Kate Yeo

Throughout winter break I was honestly dreading coming back to school. Six weeks of AMAZING vegan food and lazing around with Mediacorp dramas all day…. I was not ready to get back to the grind. Plus, I was SO certain that the New England cold would be absolutely miserable.

COVID has definitely put a dent on things — there’s been a huge surge in cases with everyone returning to campus. It honestly gives me a lot of anxiety because many haven’t been taking their isolation seriously, and living in a dorm with so many shared spaces makes it almost impossible to stay safe.

That said, at the end of the day we’re all trying to make the most out of the situation. I’m just thankful to be here and to still be able to meet my friends in-person!

Okay, enough said. Here are some snapshots from my first week back in school!

The view from my window on a snowfall morning

Woke up to this on Day 1 and it’s only going to get colder from here lol, bless my soul

Watched Spider-Man with my friends at Nugget Theatre! I’m not a Marvel fan and haven’t followed the entire series but I really enjoyed this one. Cried so much lol. Tom Holland really nailed the acting!! Also Andrew Garfield is hella cute 🤪

Started my new job on campus at Ramekin Cafe (a Starbucks franchise) — which means extra allowance for groceries AND lots of free coffee and food!! 🥳

Experimenting more with meal prep this term! Even though our dining hall has vegan options, it gets really repetitive and it’s not always the most nutritious / balanced. Plus, I really REALLY enjoy cooking; it’s my form of stress relief :’)

Favourite part of our dining hall: The salad bar. I steal all the greens and take it back to our kitchen to make stir-fry!

(Don’t @ me for all the plastic, blame Covid 😩)

I thought I’d stay inside a lot this term but I’ve actually been spending quite a bit of time outdoors especially when the sun’s out. Nothing beats the warm glow of the sun on a freezing cold day :’)

GOVT 10: Quantitative Political Analysis

This is my first real interaction with programming and I’ve never been good with stats so this class is really daunting for me. It has a pretty bad rep (for being hard) and the syllabus already sounds like a lot of work (problem sets every week, quizzes, mid-terms, a final…)

But *DEEP BREATH* one step at a time! Our prof has been super understanding and helpful and I actually had quite a lot of fun working through my first problem set, so maybe it won’t be too bad…? (I already know I’m going to regret saying this lol)

I also have two classes on Zoom — just for the first couple of weeks (hopefully), until the COVID surge goes down.

One of my goals this year is to try and read more! Starting with LKY’s two memoirs and his Q&A book Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going. I’m only four chapters in but it’s already given me so much food for thought and even forcing me to reconsider some of my political views.

Also, one thing I love about our library is borrowdirect which is an interlibrary loan service. We can request a book from any partner institution and it gets shipped to our school, free of charge! For example these books are actually on loan from Brown and Harvard since our school didn’t have a copy. (That said, I’ll be the first to admit it’s definitely a very exclusive and even elitist system – I wish they would expand it to more schools.)

I’ve also been booking study rooms in the library to attend my Zoom classes / get work done. I like to separate my spaces and my dorm room is, as much as possible, a no-work zone. It’s honestly been really nice having a whole room to myself and definitely helps me to feel safer COVID-wise (compared to shared study spaces)!

Friday night with friends 🤍

An annual Dartmouth tradition: A school-wide snowball fight! Each year after the first significant snowfall, Dr. Seuss (Class of 1925) sends this invitation to everyone.

People started trickling in to the Green about 5 minutes before midnight, and the moment the clock struck 12 all hell broke loose: Snowballs flying everywhere, drunk students going wild, dudes running around topless, lots of screams and laughter and overall just a crazy fun-filled time. It’s moments like these that remind me how lucky I am to be a part of the Dartmouth community :’)

(And also thank goodness the fight took place on a Friday night this year so we didn’t have classes the next day!!!)

Mandatory weekend bake! Experimented with a new chocolate chip banana blondie recipe.

And to cap it all off — this week we had the most beautiful sunsets ever :’)

All in all, Week 1 was about settling in, catching up with friends, and building new routines. Cliched as it sounds I couldn’t have had a better start to the term — and now I’m ready to get back to work ✨