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This is a part of our ThesisCrazy Series. You can sign up here for a short 10 min interview! Interviews by Zoomy Sofia Rinaldi ‘25 (she/her), Astronomy and Physics Major, Thesis in Astronomy, no carrel  Working Title:  "This Gal is on Fire: Understanding the Kinematic and Morphological Evolution of Early Galaxies Using Simulations." “The capitalization is important. This Gal is on Fire, because gal for galaxy and then fire is the name of the simulations I use.” On her topic: “The James Webb Space telescope observes galaxies that are super distant in the very early universe that have these really weird shapes. And because they're so distant, it's hard for us to get data about what's really what's going on with the physics of those galaxies. So my project uses galaxy simulations of early universe galaxies to kind of study the evolution of the galaxy's physics and shape and see if and how those things correlate. We know that they correlate in the local universe, so it's to see, you know, to better contextualize and explain what's going on with those weird observations by James Webb.”  On how she thought of her topic: “I started working on the project two years ago with my advisor. I was interested in working with her and it was originally just one of the couple of projects that she mentioned to me that I could pursue. It was like the most physics-based analysis.” On her progress: “I'd say I’m like 90% of the way there...I need to write my conclusion, but my conclusion is gonna be like two or three pages. But I need to make a bunch of images, because I use this like specific code to make images of the galaxy in different components of the galaxies at different times, and I need to do all of that.” On her current mental state:  “If I finish my edits by the end of the day, then it will be fine. I'm fully planning on staying up most of the night on Wednesday to finish.” On her most upsetting thesis experience:  “I took a class last semester that was the most work I’d ever had in college, so I could not make almost any progress on my thesis last semester. Now, it was fine because I had done two years worth of research, like writing all the code, making the initial observations, and the initial calculations. But it meant that I couldn't get into the bulk of my writing until this semester. So I didn't really start writing-writing until like spring break… it's been a real crunch.” On her favorite form of procrastination: “Searching for apartments and applying for jobs. Honestly, it's exciting though, because I want to move to New York." On her plans for after she hands her thesis in:  “Oh my god. I'm probably gonna take a nap during the day, and my goal is to turn it in in the morning. So I’ll go to class, and take a nap, do the champagne pop, and then my friends and I who wrote theses are going to go out to dinner for a celebration, then I have a cappella, and then bar night it up." On her favorite part of her thesis: “I haven't made them yet, but probably my pretty pictures. If I were to spend a long time explaining this to you, this would be like the easiest thing to grasp, so it's what makes my project most accessible to most people.”  If her thesis was a song/movie/TV show: “Friends, because that's a show that I've rewatched a bunch of times, and it's very much been in my life for a long time, but it also gets boring because I've seen it so many times. And like the fact of the matter is as much as I love this, it's like I've worked on it for so long, now, it's like it's an oldie but goodie, but sometimes I need a change.” On her most used word/phrase: “Maybe galaxies. If I were to say a science word, it would be kinematics and morphology, because that's what the topic is. But because I'm a terrible writer, it's probably ‘thus’. I use the word I thus way too much."  Any questions she’d wished we’d asked: “I think the only other thing I'd say is that the entire time I've been working on it and/or not working on it last semester I kind of had this anticipation of “it's just gonna get written…I’m at like 10 or 15 pages and I'm just gonna blink and it's gonna get written.” And that kind of did happen, like I kind of mostly got written within the last month or two. And now we're at about 70 pages, it'll be up to maybe 80 if we’re lucky. So that grind, it just kicks in, and just and we made it where we did and we made it work.” Theses feces:  “Regular. No anxious poops... I will say I've had anxious nausea. I've just been, like, in bed, absolutely nauseated and stressed. So that's fun.” Isadora Goldman Leviton ‘25 (she/her), Education and American Studies Major, no carrell (but a desk in the Education Studies house)  Working Title : “'Hope Happens All the Time!' Educator Joy as a Means of Sustainment in Hartford and West Hartford."  On her topic: "I did 11 long-form narrative interviews with eighth grade teachers in Hartford and West Hartford. I wanted to understand how they define just and sustainable futures for themselves and for their students. I was sort of using statistical data around educational apartheid to understand those things. So I looked at what sustainability means for a teacher's career, but also what it means for a student's future and what it means amidst environmental disaster and things like that, especially because environmental racism is significantly more prevalent in Hartford. So there's a lot of intersecting things."  On how she thought of this topic: "I knew that I wanted to do something in education and I have a background in environmental sustainability work, so I think it was the intersection of those things. I wanted to work with teacher because don't know the next time I'll get to like sit down and learn from other educators like that. So it was kind of a selfish choice. I chose Hartford and West Hartford because Wesleyan has a tendency to have very complex relationships with the communities that we are a part of, and it felt like I wanted to do due diligence to those teachers and people." On her progress: " It's done, bitch."  On her current mental state: "I don't think I feel relieved yet. I’m hoping I get to that point. I think until tomorrow when everyone feels like they are collectively taking a sigh of relief, maybe it'll feel more real. I'm bad at sitting still, so we'll see how this goes." On her most upsetting thesis experience: "To be honest I think the work that I'm doing is really devastating, and I often would sit there and read stories for hundreds and hundreds of hours about the most disturbing and deeply saddening findings about literacy rates and about how teachers were moving through this world and what neoliberalism has done to teachers and the teacher workforce. There were stories of 17 teachers in one school being on food stamps. It was a very humbling experience to sit in that all the time and to be with that kind of data." On her favorite form of procrastination: " My ASHA work." On her plans for April 17th: "I'm just I'm gonna dance night away in sparkles. That's the truth. I have my sparkly shirt upstairs already." On her advice for future thesis writers: "The way to move through this is to be so in love with your work that there isn't a second question that you're doing the right thing. I live and breathe, think, sleep, and pee this work. I don't think about anything else the way that I think about this, and if I had one bad day where I was not obsessed with this work, I would have just quit. Find something that you love that much or it's not worth it." On her favorite part of your thesis: "I worked really hard to make it accessible. I wanted people to be able to read it and relate to it and hear it. It's not gonna be silo and that I worked really hard for that to be the case." If her thesis was a song or movie or a TV show : "The thing that got me through it was a playlist that I have. It's called “You and me and the universe that's holding us.” The two songs most important to me are “Making it Through” by Angie McMahon or “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” by Waxahachi." On her most word/phrase: "Um, well, like “it" or “this”, but I would say some version of the word sustained, so sustainment, sustainability, or to be sustained. I'd say that's probably in every other sentence in the entire thesis." Theses Feces: "I'm gonna answer this politically. I've been very stressed, okay?"

The blaze of passion in which Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and JD Vance die can be seen from the International Space Station. Approximately 7 billion people cheer as the footage is livestreamed. TRUMP (cut short as he perishes) Noooooo I'm being cut off like at the last deba- SPACE Cut to a chase scene in a movie theater. Spectators are watching intently as the Tesla cybertruck on the screen blows up, with a single mother and her five children inside. SPECTATOR ONE I fucking knew it would happen as soon as they stepped into the car! SPECTATOR TWO Hush, bitch! I just got an alert on my phone that says three guys died in space! The spectators are Matt Walsh and that one twink Ben Shapiro. MATT Wait a second... those were not just any guys. They were the saviors of the world! What will we ever do without them? Matt whimpers like a puppy, wanting to lick Elon's flabby little belly button at least one last time. BEN I need to tell my modest and sexy sis-- I mean, modest and sexy wifey! Ben looks around to make sure the slip up wasn't heard. His life as a self-hating, closeted Brony at the Daily Wire was hard enough, but if those goddamn dems decided to enter this movie theater, he would be outed as an incestuous man as well. MATT (sniffling and wiping tears from his eyes) He was so strong. He got shot in the head but survived. He was my hero. He was my dad. BEN Your dad? What do you mean, Matt Walsh? Ben brings up a microphone from his pocket. He realizes he was live, and all right-wing America probably heard his slip-up. MATT I've never been this open in my life except for when I was test-driving the Tesla Urethral Sounding Rod (trademarked by Tesla and my one and only lover Elon Musk), but I will admit that I am a bastard. BEN You don't say? He smirks and licks his non-existent lips at Matt. There is some kind of tension in the otherwise-empty theater. MATT (blushing) No! Not bastard like that. Although I never give pregnant women a seat on the bus because I think women are second-class citizens and deserve to be pregnant just like my late fascist-X-lover and y late-father and his late-concubine Vance. Ben raises an eyebrow. It keeps raising. It doesn't stop raising. The eyebrow flies off of his face and hits the ceiling. BEN They've been dead for... two minutes. You don't have to describe them as late. MATT Yes, well, anyway. Trump is my father. Melania got him pregnant a while ago. But even before Melania, there was another woman. This woman impregnated him, so he gave birth to me and tried to flush me down a toilet. He was ashamed of his whorish ways. When I was five years old, he tried to hang me with a telephone wire. This is why the Daily Wire means so much to me. Every day, I feel blessed. I feel blessed that I did not succumb to the daily strangling I endured. I feel blessed that I can experience urethral sounding every day. I feel blessed my beard is as thick as my pubes. BEN (tearing up) I know I'm not supposed to feel emotions because of the slogan "facts not feelings," but God damn it am I feeling something. I'm crying so much I could fill up the Gulf of America. I want to say that I feel blessed as well. I'm blessed to be a Brony and have sensual experiences with my modest sister Abby. I'm blessed to be a straight man who is attracted to barely anthropomorphic ponies. I'm blessed to not have pronouns. I am so blessed! TRUMP (walks in) Hey, son. Wanna hang out? MATT (with his life flashing before his eyes) Dad... hang...on... AHHHHHH. Matt Walsh runs away and jumps through the brick wall of the theater, leaving a cartoonish Matt Walsh-shaped hole in the wall. It probably compromises the structural integrity of the building. BEN Hrmmm... Wait a second. I sense something off about this situation! You're supposed to be dead! TRUMP Well, erm, I'm not dead! Eh, the liberals have lied to you, Ben. Eh, they have brainwashed you. BEN Then how do you explain the live ISS footage? TRUMP Did you say ISIS? I love those guys! BEN No, Trump. I'm, I'm not talking about your social life right now. I'm talking about the floating thing up in the sky that takes pictures and moves around the Earth. TRUMP (gesturing with his meaty hands) Oh yeah. But it doesn't move around the Earth. It's on top of the horizontal disk that is America. The Gulf of America is the very edge of it, as we all know. Ben, I expected better education from you. BEN Your son left the building. Also, when are we getting oiled up? You promised we'd get all of America oiled up soon. TRUMP All in good time. All in good time. Wait, my son? No! That son of a bitch ripped open my urethra when he was born. I will never ever get to experience another sounding in the decade or so I have left to live. Trump sobs into his orange hands. Urine leaks out of his eyes, adding a beautiful golden glow to his face. BEN Wait is that why you don't have testicles? TRUMP ( hissing) Yes, unfortunately. Matt stole my entire scrotum when he emerged from my pelvis. BEN We should stop discussing genitalia, it is uncouth and not very modest, unlike my sexy sister Abby. TRUMP You're right. We should stop worrying about people's genitalia. It's really none of your business, Ben, what I have and don't have down there. You're so very right. I'm gonna go find my long lost son and see if he has grown up to be a nice young man. BEN Yes, I think I will visit the Supreme Court and do things with my sister. I will not specify to those of you watching or listening to Daily Wire. But if you subscribe to my Patreon or my OF, perhaps I will upload some extra footage. Haha, foot-age. Because I also have a foot fetish haha. The two boys go on their separate ways, feeling enlightened and refreshed. They acknowledge in their heads that there are plot holes; however, they do not care about inconsistencies and unanswered questions. They are on a mission. They are out to complete Project 2025.

Ah, WesMaps. Everyone’s favorite course registration program that clearly hasn’t been redesigned in years. Wesleyan’s gone through one-and-a-half logo redesigns in the past decade, but WesMaps remains frozen in time. But how old is it exactly? I was expecting to have to do major archaeology (using the Wayback Machine, viewing the page’s source code, guessing the year based on web technologies used), but the answer ended up being a lot easier to find. At the top of every WesMaps page, there’s an “ Archive ” link that I’m willing to bet doesn’t get clicked that much, and it gave me the answer right away: 1996. And yes, the 1996 course catalog is still live on Wesleyan’s servers. The big surprise to me is how little the structure of the course catalog has changed in the last 18 years. We still have the same three general education areas (Arts and Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Social Sciences), along with other familiar sections like Interdisciplinary Programs. The page also features those tiled-image backgrounds that were so popular on the ’90s web, along with a 1-bit black-and-white GIF depicting College Row at the top. Here’s what a course page looks like: Hey look, the class has 999 spots! I should sign up! Just kidding, there’s no way I’d drag myself through Algorithms again. My GPA wouldn’t be able to handle it. As for the current design, it dates to 2006, which is newer than I expected. (Warning: I’m about to get into some technical weeds. If you were planning to major in CS but fainted at the sight of DPL, look away!) The 2006 update added cutting-edge web features like Cascading Style Sheets, table-based layouts, and frames. For those unfamiliar, CSS allows web developers to customize visual aspects of webpages such as layout, fonts, and colors. (The first version of CSS came out in late 1996, and it took a few years for it to be usable in web browsers like Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 3.) That said, its capabilities are seriously underused here. This exact page could’ve been created in 1996 using pure HTML — though by 2006, doing so would probably get you arrested by the web design police. “Table-based layouts” means that under the hood, the columns on this page are really just a table with 1 row and 4 columns. This is also something that’s very much frowned upon these days. What you’re supposed to do these days is use CSS to create columns, but that’s easier said than done. (Here’s a fun game: go ask a web dev “how do I center a div in CSS?” Same idea.) Frames only show up during course registration — they’re the things that make it so the course catalog shows up at the top and your current schedule shows up at the bottom. Their existence is generally regarded as a mistake. But you know what? I’m fine with WesMaps’s design being a little dated. It’s lightning fast, and it works. It’s certainly better than the alternative, which would be Wesleyan paying some outside company a ridiculous amount of money to make a redesign that will inevitably be slow, buggy, and a major step down from what it replaced. Long live WesMaps!

When ya going to fountain avenueeee..... Let's bring back 2008 style partying this weekend despite the whole campus being a slush puddle... I don't know about you but I'm having crazy fomo for the Wesleyan parties I could have been attending when I was freshly 5 years old in 2008 (while the class of 28 was still shitting in diapers). Enjoy this throwback look into 16 year old Wesleyan life from your Wesleying historian.

“My lifestyle dissolves fake smiles. It can be heartbreaking if you aren’t ready for it.” Riel ’14 , the wandering vagabond, surveys his options at the Usdan grill. Photo by Rachel Pincus ’13 . Two or three weeks ago, I entered my apartment around midnight to find the couch occupied by a bearded stranger. He was asleep, sprawled sideways and snoring loudly, and none of my housemates appeared within eyesight. As I reached over his torso to adjust the thermostat, I briefly considered dialing Public Safety. Instead, I located one of my housemates, Carey Gilchrist ’13 , and whispered my demand: “Who’s that dude on our couch?” “Oh, that’s Lina’s friend Riel,” Carey explained. “He sleeps in different places every night or something. So she offered him our couch.” “Oh,” I said. “Wait, that’s pretty awesome. Would he be up for an interview?” Riel ’14 , a junior majoring in Film and Computer Science, was gone from the couch by the time I awoke the next morning, but later in the week I ran into him in Weshop, where he was stocking up on eggs (“I gotta eat at least six a day, need the protein”) and canned beans. He explained that he had adopted something of a vagabond lifestyle at the beginning of the semester, crashing at friends’ places and refusing to make use of his assigned room in 1 Vine. “I’m trying to be the change I need to see,” Riel told me. On most days, he carries around a camping backpack and a sleeping bag. His lifestyle is controversial, but his reasoning has an oddly circuitous logic to it: If he’s already paying all this money for room and board, shouldn’t he be free not to use it? I asked Riel if he would like to be interviewed for this blog. Sure, he said, just so long as I didn’t publish his last name or a picture of his face. And could he boil some eggs in my stove while we did the interview? I consented to his demands, as he did to mine. This is the conversation that took place. Do you have a room on campus? Yeah, 1 Vine. I haven’t been to it yet. Well, I went to the kitchen to cook eggs once, but I didn’t actually go into the room. What inspired you to adopt this lifestyle on campus? I was hitchhiking around Mexico last semester—I ran away. I was really unhappy here. I went to Cuba for two months. Now I’m back and I have assigned housing and I’m trying to be the change I need to see. I’m trying to do what it takes to make myself happy in this environment. It’s sort of a challenge, you know? When did you first get creative about your living situation on campus? Last summer I went to summer session here. I didn’t want to pay and I was also really lazy about getting housing. At first I was going to sign up for  housing with my friend, but then he got suspended for being a dipshit. I knew it would be warm out. I could sleep outside, I could take showers and keep a locker at Freeman, plus I’d have friends on campus I could chill with and go to in case of an emergency. I didn’t need housing. Sophomore year I did lots of Adderall and just sat in my room all the time. You know, college is the first time you have a place that’s completely yours and you have complete privacy. And it can get very insular, very isolated. By contrast, this summer was great. I felt very dependent on people. When you’re dependent on people, you really learn you can trust them (or you can’t). When  you learn to trust people, you get comfortable. When you get comfortable, you let yourself be vulnerable; you can be who you really are. Most people at Wesleyan seem to be afraid of trusting each other. It makes us lonely and fake. There’s this parental lifeline that fulfills all of our physical needs and usually brings plenty of luxuries. We don’t need a network of other people to survive and thrive day-to-day. Wesleyan controls what we eat, where we sleep, where we work, where we buy our coffee, where we party, where we watch movies, where we buy our computers. To me, it feels like an oversimplification. I want to depend on people. I would go so far as to say that I need to depend on people. So you turned it into a personal challenge this semester? I wouldn’t say it’s a challenge. It’s not, like, some arbitrary personal goal just to be adventurous. Although it does effectively do this. I’m having lots of adventures all the time. Really, it’s a lifestyle choice. When you interact with people during the day, they have time to filter themselves. They go out in the world and they put on their business face. You have a context for what you’re talking about, the class you’re in or the club or the sport, so you never break each other’s comfort zones. When you’re in someone’s living space, they cook around you, and they need you to do things. They poop and they shower and they reveal their disgusting habits. I really like bonding with people so intimately. When I was homeless I realized so much of my personal identity was wrapped in routine. It had very little to do with me and had more to do with this routine I’d set up for myself. When you’re traveling around and you don’t have that agenda, you’re living in the moment. Everything’s fresh and everything’s improvised. You sort of isolate what’s really you from what’s your routine, your environment. Where have you slept for the past five nights? I slept in the lobby of 156 High for two of them. On a public couch. Also two different friends’ rooms. It’s mostly friends’ floors, beds, and couches. People are pretty down to cuddle up, you know? People like the comfort and the company. How do you typically approach people about sleeping over? I try not to force it on people. I try to make it really explicit that if you’d like to have me over, it’d be a good time, I’d really appreciate it, but it’s not an obligation. I have a lot of different options every night. I don’t want anyone to feel like there’s some moral obligation to have me over when they’re actually annoyed or inconvenienced. If someone feels like I’m encroaching on their space, it defeats the point. I try to do people favors when they have me over. I like washing dishes. I don’t disrespect their space or make a mess or take things. Where else do you sleep? In the summer I slept in Beta a lot. I walked in behind this guy, he typed in the code, and I was like, “Wow, that’s stupidly easy to remember.” So I just slept on the couches a lot and they were very chill. I also found a bed on the fourth floor of Clark. It was just in the hallway. I pushed it around the corner so P-Safe couldn’t see me. I slept outside sometimes. That tower over Jackson Field is really fun to hang out in. I  also slept in the library once, which was a really funny story. I climbed the wall and got into a thesis carrel and when I went outside to throw something away, I set off a silent alarm and the police came. They were knocking on every door and stopped right before they got to mine. I was terrified to leave the carrel after that. I had to pee, so I ended up peeing in several discarded food bags that I had. Of course I don’t get into those  sorts of shenanigans anymore,  just peoples’ rooms. I’ll start sleeping outside again as soon as it warms up. I have a toasty-ass sleeping bag. Where do you shower? Friends places’ and Freeman mostly. The first floor of Allbritton has showers in it. Also, the basement of Exley. I use those from time to time. Photo by Rachel Pincus ’13 . How has this affected your social life? Every night is a party. I can’t really avoid it. I used to be very reclusive, but now I’m sort of forced to go with the flow. I’m getting to know a lot more people than ever before.  I’ve met tons of really fun, interesting, kind people who are just too shy or reclusive or busy to meet at parties. I find the same people who averted their eyes from me in public making me breakfast when they find me passed out in their common room. In that way it’s strengthened my faith in the kindness of strangers and the inherent goodness of humanity. Of course, there’s a handful of people who are cold towards me, who look down on me or show me selfishness in a time of need. When it comes down to it, those aren’t the people I want to spend my time with anyways. My lifestyle dissolves fake smiles. It can be heartbreaking if you aren’t ready for it. Has anyone gotten suspicious of you? I am careful not to do things that are malicious, illegal, or troublesome.  A clean conscience will often neutralize suspicion. But I do get a decent amount of contempt from some students when I tell them about my situation or when they discover me doing homeless person things (sleeping in public, having a sleeping bag, eating discarded food).  Just students, though. I still haven’t had any problems with P-Safe, the police, or anyone in town. One time I was walking into WestCo and I asked a girl to hold the door for me, and she got real snotty. She asked for my ID and interrogated me for a solid five minutes. Once she convinced herself that I was a homeless dude from Middletown, she started talking about me to her friend as if I wasn’t there. The dissonance between Wesleyan students and the town we live in is kind of ludicrous. I grew up being friends with a lot of homeless people and university students.  I wouldn’t say that the students were more interesting, smarter, safer. I wouldn’t say that they were more trustworthy or honest or fun to be around. I really hate the word “Townie,” and I think it carries a lot of negative connotations. So what if I was from Middletown? How do your parents feel about your lifestyle? They’re a little unhappy with it, but they’ve accepted it. My dad is pissed to be paying for residence when I’m not using it. I am, too. I tried to marry out of it, but it didn’t work out. Long story. The university makes it very difficult. My parents also think it’s gonna fuck with my academic output, which has yet to be determined. I’ve been the happiest and most productive I’ve been my whole life.

To attend Wesleyan University is to participate in a constant struggle against price gouging. But all is not lost, for if you remain vigilant, you can find refuge against greedflation in unlikely places. To illustrate this point, I’ll start by examining this vending machine, located on the ground floor of the Olin Library: My field research has indicated Wesleyan’s on-campus vending machine layouts consistently follow this pattern: Rows A & B: Large chip bags (~2½ ounces/servings), $2.75. Row C: Medium chip bags (~1½ ounces/servings), $1.75. There used to be two rows of these, but they switched row B to the large bags so that they could make people pay more without having to increase unit prices. Row D: Pastries, $2.00. Row E: Regular-size candy, $2.00, which is a ridiculous price to be paying for a single bag of Skittles. Row F: Large candy, $4.00. Row G: Does not exist. Row H: Gum and hard candy, may as well not exist given that it’s buried at the bottom. Now let’s do some math. That bag of Lay’s Classic potato chips is $2.75 for 2½ ounces. That works out to… $2.75 ÷ 2.5 = $1.10 per ounce I believe the technical term for this is “highway robbery.” Now here’s where it gets interesting. At Weshop, they sell single-serving (1-oz) bags of chips that are meant to be sides for your Weshop lunch, but you can buy them at any time of day. And how much do they price-gouge us on those? Just kidding, they don’t! But only because Frito-Lay prints the prices on the bags so Bon Appetit’s hands are tied. Officially it’s 2 for $1 or 59¢ each, but in practice they just charge you 50¢, probably because it’s easier to set that up on the cash register. Even by 2010s pre-inflation standards, that’s dirt cheap. While the bags are smaller than what you can get at the vending machines, they’re worth 50¢ per ounce, which means you could get more than twice the chips for the same price. For example, you could get five 1-oz bag of chips for $1.50 at Weshop, and that would still be cheaper than getting one 2½-oz bag for $2.75. In conclusion: never buy chips at the on-campus vending machines. There are some snacks that Weshop doesn’t sell in single-serving sizes, but most aren’t very good. Those BBQ-flavored cheese puffs… yeah, barbecue and “cheese” flavors don’t go together very well. Reduced-fat Cheez-Its… right, because that makes them so much healthier. Veggie straws… if you’re into them, then okay, you can go ahead and get those. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Wholesome post about yesterday's magical northern lights on campus. If you were lucky enough to be out and about and discover them on your own, or came sprinting out to Foss after seeing every single person you've ever known post them on Instagram, you were in for a real treat. After a huge coronal mass ejection, the NOAA issued a G3 solar storm warning, with predictions that the northern lights could be seen as far south as Florida. By a little after 7, a huge and bright streak of pink could be seen in the sky in Middletown, and continued to change and eventually fade over the next hour. While the sky being a bright magenta was obviously the highlight of the night, I also found it really heartwarming to see the Wes community come together like that and to see so many students buzzing with excitement. People were running around the campus trying to find the best place to see it, cheering, calling their loved ones, and even sparking up in true Wesleyan fashion. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the 100+ people out on the field in little groups with their friends, but it was a really sweet moment that I think everyone was grateful to share with each other. If you got amazing northern lights pics on campus, send them over to wesleyingblog@gmail.com

The question of the year. If you're a fan, you may have checked our site for the last seven months or so and thought, "wtf happened to Wesleying?" Well, we're here to tell you everything that's been going on since our new site came up. For new freshies or other Wes students who are just discovering us, check out our about page  to learn a little more about the blog's history. In January of 2024, we noticed that the site was down, and after a couple stressful weeks of troubleshooting, emails, and contacting customer support, we received the news that our site's data and content was permanently deleted with very little warning after a very unfortunate combination of billing and login miscommunication that the current editors were not aware of until it was too late. It was the worst case scenario for a small error, and, simply put, a really awful moment for Wesleying. For alums and current students alike, the great news out of this bad situation is that the thousands of archives from Wesleying's past were not lost forever with our site being deleted. Almost everything has been saved on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine , and if you type wesleying.org into their search bar you can find thousands of backups of the site dating all the way back to 2008. So, if you alums would even like to see what Wesleying looked like your freshman year of college, you can now do so there. We have efforts underway to create a more official and accessible site for the archives, and we will also be reposting some old articles on here in the weeks to come. The golden era of Wesleying and blogs in general has come to a close, with the addition of a pandemic, new publications on campus, and a shift in Wesleyan culture having made an impact on Wesleying's readership and community as well. However, the light of this situation is that we now have an opportunity to rethink how Wesleying can best serve as an important community resource in a 2024 context. Due to a very, very small team working on getting a new site up while balancing all the other tasks of life, it has taken us longer than expected to get to this point, which we are sorry for. But we're here now, and mightier than ever. Which is why we need YOUR HELP !! Do you have opinions about Wesleyan culture, funny campus phenomenons, or important things going on? Do you have other ideas for tiktoks, events, or content you would like to see shared here? Fill out this form if you'd like do be included on emails, write (or create!) for us, send your article ideas in, or just want to come for the immaculate vibes of Wesleying. I'm even gonna pull out Uncle Sam here: Huge shoutout to Margaret '21, Zach '13, Evan '13, and other alums for their support, advice, and help during this shutdown. Couldn't have done it without you guys. Reach out to us at wesleyingblog@gmail.com if you have any comments, questions, concerns. We're happy to back, and we certainly missed you.

Picture this: it’s Saturday night, you’re putting on your makeup and your cute little corset top (or not— maybe it’s a jersey and some ripped jeans)…and you’re staring at your High Noon because you know you have to drink it but also the mere smell of a High Noon brings back extremely cursed memories. You could go out to a bar, sure, but let’s be real: the fancy ones don’t take your fake IDs. But boy do I have an alternative for you, and it’s right next to your doorstep (unless you live on Pearl Street, in which case I extend my sincerest apologies): pi cafe .  That’s right! Today I’ve got a list of brand-spanking-new PI cocktails for your viewing (and consuming) pleasure. So without further ado, here’s how to upgrade your Saturday night:    Espresso Martini   Simply order one ounce (one shot of espresso) – the rest I fear you’ll have to do alone. See, google says to get Coffee Liqueur in the form of Kohlua’s and Barr Hill Vodka, but realistically we only have tito’s in our dorms. So make sure it isn’t peach-flavored (if it is, I beg you to re-evaluate your life choices) and splash it into that espresso!  I forgot to mention the best part— contrary to what one might believe, pi does have individual espresso beans! They’re pretty protective over them though, so it might take a second of distracting baristas and snagging them from the espresso machine to top off your cocktail. I wish you the best of luck!    2. Strawberry Daiquiri   Soooo technically, strawberry daiquiri requires real strawberries, actual quality rum, yadda yadda yadda. BUT, in the spirit of pi not using real strawberries for their smoothies, we shall not use one for ours! So, all you need to do is order a strawberry smoothie (please don’t get ice cream) and then add a splash of tequila. You can tell your friends you got the strawberries from co-op; don’t worry, I won’t tell.    3. The Mario Kart    Like the Fast Car Special Drink (an Arnold Palmer) but elevated— just order this and then ADD VODKA (google tells me this is called a John Daly, but we’re calling it a mario kart). Bam , refreshing, delicious— one might even say intoxicating! 4. Frozen Hot Chocolate    Okay, this one gets a tad complicated, so listen closely. Basically, you’re going to ask for a smoothie with ice cream— but, instead of a fruit, ask for two scoops of cocoa powder, plus a pump of vanilla (or, if you’re feeling frisky, maybe some mint)! Then, lo and behold, you got yourself a frozen grasshopper drink. Now, this is where the magic happens: take out that Bailey’s that I just know you’re hiding in a flask in your jacket pocket, pour some on top, and stir it up. All of a sudden you’re drinking spiked frozen hot chocolate.  Warning: please proceed with caution, this one can get a ~bit~ carried away.  So, good luck to all you going-out-ers—and remember, if you find one of these especially scrumptious, please tell the managers at pi. I’m relentlessly campaigning to get one of these on the blackboard, I think it’s completely appropriate and not at all illegal. Have fun sipping Mario Karters this weekend, folks! You deserve it.

We're famous Y’all, we’ve finally made it. The Daily Wire (the stupid conservative news outlet created by short-but-not-a-king pundit Ben Shapiro) wrote an EXCLUSIVE article article entitled “Wesleyan Encourages Students To Masturbate, Take ‘Kink Quizzes’ In Mandatory COVID Module” . Apparently they had an ~informant~ in the student body that alerted them to the anti-American, pro-Communist things that the Wesleyan COVID Moodle was telling us about sex. And let me tell you, this article is one of the best things I’ve ever read. I’ll start by saying that Wesleyan’s Safe Sex During COVID suggestions are a big meme. Our school is straight up telling us to write erotic fanfic instead of hooking up. Reading the phrase “good old fashioned phone sex” written by the health care staff at this university killed many a libido, I’m sure. When the COVID Moodle came out, my friends and I had a good laugh over this part, but then forgot about it. The same can be said for much of the student body, if I had to guess. But we were all wrong to push it aside, as it is DANGEROUS LIBERAL PROPAGANDA SET ON DESTROYING THE CHRISTIAN VALUES OF THIS GOOD NATION!!!!!! Throwback to when Benathan self-owned himself into the sun Most of the Daily Wire article directly quotes the Sexual Health section of the Moodle, but frames Welseyan’s advice as something terrifying and aggressive. It says that the Sexual Health module “raised the eyebrows of multiple students,” and discusses things like masturbation and dirty talk with an air of alarm. The article raises its own eyebrows at WesWell: “WesWell also distributes free lube and condoms on campus and has a library for students with a selection of contentious books, like one titled ‘Secret Sisters: Stories of Being Lesbian and Bisexual in a College Sorority’ and another titled ‘Lesbian Sex.'” The author really tries to gloss over the fact that the university made this module to try in vain to keep us from having conventional sex, saying: “The university conceded that ‘connecting doesn’t always have to include sex either,’ which students indicated to The Daily Wire they view as a given. Yet, Wesleyan states that it recognizes ‘that an ‘abstinence-only’ practice during COVID isn’t realistic.'” For this entire section of the article, the Moodle page is painted like some sort of classified document they got their hands on, which I think is hilarious. Who knew Moodle would ever be taken so seriously? Bold of Bennifer to drag other people on their sexual behavior when he, despite what he may claim, has never had sex in his life After essentially writing down the Sexual Health page verbatim, the article turns to some outside opinions (!!!). It quotes the Chair of the Middletown Republican Town Committee (lol) saying that he was “flabbergasted” by the Moodle and would pull his child out of school if they went here. A Connecticut State Senator said “This ‘quiz’ and these ‘resources’ are indicators of the decline of American higher education, where there is less and less focus on academic enrichment, and more on promoting radical, and sadly often anti-American, cultural change.” Apparently a school cannot encourage healthy sexual practices and also provide an education at the same time. This article is a sight to behold, but the comments. Oh the comments. They are truly spectacular. I have curated the best of the best right here for you, dear reader. Enjoy. “I live a ten minute walk from there. I drive through it to my gym. Those kids all look EXACTLY like every LibsofTikTok video you’ve ever seen. This is not surprising at all.” “Since when has an abstinence lifestyle not been practical? I happen to know quite a few people that live like that. It just hit me that modern morals really do reduce humans to animals. It’s no longer expected that we have the ability to manage our sexual impulses well enough to keep them inside the bounds of marriage. I’ve known a number of couples who shared their first kiss at their wedding, so surely these students can live without oral dams. When we create low expectations for society, we get colleges giving health tips for using “toys.” When we create high expectations, we get old-fashioned “blushing brides.” I can’t help but think the latter is better for society in general. What happened to that once highly regarded character trait called self-control?” That feel when you decide to be abstinent because it’s practical “How is this not sexual harassment? If I told one of my employees to start “self love” I would be fired in an instant. These students need to sue.” “But maury,” you may say, “Beniveve has three children. He must have had sex at least thrice.” Au contraire; I present to you: the turkey baster “Is this a training seminar for cnn hosts?” “Wesleyan has always been a hive of scum and villainy; it makes UC Berkeley seem like Brigham Young University. Any parent who sends their kids there is getting exactly what they paid for.” So hear me out: “hive of scum and villainy” originally refers to Mos Eisley in A New Hope , which is like… objectively a sickass place. Getting to meet Han Solo and Chewbacca and a bunch of other cool aliens? Sign me up. Also can we have merch that says “Wesleyan University: A Hive of Scum and Villainy” pls. “This is extremely vulgar and disgusting. It takes a lot these days to make me truly cringe, and this did it. Wow. It’s like no formal schooling is safe anymore. It’s not about actual education these days, and that is extremely frightening to realize.” “So sad to see. went to school in Boston. Everyone wanted to date a Wesleyan woman. They were classy. Now? All they seem to be offered by the college is a degree in Porn studies. The destruction of American education is happening.” I’m pretty sure this person is thinking of Wellesley smh. “THESE SO CALLED “PEOPLE”…ARE STRAIGHT OUT FREAKS!!! THEY ARE NOT HUMAN…ALIEN LIFE DOES EXIST OBVIOUSLY, BECAUSE THESE DOMESTIC COMMUNISTS HAVE GOT TO BE FROM ANOTHER PLANET!!????” And finally: “So, now you can get a master’s degree, PhD or BA degree in masturbatology?” Honestly, this article made my day. And if anyone knows Ben Shapiro, please email this to him. It’s my dream to get a cease and desist letter.  Benny Shaps when he sees the sexual libs making fun of him

A lot of attention is paid to Wesleyan’s true mascot: the black squirrel .  That attention is well deserved, but I encourage you, dear readers, to turn your focus to another Wesleyan icon: the groundhogs. Because these guys are nuts. Wesleyan’s campus contains somewhere between 5 and 15,000 groundhogs, and they are truly a menace. Because they subside off a diet of lush Foss Hill grass, Usdan garbage, and possibly snacks offered by students (not to be a buzzkill, but ple ase don’t do this you guys. Feeding wild animals is v not good for them), these guys are so fucking big. Like the size of a basketball. They ripple when they run because of all their fat. I’m pretty sure if they wanted to one could run into me and knock me over. So close Another incredibly frightening this about these boyos is that they don’t give a FUCK about people. When you walk towards them, you can get within feet of them before they move away. As seen in the photo below they will just LET PEOPLE PET THEM??? (Again I feel the need to say,  don’t do this. It’s bad for them, and getting a rabies shot series is no fucking joke.) Photo courtesy of WesAdmits 2023 This behavior is very weird. I have worked in wildlife rehab and husbandry, and if one of the animals under my care acted like that I would be very concerned. I told my coworkers at the center I worked at about these guys (and the black squirrels) and they were similarly freaked out. The TL;DR of this whole thing is that you should be scared and in awe of our groundhogs. They should be cherished as a special part of Wesleyan life. And if anyone has any crazy groundhog stories (don’t we all), please tell us about them by leaving a comment or shooting us an email at  Wesleyingblog@gmail.com !  also p.s. we at wesleying will not acknowledge the rival publication related to this topic jk love u but we r funnier p.p.s. seriously plz don’t feed or pet the groundhogs. sincerely, your local wildlife biologist There are two groundhogs in this picture, can you find them?