Tag Archives: General

FEATURED
Yet Another Prefrosh Perspective on WesFest: “Everybody Seemed So Optimistic”

“Unlike some colleges, there was no sense of a huge ‘stress’ cloud looming over the student body.”

Yet another prefrosh has written in to share some thoughts on the WesFest experience. For previous prefrosh perspectives, click here or here. Here’s Anna Lu ’17, an incoming freshman who first visited Wesleyan at the age of 12:

No words can properly describe Wesleyan. The first time I came to campus was at the age of 12 for my first championship swim meet. Being stuck at a swim meet for the entire day, I took the liberty to explore this mysterious college campus. As the years went by, I narrowed down the necessities of my future college: I’ve loved the idea of having a small liberal arts college in the northeast, an eclectic student body, and a strong science program. Wes fit that perfectly. I took a recruiting trip during the fall and that solidified all previous notions of it being my top choice.

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FEATURED
Outside the Wes Bubble: Norovirus Goes Viral

Wesleyan seems to have become intimately acquainted with the Gastro virus over the past few weeks, but we’re not the only ones: this virus is seriously getting around on northeastern campuses, spreading puke, diarrhea, and cramps like holiday cheer wherever it goes. It all feels a bit like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but [spoiler alert] even Donald Sutherland succumbs in the end. So it goes.

Down at GW University in DC, health officials have identified approximately 85 cases of gastrointestinal fun, with many more likely unreported. “Hand sanitizer also continues to be supplied at stands located in high-traffic areas,” offers up the health advisory, apparently unaware that hand sanitizer is totally not sufficient to stop the spread.

What’s more, GW Norovirus has taken to Twitter to let prospective targets know what’s up:

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The People Could Fly Project needs your help

Intisar Abioto ’08 and The People Could Fly Project are going to Djibouti! From here:

We will be traveling with the ATA’s Young Professional Forum. The Project will be visiting with students at the University of Djibouti and sharing with school-age children the story of The People Could Fly by master children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. Hamilton passed away in 2002 leaving a great legacy of multi-cultural children’s literature. The Djibouti Government has graciously offered to sponsor our hotel accommodations, meals, and on-ground transportation.

Since we began The PCF Project last spring my sisters and I have worked to make the dream of documenting the dreams and stories of young people across the African Diaspora a reality. With a belief that anything can be accomplished we’ve taken our cameras, our hearts, hopes, and minds across the US, from our home in Memphis, TN to Philly, Washington, Jena LA, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis, Inglewood, Detroit, Atlanta, Nashville, Connecticut, Detroit, North Carolina, and Mississippi. We’ve filmed, photographed, and interviewed young people of color and anyone and everyone in the making of a documentary about the power of our dreams.

If you have a few bucks sitting in your Paypal account, you can help contribute to their travel fund though their blog. What do they need?

Roundtrip costs from Memphis to Djibouti, East Africa:
$340 x 3 ( As opposed to the $5,806 per person it would be otherwise. Insane insane insane I know..!)

Travel Insurance:
$25 x 3
Visas to Djibouti
$50 x 3

Safety net money while traveling from Memphis to Amsterdam to Paris to Addis Ababa to Djibouti, and back.
$1500

Malaria pills
$40
Yellow fever shot for two;
$245

Hotel, meals, on-site transportation, direction, and guides while there are courtesy of the Africa Travel Association and the government of Djibouti.

Total: A whopping $2985 for a journey for 3 people halfway across the world! yeah!

If you will contribute anything!
If even just 200 people out of the group contributed $5 that’d be $1000. Or if you can just give $3 or $2 or 50 cents!
It’s that serious. We are almost there!

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As of March 2009, we have moved to wesleying.org. This feed will no longer be updated. Please update your bookmarks.

How to Avoid Summer Inanity: Part I

Summer was never a particularly fun time for me. Part of being a poor wretch of a kid meant I’ve gotten the chance to work a variety of menial summer jobs pretty much every summer since…forever. From dishwasher to soda jerk to waitress to camp counselor to horribly oppressed intern in the sweltering oblivion we call a capital, you name it, I’ve probably done it and got paid minimum wage or less to do it. In fact, with the notable and wonderful exception of that summer right before college when I came down with acute appendicitis, I think I’ve pretty always had a pretty crappy summer job. (In all honesty and without exaggeration, I look back on The Summer of Unlimited Netflix Rentals and Limited Torso Movement as the best summer of my life.)

But despite it all, I’ve always tried to come away from my summers having learned new, possibly valuable but surely unmarketable life skills. Like how to tell where someone is from by whether they call those chocolate things on ice cream cones jimmies or sprinkles (they’re jimmies). Or how to stop the bleeding when a 10-year-old slices halfway into his thumb with a glass cutter.

Anyway, since this is probably the first summer since TSUNRLTM I’m actually not working a menial crap job, I’m going to dedicate part of my summer to learning really ridiculous skills.

Thus, Avoiding Summer Inanity: Part I*