My final spring break
Before I start detailing my wild 'n crazy spring break at home (read: 35 degree weather and stressbaking), I have a confession to make: my senior comps exam for English is the weekend after I get back to school. In theory, I should have spent the first week of break dutifully annotating the poetry packet and writing practice essays comparing some of the works. Instead, I waited until today to start frantically doing this stuff, and actually spent all of last week having a surprisingly fun, unexpectedly Kenyon-y spring break.
1. More networking
("Pathways to DC" took place in this room in the National Press Club. The panel discussion was also basically this, just with fewer people)
On Monday of the first day of break I went to a Kenyon alumni event at the National Press Club called "Pathways to DC". Similar to my pre-senior dinner nerves, I was feeling a little apprehensive about networking with a room full of professionally successful strangers, but I actually ended up having a great time. I went with two other senior friends and we arrived right when it started at 6, dressed in our best approximation of "business casual" (side note: if someone could explain what this actually means that would be great--blazer? long skirt? high waisted dress pants?? Unclear).
Right away I spotted an '09 alum I know working the sign-in table, as well as a couple of other senior classmates, and we spent about 45 minutes chatting with them before we all headed into the main room to hear a talk from the alumni panel. The panel consisted of five Kenyon alums from a variety of fields: an attorney, the Politics editor of USA Today, the VP of T. Rowe Price International, an economist, and a deputy director at NIH. They each took turns discussing their post Kenyon career paths, as well as offering advice on being proactive about reaching out to alums for job offers and "selling" your liberal arts background to potential employers.
After the talk, we mingled with the panel speakers as well as all of the other alums. I got to talk to some really friendly and interesting grads, both ones I knew from their time at Kenyon and ones I had never met before. Best of all, I realized what a large and friendly alumni base I get to be part of, which definitely eased some of my graduation fears a little bit. Every one I talked to was cheerful, eager to help, and seemed happy with their job/ life in DC. Score one for networking.
2. Snow(quester) Day
On Wednesday the "snowquester" hit: a freak one day snowstorm that shut down most of DC/MD/VA despite being little more than two inches of melty slush. I had originally planned to meet up with Ariana so we could write a joint post about liveblogging from a DC bar (ie productively drink on a Wednesday), but that plan sadly took a back seat to the weather. But the day wasn't a total bust--my boyfriend (who already graduated and has a real person job) got the day off, so we ended up having a high school style eat-and-watch-four-thousand-movies snow day. We made homemade mac and cheese with bacon (!!) and, more importantly, spent all day watching my newfound obsession: Game of Thrones. I may not have done much comps reading, but at least I finally understand months-old GOT references. Winter [was] coming !!
3. Dumpling Party
On Friday I got invited to a dumpling-making party at an older Kenyon friends' apartment (she graduated in 2011). This was definitely the highlight of my first week of break--there were tons of other Kenyon kids there, and we spent three hours making pork, chicken, and vegetable hand-wrapped dumplings, as well as making drinks, listening to her 90s pandora station, and sharing Kenyon stories. It was great seeing so many graduated friends, and also really reassuring to realize that my "Kenyon life" doesn't end when I leave the Hill in May; there will always be hilarious, awesome grads to hang out and reconnect with, whether through networking events or impromptu cooking parties. Also, we went to a 2000's dance party at the 930 club afterwards, another definite highlight. Watching drunk 20-something hillterns dance to Hot in Herre > comps.