Sketchy Day!

Had a fun morning the the girls!

Waking up to Romina snoring around 5 AM was pretty weird. I almost jumped out of my bed because I’m just not used to sharing a room with anybody. I forgot she was my roommate for a second. It was also strange because when I looked over to her bed, her lamp was turned on. I had to turn it off because I can’t sleep when it’s not dark. I asked her about it when she woke up and she swore she turned it off before sleeping. I’m still kind of creeped out because we’ll be staying here for a couple more days and I don’t want to have any paranormal experiences at all. Anyway, we were both up by 7:10 AM and met with the rest of the group by 8 AM. We headed to a little café for breakfast. I ordered a cheese and egg sandwich with Canadian bacon because it intrigued me. Canadian bacon is intriguing. It turned out to be delicious!

We headed back to the hotel where our car was waiting in the front. We arrived at Wellesley College twenty minutes before our tour started. We waited in the reception area of the admissions office for a while, where Ms. Kaplan handed us a pretty awesome magazine called Wellesley 100. It was a clever way of selling the school since it gave out 100 short reasons why Wellesley is a great college. Our tour guide finally came. Her name was Amy and though she had a really small voice, she projected it very well. She knows the school fairly well since she goes there. She is majoring in French & Economics and is expected to graduate in 2013.

 

We visited Wellesley’s science department, student lounge areas, library, and the front of the residential building.

At first, I didn’t think much of Wellesley since it is an all-girl school. I didn’t really consider it to be on my college list because I’ve always thought that my college experience would be in a co-ed university. However, the tour opened up my mind a whole lot!

First of all, Wellesley is a beautiful place. Just seeing the houses lined up in the neighborhoods around the area made me double think. They all looked so majestic. I also noticed that almost none of the houses had fences, which is weird because I think almost every neighborhood back in Richmond (California) is lined up with fences. Now the college itself was so architecturally fascinating. Most of the buildings were old. Amy explained that a great fire had actually destroyed most of the buildings many moons ago, but some survived. 

Wellesley was so green! I loved it. Amy dismissed the tour inside the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center, where we had a little lunch inside one of its cafes. Afterwards, we walked back to the admissions office for an informational session with a Wellesley alumnus. This is the best part of the whole Wellesley visit because its where I was really convinced that I want to give the application a try.

I learned that Wellesley is a need based college and that they can help you with your financial needs. Also, they encourage students to study abroad. I’m all about exploring the world! It’s really great that they give a student the opportunity to study abroad for a semester, a year, or even for a couple of weeks.

I was glad that we had a little bit of downtime after the tour. We got back to our hotel around 3:00 PM. Me and Romina decided that we needed to walk to a nearby CVS to buy some bathroom necessities. Of course, we had to have Jackie’s permission. She gladly granted us permission but reminded us that we had to be back and ready by 7 PM for our dinner. We discovered that CVS was actually attached to a mall. We ended up shopping for a little bit and then headed back to the hotel.

 

Afterwards, Romina took a nap and I headed for the hotel’s fitness room. I love running while listening to music, so I decided to run on the treadmill for 45 minutes. Jackie was also in the fitness room for some time. After running, I settled for the bike machine and did that for 20 minutes. By the time I got back to my room, it was already 6 PM. I took a quick shower and got ready for dinner.

Dinner started around 8 in a restaurant called Camille’s. I had a great time there. Upon arriving and confirming our reservation, we were guided to an outdoor lounge area where a DJ accompanied us with some music. We met a lot of amazing individuals during dinner. The first we met were Mercedes Domenech and Guy Sanchez, both super familiar with Brown University. Mercedes is an admissions counselor and Guy is an alumni. I sat across from Guy, Mercedes, Aida (Brown alumni), Ana, and Maddie (current Brown students). I really enjoyed their company, especially Aida’s. Guy gave us a whole lot of information about Brown, from housing to financial issues.

Though I’ve already learned most of what was discussed from the last Brown dinner, it wasn’t a hassle absorbing all the information again since they were all pretty important. Aida and Maddie talked a whole lot about selecting courses, leaving home, and just student life in general. We sort of drifted from college discussions but somehow our conversation found its way back. We talked a whole lot about pressures from our families to going to college for the sheer experience of finding our own identities. I was pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to the other two Brown students, Brenda and Brad. But I suppose it’s okay since Aida, Maddie, and Ana discussed almost everything we wanted to know about Brown and college in general. The food was outstanding and very, VERY filling. I couldn’t even get up afterwards!

We ended the night with a group picture in front of Camille’s. I would say that tonight would have to be one of the best summer nights I’ve ever had.