Sometimes life is just garbage.
Here are three pieces of media that brought me joy during the first 263 days of this dumb, hellish, seemingly decade-long year.
Just postin’ ’em here in the hope that you find similar contentment (and maybe catharsis?) during the remaining hundred three days. <3
1. Shrek – (obviously)
2. Mike Wazowski
3. The Geico Gecko – (Save 15% or more on car insurance?)
4. Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy
5. Disgust from Inside Out – (quiet literally a mood)
6. Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales – For your viewing pleasure
7. Oscar the Grouch – “You’d be a grouch, too, if you lived in a trash can!”
8. The aliens from Toy Story that say “the clawwwww”
9. The Hulk (not bruce banner) – Spoiler alert his secret is that he’s always angry
10. The Green M&M – iykyk
11. Wicked Witch of the West/Elphaba
12. Kermit the Frog – Brings light to the difficulties of being green in this economy
12. Rex from Toy Story – “I don’t like confrontations!”
14. The Grinch
15. Yoda – “There is no try”
16. Flubber
17. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – I honestly dk
18. Toad from Frog and Toad
19. The Green Care Bear
20. The Green Giant
21. Gumby
We’ve all seen them. We’ve all talked about them. We’ve even written about them. Wesleyan’s black squirrel population is a source of pride, fear, and gossip for the student body. Despite their fame, we have never known the true origin story of the black squirrel. Until now. Just last year, a team of scientists from the UK and America published their study on the biological source behind this unique coloration. I’ve compiled all the important information below the cut, but I’ll give you a sneak peek here: it’s because these squirrels fuck.
Imagine: it’s the middle of the Fall 2020 semester. Corona continues to terrorize the nation. The most important election of our lives is on the horizon. The line for Wesshop wraps around the building. Due to all this strife, one important thing slips under the radar: the points calculator.
It’s October, all of a sudden you’ve become worried that you’ve gone to Swings one too many times. You go to Wesleying to check and yet… the calculator is out of date. How can you possibly figure out if you’ll manage to be fed up until Thanksgiving??? Do the math yourself? Never!!!
It’s Spring 2021. America never took COVID seriously, so quarantine is now the normal way of life. You desperately need to go to Wesshop; your food stores are running low and your roommate is looking at you a little too hungrily. But when you go to the points calculator, the words SPRING 2020 mock you.
It’s 2022. In his second term, Trump was overthrown by Amazon, emboldened by increased tax breaks and a lust for power. You want to know how many points you have left before you go to the all-new-Amazon-Fresh-run Usdan Cafe. You don’t want to leave your room too often; Bezo’s drones are always watching. But the calculator continues to give you an error.
It’s 20??. As you wander through the wasteland, the thought of a Chai Charger floats through your radiation-addled mind. If only you knew if you could afford it this week… if only… if only the Wesleying editors had remembered…
But none of that’s going to happen because we did remember. You can calculate exactly how many points and meals you can spend each day for the rest of the semester by going to the link at the top of the website. You’re welcome.
This is a new post in our 2020 Unofficial Orientation series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Search Wesnest for student groups!
One thing that’s been missing from Unofficial Orientation in the past is a list of student identity groups. So, here is a list of clubs of that type which are, to the best of our knowledge, active.
All descriptions are taken from Wesnest, Wesleyan’s database of student organizations and events.
This is Bab’s heavily truncated (thanks to COVID) repost of fakeshark’s repost of michelle’s update of kitab‘s update of daniphantom‘s update of their own post. Find the rest of the posts in our 2020 Unofficial Orientation series. here.
Make lots of friends to share lots of sandwiches with.
Orientation is the time when you’ll meet so many new people that you’ll begin to doubt that Wesleyan actually has less than 3,500 students. (Don’t worry, in a few months, you’ll start to realize exactly how small this place really is.) In order to help you on your journey to make those lifelong college friends that everyone gushes about, here are a few tips and tricks to use during orientation and beyond:
There are SO many clubs, teams, and societies on campus that it’s pretty hard not to be involved in some capacity. Being active on campus gives you an instant network of people that you share interests with. This is a great way to meet upperclassmen, and to expand your friend group beyond your hallmates, and/or orientation friends. Which leads me to…
It’s easy to get really close really fast when you start college, and that’s a good thing! That being said, remember to spend time with different people. You and your roommate may get along really well, but if you spend all your time together, there’s likely to be some tension. Most of us are used to having distance from our friends—going home after high school, for example. This distance is pretty important for a lot of relationships—don’t be afraid to take time for yourself and for other relationships. It’s okay if not all your friends know each other; it gives you an opportunity to explore different things and meet more people.
Maintaining relationships at home is important too: some of my best friends are people I’ve known since I was little. Don’t get too caught up in old relationships though—spending all your time on the phone with your best friend from home makes it hard to make new friends. As important as old friends are, having friends who understand your current environment and are physically there gets more and more valuable as you get settled at Wes. You’ll be a lot less homesick when you have new friends, and you’ll have more stories for your old friends anyway. Sometimes it’ll feel like you’re leading two different lives: one with your friends at Wes, and one with your friends back home. It’s pretty fun!
You’re going to make friends. You’re going to make friends you don’t stay friends with. You’re going to make acquaintance-friend hybrids you feel differently about over the course of your time at Wesleyan. You’re probably going to make friends you later hook up with and then feel really awkward around for a while. You’re going to end up with phone numbers of people you talked to twice during orientation. The point being, people will change and grow over the next four years and your relationships will change and grow with them. Don’t stress if you don’t immediately find people you can see yourself being friends with forever. Keep making new friends—your random Usdan acquaintance might end up being your best friend later on. It often feels like everyone has a wonderful, permanent group of friends they’re completely thrilled with, but lots of people are open to new relationships, take advantage.
Best of luck, new (and even returning!) students. Make lots of friends, maybe even some here at Wesleying!
This will be your home for the next 4 years. Soak it all in – this place is truly something special.
We hope this guide to ~Official~ Orientation helps you as you embark on your Wesleyan journey. If there’s anything you still have questions about (or we made a mistake somewhere), please reach out to us via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or in the comments!
Best of luck, Class of 2024!
This is a part of our 2020 Unofficial Orientation Series. Find the rest of the posts here.
Transportation away from Wesleyan can be a tricky feat for someone without a car. But should you want to someday escape the magnetic beauty of Wes or the general Middletown area, rest assured there are in fact options for you.
Connecticut does to some extent live up to its name. This year more than ever in fact with a new CTRail Hartford Line operating between New Haven and Springfield, MA and with future updates to the M-Link Express Route planned by Noah Kahan ’19.
In this article we will lay out for you all the different modes of transportation available to you at all different price points.
**2020 edit: While we’re sure you’re just itching to try out all the different modes of transportation to and from campus, it should be noted that these are ~unprecedented times~ and you should think carefully about whether & where you travel outside of the Wesleyan/Middletown area.
This is a new post in our 2020 Unofficial Orientation series. Find the rest of the posts here.
Somewhere between the invention of Facebook and right this second came the very first WesAdmits. You’re likely already familiar with WesAdmits 2024 – it’s the Facebook group you got added to with your acceptance and where you learned that every single admitted student ever just happens to like both chill nights in and fun nights out. After the introductory formalities in the spring, WesAdmits opens up to the rest of Wes’s student body and becomes a main forum for student communication – lost WesIDs, student plays, club sign ups, abstract questions, polemic debate – you’ll find it all in WesAdmits. Shit goes down in WesAdmits. Here are some of our tips and tricks for learning your way around the forum:
Hello and welcome to Unofficial Orientation 2020! To the class of 2024, we know that coronavirus isn’t exactly bringing the ~energy~ that you were expecting from your freshman year. But fear not! Wesleying will be providing our usual quality, emphatic, and Wesleyan-related content despite all of the world’s apocalyptic chaos. However, just like every other aspect of the upcoming school year, the structure of our Unofficial Orientation series is going to look a little different.
In addition to individually posting each Unofficial Orientation article on everything you need to know about being a Frosh, we are going to put the links to these articles together on this post so that you can find all the important 2020 info in one place. This year has been tough enough already, and we don’t want to make things any harder than they need to be. Some of these articles will be the same as last year, but many of them will be updated according to covid-19 guidelines and how Wesleyan is dealing with the pandemic as a whole. It will be pretty obvious which posts have that special coronavirus flare.
We are also writing brand new articles that pertain to Wesleyan student life that we think are important for all four years of your Wesleyan experience. These are hopefully on topics that are useful with or without global pandemics.
Even though we are facing a lot of changes in 2020, we are still so excited to introduce you to our community and can’t wait to see you virtually or on campus soon!
Part 1
Life in the Time of Coronavirus
Stay tuned for the links to Part 2!
Five months have passed since we published a three-part article alongside alumnae from the women’s cross country team exposing the toxic culture they experienced during their time with Head Coach John Crooke. Today the story was brought to new attention when it was published in the New York Times.
Immediately after our article was published on March 2nd an investigation was opened and Crooke was placed on leave. Michael Roth ’78 sent out the following all-campus email:
