So today I was browsing my librarian blogs, and I came across this article from the Philly Inquirer about the only male Haverford student currently living on the Bryn Mawr campus.

The article paints a picture of the lone man among a sea of women (not counting transgender students, which is a whole different story) and talks about what a change this is for the campus, but for me the real story is that there's only one, and that he's the first Haverford man to room at BMC for ten years. Because in my day -- cue olde tyme music and the waving of canes -- there were plenty of men living at BMC, enough to require two co-ed dorms. I even lived in a co-ed dorm my sophomore year (Radnor). The numbers dropped while I was there, from probably a couple of dozen men to only five or six, but men were still a presence on campus. But in hindsight, maybe that was the beginning of the end of the exchange, at least for awhile.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, really. I enjoyed my one year of co-ed living, but I didn't feel like I was missing out when I lived in women-only dorms the other three years. It's just weird, though, knowing that this place, preserved in amber in my mind, has moved beyond the place I remember. So far, whenever I've gone back, it's still been Bryn Mawr, the place I know and love. I wonder how much would have to change for that not to feel true anymore. Probably a lot -- even just looking at pictures on the net makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Now this is cool. A database of historic and significant campus architecture.

Bryn Mawr is well represented, of course. I lived in this building for two years (freshman and senior).

There are those who say that Bryn Mawr looks like Princeton, sharing the Collegiate Gothic style. The same architects (Cope & Stewardson) designed a lot of the core buildings, so there is something to that. However, architectural historians agree that the first-ever Collegiate Gothic building is Radnor, a BMC dorm (where I also lived, as a sophmore). So it's not so much that Bryn Mawr looks like Princeton, as that Princeton looks like Bryn Mawr. Take that, patriarchy! ;)

I do love looking at pictures of the old alma mater. It was such a beautiful place to be.

The next chapter of DSHnD is up. Enjoy, if you are so inclined. ;)

And now, off to work, where I will spend the entire day in a new employee orienatation. Yes, during my fourth week. I gather they save these up until there are enough new employees to bother. So I'll probably have figured out a fair bit of it, although at least I'll finally learn what the benefits are.

Ganked most happily from cosmorific.

I have survived my second week and it's all still going excellently well. Although my desk is already starting to collect piles of papers. I haven't gotten my desk organizer thingie yet, which will help, but there are only so many miracles that Office Depot can perform. Of course, just the fact that I have a desk that I am allowed to cover with papers fills me with joy. Along with being able to return my tchotckes to their rightful place on my moniter, and to pin my art postcards to the bulletin board over my desk, and to listen to music on my boss's CD player (no headphones unless we're concentrating on a heavy duty project, but that's okay). Sigh. :)

This entry will have meaning only to the other Mawrters on my friends list.

So at the school where I work, the students in the medical programs are required to wear scrubs to class. Students in different programs wear different colors: medical assistants wear a medium blue, pharmacists wear hunter green, dental assistances wear purple, etc. The programs we have here are medical assisting, massage therapy (their scrubs are navy), pharmacy tech, and health information technology (maroon).

Yesterday, it hit me: light blue, dark blue, green, red.

Perhaps coming to work here was my destiny...

Last weekend was my last as a member of the executive board for the BMC alumnae association. I spent almost three years on the board (a partial term, because the position was created in the middle of the meeting cycle). For almost three years, I went to Philadelphia at least four times a year to spend a weekend with some really fun, really amazing women. I enjoyed it a great deal, and I know I'm going to miss it.

But I've been volunteering for BMC in one capacity or another (club webmistress, club events chair, this national position) since 1998, so it's time to take a break. I haven't gotten out entirely, I'm still the webmistress for my class, but the amount of work I have to do for that is pretty minimal, at least until things get going for our next reunion, which is not until 2010.

At dinner on Saturday, I made a little farewell speech where I said that I was quitting for awhile. KP made Godfather jokes, everyone laughed, but there's truth to it. We'll see how long I manage to stay away...