Galentine's Day!

Here in 02A, we have a tradition of celebrating what we refer to affectionately as "Galentine's Day" instead of Valentine's Day. It stems partially from my maternal desire to stop the girls from dating, because dating (especially for teenagers) can often lead to poor decisions, heartbreak, and closing oneself off from friends, and getting so invested in the relationships that ones academic, emotional and overall well being can tend to slip.

The other thing our Galentine stems from is the fact that I truly love the ladies that we have in this wing of ours. I would much rather write "love notes" to the girls in the wing, telling them how smart, worthy, hardworking and beautiful they all are than write them to anyone else. And so, Galentine's Day was born!! It became an evening not only to distract them from not having significant others, but also to celebrate themselves and each other. It essentially became a way to showcase love and appreciation for their wingmates, and themselves in particular. I always put up a station on ways to properly love yourself as well, and that usually helps them to remember that we are only capable of truly loving someone else once we've learned to love ourselves first ♡

The evening allows the wing to create Galentine's for each other, as well as having a handful of friendly competition games that allow them to compete in their roommate pairs in Galentine style games to win prizes! We had a candy conversation heart stacking game, in which roommates had to see how many candy hearts they could stack in two rows back to back in 30 seconds. We had a word scramble of all Galentine phrases that they also worked on as roommate pairs. We had my personal favorite game, in which one roommate peels & places heart shaped stickers on her roommate's face to see who can stick the most stickers to their roommate in a one minute time span. That one in particular always leads to plenty of laughs and awesome pictures!

Gowri & Abby can't help but smile after the sticker game!

Clearly, Marisa & Vaishnavi reigned victorious in this game! They did well in it last year, too -- for some reason, VV's just really darn good at covering her roommate's face in stickers.... Well overall, I have to say that the evening was a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, and most importantly, a lot of love. There were a lot of positive affirmations, good thoughts, positive vibes, and great conversations throughout the entire evening. And in true grade-school Valentine's day party fashion, each girl got a paper bag outside their door decorated with their name, so they could drop off their Galentine's to each other after they had made them.

The evening was an even bigger success than last year, and I was glad to see them want to so eagerly continue the tradition. Each of the girls worked hard to create Galentine's for their wingmates, and as their RC, it made my heart very happy to see.

I am hopeful that the love will continue throughout the year, and that in the coming years, we will have plenty more Galentine's nights to come with these beautiful souls.

Love and heart-shaped chocolates to all,

 -- Robyn & the lovely ladies of 02A ❤

Bingo Boards!

January was a month filled with New Years Resolutions, so I figured I would set a few for the wing as a whole! We all know how hard it can be to stick to a resolution, so I put a little incentive on the ones I made, as well as making it into a game for the residents to take part it!

 

I created a "Bingo Board" for the 02A-ers to complete, with requirements for each square so that I knew they had completed it! I had them mark off with post-its each square that they did, and promised them a pizza party if we could get 2/3 of the wing to each do a row or column. 

The wing got a full month to work on it, and I was excited to see that 18 of the 22 girls each completed several squares off of the board! They earned the pizza party, but more importantly, I saw a lot of them learn some healthy habits that I am hopeful they are still working to continue today. Sophomore resident Abby Light even got recognized for doing the most amount of squares on the board -- she marked off a whopping 18 of 25 squares! For doing so, she earned herself a small Rest & Relaxation kit, including a mini dry-erase board and facial mask, to help her continue to stay organized and maintain self-care. Shout out to her for working so hard to mark off so many squares, and for making new friends and healthy habits along the way! She marked off the Make a Friend in the Wing square by getting to know some of our Seniors, while other residents got to know each other as well. Junior Marisa & Sophomore Gowri swapped Pandora study playlists, while Senior Mishelle took part in the Lunar Senior dance, enabling her to go outside of her comfort zone and strengthen some relationships along the way. Other activities students did included reading books not assigned for class (and mostly just for themselves!), going to the fitness center with a friend, doing a random act of kindness for someone in the hall, and making healthy eating choices at the dining hall!

By the end of the month, the boards were filled with post its and memories that I'm hopeful will stick with them all for the remainder of the year (well rather, I hope the memories will stick with them, not so much the post-its, but you get my meaning).

The (mostly) final results of the upstairs rooms & downstairs room boards (I say mostly because I took down several of the post-its as I was about to take the boards down and put up new buletin boards, and then remembered I wanted to take pictures for the blog. But hopefully this gives you an idea of how hard they all worked to make some good habits!)

We celebrated our pizza party the night of our Galentine's Day program, which was also a lot of fun! Be on the lookout in our next blog post for pictures and information from that. 

Making good choices!

-- Robyn & the lovely little birdies of 02A ♡

Intersession Recap

Intersession is always a particularly fun week at IMSA, especially for the students. It's an opportunity to take classes that they normally wouldn't get to, as well as the possibility of doing something outside of their comfort zone. This years list of options included everything from The Secrets of the Rubik's Cube, to Introduction to Improv, to Women In America: Breaking Barriers & Making Noise, to Chess with a US Champion! There were a wide variety of options to choose from, and those were just the ones offered on the IMSA campus. There was also a Chicago Theatre class, which took students downtown to see several shows and discuss them, as well as several out of country trips that allowed students to explore different cutlures and ways of life.

The options this year for international intersessions were Austria, Poland, Mexico City, and Spain, as well as two national options in Key Largo, Florida, and Hawaii! Students always seem to take something away from any intersession they have, but the ones off campus seem to be particularly enriching experiences. Two of our own Seniors in A wing also got the chance to do off-campus intersessions relating to their SIRs (Student Inquiry & Research) and wrote a bit about them to share with us!

Here are their experiences:

"Over winter break and intersession, I was able to visit my grandparents and uncle in Sergiev Posad, Russia. We celebrated the New Year together, made a lot of Russian food, went shopping around Sergiev Posad, visited the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, and also went to Moscow! It was amazing to spend time with my relatives, especially ones I don't see very often, and I miss them all so much already!" -- Mishelle Mironov

"This year my intersession was working on my SIR project at Northwestern University: Feinberg School of Medicine. During this week, I commuted from my house to Chicago by train every day. I would leave at 8 am and get back home at 6 pm. I was able to fully focus on my SIR project which is focused in neuro-biology. Since I normally only research once a week, I was able to complete experiments that take multiple days during this week. I had a lot of fun working on my project and traveling to Chicago every day. I was able to gain a lot of valuable data from spending a total of 40 hours on my project. I would definitely recommend working on SIR as an intersession if you are passionate about your SIR!" -- Mounisha Kovour

In all, I heard lots of positive feedback from Intersession week, and I know a lot of students learned some new things. It was a fun experience for the RCs as well, because we get all of the secondhand knowledge when they visit us in the office after their class!

Until next month!
-- Robyn & the lovely ladies of 02A ♡

Breakfast for Dinner

When you think of pancakes, bacon, sausage, muffins & bagels, you're likely to think of breakfast, right? Most everyone would, but in 02A we like to do things a little differently than what everyone else considers "the norm". When it came time for us to plan our first dinner date of the year, breakfast for dinner seemed pretty darn perfect.

 

Seniors Irena Gao, Lizzie Tang, Mounisha Kovour & Mishelle Mironov show their love for 0-2-A-❤

With the help of our top-notch wing guides, Eva & Koyena, we pulled off a pretty good night for the wing & their dates. We also had some help from Lizzie & Alice, who are two of the best pancake pourers I've ever seen :) The night did start off a bit slow while we were preparing the food (what evil forces of the universe decided that pancakes would cook in two minutes, but bacon & sausuage would cook in ten?) --  but once we got into a rhythm, the evening went well!

Between bites, the students enjoyed playing games like Apples to Apples, as well as playing tic-tac-toe and drawing works of art on our tablefclothes (don't worry -- our tableclothes were just butcher paper). I saw a lot of the Juniors and Seniors laughing with old friends, and the Sophomores making new ones. For the kids, the best part of a dinner date is non-Sodexo food -- for me, it's seeing them enjoy themselves and make lasting memories (although when they all stay to help clean up, that's definitely one of my favorite parts too!)

Sophomore Michelle Wang with her date, Igor Zhuravlyov 

Junior Alice Liu and her date Tim Mou of 05A

One of my favorite moments of the evening came at the end of the night, when everyone was scrambling to take their last pictures. Because I'd been so busy cooking, I hadn't seen what Lola's date Nishant had chosen to wear; although we didn't mandate that our date had a "Christmas" or even winter theme, he went all out with his festive jacket, and it certainly had everone talking!

All things considered, it was a pretty good evening. I've had 5 dinner/dessert dates in my time here at IMSA, and the breakfast for dinner theme was one of the best received. I was worried my own date, Myra (daughter of 04C RC Josiah) might not be too excited about it, but she was ecstatic about the pancakes! Since 10pm is also a bit past a 2 year old's bedtime, I know myself and all the girls were grateful for her adorable and energetic presence in the room :) There's nothing like an over-energized 2 year old running around a room to make you grateful for your 22 teenagers!

Until next time,

-- Robyn & the lovely ladies of 02A ♡

Adventures in A wing :)

With rarely a dull moment in 02A, the girls have all settled into the life at IMSA fairly well. The Seniors have settled into learning the demands of college apps; the Juniors with their heavier course loads (minus the study hours); and the Sophomores with just about everything. We've had several events within the hall and the wing to foster not only community, but also in an attempt to help the girls with the previously stated stressers of IMSA. We've had bonding activities, goal writing events, a wing wars competition within the hall, and a great first program with our brother wing in 1504D.

One of my favorite programs to do is one I call "Connecting the Pieces" where each girl gets a puzzle piece that they need to connect to another girl in the wing. One girl starts by writing something she loves, and another girl will connect to her, and then write her own thing she loves, and then someone else will connect to her, and I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this -- it turned into one big, beautiful (unintentionally) almost heart shaped puzzle :)

We had our hall's wing wars competition, and we went into it the defending champions of last year, so expectations were high! The Sophomores did a great job, with Gowri & Doreen helping us to finish first in the roommate wars event, and several others helping us rack up points in the trivia contest and our talent show! We ultimately finished 2nd this year, but I am extremely proud of how well the girls did, and how they came together as a wing. They showed their creativity, energy, determination, and genuine love for the wing, and it was really wonderful as their RC to see that :) One of my personal favorite moments from that week was during roommate wars, when our French exchange students even participated! They had to leave the day after roommate wars, but made us promise to work hard, and proudly insisted to the rest of the hall several times before leaving that A wing was the best wing ❤ (I'm hoping to have more pictures in the upcoming blog post -- it was a week of really fun events!)

Roommates Dooreen & Gowri and French exchange students Anais & Noemi are ready for roommate wars!

 Most recently we had our goal setting activity, which I think helped a lot of the wing decide what was most important to them, based off of their experience so far this year. It's something we'll revisit next semester, but for now, I saw several really great goals that I know the girls will work hard to achieve! One goal in particular (seen at left), set by Sophomore CJ, has to be my favorite as an RC, and it definitely gave me a good laugh! Many of the other Sophomores also spent a lot of time on theirs, really wanting to ensure they had goals that were attainable, but were also ones they knew they would have to work hard to achieve. Overall I think the program went over really well, as girls from each of the grades took time to really think about what was important to them.

Sophomore Gowri Warikoo shares her goals

Sophomore Riley Brutto added a flower for some flair to her goals

Junior Eden Gorevoy continues her goal setting from last year!

Until next time!

-- Robyn and the lovely ladies of 02A♡

Convocation 2017!

The lovely ladies of 1502 A (minus a few Seniors who were away for the Eclipse)

The 2017-2018 school year started off with a bang, as the entire study body attended IMSA's annual Convocation event, which signals the arrival of a new school year. On top of that, we were lucky enough to have the first day of classes following Convocation cancelled, so that the students and staff could witness the historic eclipse that took place that same afternoon.

For 02A, the morning got off to an especially nice start, with the girls serenading me with "Happy Birthday" the moment I emerged from my apartment. For me, it was nice to know they remembered why that day was important to me, outside of Convocation and the Eclipse. The girls all dressed in their best as well, and made sure to take plenty of photographic evidence to show it.

JR Alice Liu, SR Mounisha Kovour, JR Eva Liu & myself give our biggest smiles!

Mounisha Kovour, Riley Brutto, Abby Light & Doreeen Xiao

JR Upquad: Vaishnavi Vanamala, Hannah Grauer, Sibil Shibu, and Marisa Patel-O'Connor 

 

Now that classes are well under way and everything is in full swing, it won't be long before the pressures of classes, clubs, sports & homesickness start to take its toll on everyone. This is 100% normal (for both the students, and the parents) so I encourage everyone to remember that stressing out is normal, indulging in late night chocolate snacking is okay, and venting sessions with friends are sometimes necessary! 02A has always been a tight-knit community, and I would love more than anything for it to stay that way. We've already had a few programs, one of which centered around the creation of our Wing Contract (pictured at right, hung on our wing refrigerator). Each year the girls have affectionately named our wing "The Robyn's Nest" -- and here in the nest, have several more programs on the way, which I hope will encourage bonding and strong relationships between the girls, as well as self reflection and self-care of each of the girls within themselves. Here's to a great first few weeks, and the upcoming months!

-Robyn & the lovely ladies of 02A ♡