could be watching Beyonce’s Stevie Wonder tribute (over and over and over again).

7.  I could be aimlessly scrolling through facebook, twitter, and instagram.

8. I could be resting. (Yes this is different than sleeping).

9. I could be coming up with a list of 10 more things I could do.

10. I could be starting back at #1.

Why I Chose Customs

Looking back at my first year experience, I can say that the customs program was one that separated my experience as a first year from my friend’s experience as a first year. Customs isn’t just an orientation week that happens at the beginning of the year, it is an ongoing, year-long program catering to and engaging new students. As a new student, it was comforting to know that someone was looking out for me and that there was a group of students who were experiencing Bryn Mawr for the first time, just like me.

Why did I choose Customs?

I chose customs because it mimicked the type of involvement and commitment I had at my high school. I was used to welcoming new students, introducing them to the high school atmosphere, and helping them get accustomed to life at my rigorous, often stressful, high school. I was always happy to be a point person for questions or helping out with White Coat Ceremony (a ceremony my high school has similar to Lantern Night). So, being a customsperson was a natural course of action for me.

Why did I choose Customs again?

Last school year I applied to be on the customs committee. I applied because I wanted to continue to improve and strengthen the customs program. One of my main goals as a member of the committee was to diversify the group of customs people so that incoming students could see themselves represented in campus leaders. A goal that the entire committee shared was sustaining and building upon the bi-co “customs cousins” relationship. As a member of the customs committee, I found that doing customs “from the other side” was challenging, but all the more rewarding especially as the then first year students accepted their roles as custompeople.

This academic year I applied for the position of Customs Committee Co-Head along with my good friend Xavia.  We are so excited to be working on this committee again alongside five other students and Dean Heyduk (another great reason to do customs as well as the glue that holds the program together). We are already off to a great start bringing in fresh perspectives and a refreshing lens to customs.  I look forward to the work that we can and will do.

Customs is definitely one piece of Bryn Mawr that I can’t let go of.

Overcoming an Overwhelming Schedule

If any of you are like me, then you tend to sign yourself up for the maximum number of activities that you think you can handle. Sometimes you sign onto so many activities, that you forget about important things, like school work. Somehow I manage to involve myself in so many tasks that it gets to be overwhelming, but having to decide which activity to drop is pretty close to impossible. So here are my tips for overcoming an overwhelming schedule.

 

1. Calendar (or planner) – My Google calendar makes life so much easier. I set aside time specifically to update my calendar with events, meetings, and classes. I personally like to color code events and activities, as well as set reminders for certain activities.

2. Folders – However you save documents, whether it’s through a drive on your computer or a cloud drive, I find it helpful to have folders to help organize your documents. I also find it useful to have folders in my email inbox, it helps to organize my messages (especially when I refuse to delete them) and have easier access to messages I may need.

3. To-Do Lists – I am a fan of the to-do list because I can physically cross off items and the act of crossing items off of my lists helps alleviate the pressures of always having something to do. I typically make two separate lists, one for homework assignments and one for clubs/activities. To-Do lists also help me prioritize tasks and allows me to see which tasks I can put on the back burner and which tasks need to be handled immediately.

4. Limits – You have to know what you can and cannot do. You don’t have to take on every leadership position or always volunteer yourself for extra tasks. Sometimes it is okay to step back and let others take the lead. This can especially give an opportunity to people who may want to take the lead on a certain project or initiative but haven’t had the opportunity because someone has already volunteered to fulfill the role.

5. “Quitting” – In the same way that you have to know when to step back, you also have to know when to step down. Sometimes, being in too many activities can be more stressful than you intended. It is OKAY for you to step away from a club, activity, or task if it crosses the line from a challenging but rewarding to stressful and overbearing.

6. Self Care – Always schedule some time for you. Even though there seems to be fewer and fewer hours in each day, remember that you come first. Save room for time to pause and reflect. Whether you choose to use this time to catch up on a TV show or to just lay in your bed and think, the time that you set aside for yourself can be beneficial to your effectiveness in whatever you do.

 

It is taking me a long time to master tips 4 & 5, but I am slowly learning how to step back. Developing a sense of how to organize your time doesn’t occur overnight and while all of these tips may not work for you, there are ways in which they can be tweaked to cater to your needs. Maybe none of these tips work for you, but it is important to find out what does work and how can you continue to use this method throughout your years at Bryn Mawr.

Perry House Committee

 

Ask me about Perry House

I have been on the Perry House Committee since my first year at Bryn Mawr. The Perry House Committee was formed at the request of students in the Perry House Coalition after the closing of Perry House. For students of color, particularly those representing the African diaspora (through Sisterhood), African and Caribbean cultures (through BACaSO), and the Latin American diaspora (through Mujeres) Perry House has been an essential space for fellowship, connecting, and reflecting. When I got to Bryn Mawr, Perry House was already closed, so I didn’t get to experience Perry House as it was in the past but through my work on the Perry House Committee I am experiencing what Perry House is like in the present and what it can be in the future.

The Perry House Committee has been tasked with thinking about and making some of the harder decisions about the future of Perry House right from the start. In the beginning the tough decisions revolved around where would Perry be and should it be relocated. Now, in the third year, we are looking at how the space should be used, form life, and the naming. All of these factors require serious input from students, faculty, and alums – especially those with a connection to the ‘old’ Perry House and those who wish to have a connection to the ‘new’ Perry House. In my opinion the hardest task that the committee (and the Bryn Mawr community at large) is faced with is the preservation of these unique cultures, that were once physically represented through Perry House, and the purpose and meaning of the space to this particular group of underrepresented students.

Although Perry House will be in a physically different location come the fall, the essence of Perry is held in the students past and present.

 

P.S. Get updates on Perry House and share memories on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram through the hashtag #ProjectPerry

P.P.S. The #ProjectPerry Preview will be on Tuesday, January 26 from 4-6 pm in the campus center!

 

Afro-Caribbean Week

This past week, BACaSO celebrated Afro-Caribbean week. The events included everything from discussions around identity and Ebola to a fashion show and flash mob. I really enjoyed going to all of the events and hearing the perspectives of other students and professors about their identity as African or Caribbean or some combination or neither! The week ended, to my heart’s content, with an Afro-Caribbean dinner in Erdman (the food was amazing!), a flash mob, and a fashion show. I’m so glad I was able to take part in this week – I gained some new insight into this culture.

 

Below is a link to the flash mob that happened during dinner on Friday, in case you missed it!

BACaSO flash mob!