Subway fumes & groovy tunes

Hey friends! 😊

Do you ever miss the smell of the subway? (Okay, that sounded less weird in my head.)

By “smell,” I don’t mean odor, per se. It’s more of a… scent! You know—the warm, earthiness of summertime in the city, blended with a dash of washing machine humidity, sautéed with some ozone and rail road dust? (Wow, that sounds just as weird as it did in my head.)

I did a quick search to see if anyone actually knows the technical term for this distinctive smell. According to a Reddit user, it’s called “petrichor,” aka the smell of rain when it hits dry soil. (Surprisingly, when you search “subway smell,” there’s a whole bunch of results that talk about the smell of the Subway restaurant chain.)

It’s interesting to think about how smells have connotations, just like words do, which vary based on one’s personal experiences. For me, walking past the subway grates and being hit with the hot puff of underground fumes brings me back to my daily commutes to and from lab in high school. 🤓

For someone else, it might pull up the memory of a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New York! 🥳

And for yet another, it might prompt an anxiety-ridden flashback of getting lost in the subway station during rush hour. 😱

🔙 She's back!

The reason I’m writing about this is that I’ve actually been back in the city this summer for research! It’s so nice to be pipetting and taking care of my cells and writing in my lab notebook and just being in a dedicated space for focused work again—after three whole semesters away.

P.S. Here’s the protocol for getting access back on campus if you’re at Columbia:

1. Sign the Columbia Community Health Compact.

2. Finish the safety training to work/study safely at Columbia.

3. Get a gateway COVID-19 PCR Test. (The facilitators were super nice when I went to get mine in Lerner Hall on the Morningside Campus. I went on a weekday, and it wasn’t crowded at all, likely because it was summer.)

4. You also have to complete a COVID-19 symptom attestation and get a Green Pass to be able to enter any Columbia building.

🎵 Latest Bops

This week, I’ve been listening to Taeyeon’s new song Weekend. It’s literally just about chilling over the weekend and definitely has summer pop vibes. 😄 It showed up on my auto-generated playlist one day, and I initially didn’t even realize it was a Taeyeon song! It sounded more like J-pop (Japanese pop) than K-pop to me, with vibes similar to this song’s (made popular among Gen Zers courtesy of TikTok).

🧊 🔨The Best Ice-breaker

I met with my NSOP group for the first time this past Saturday! (NSOP = New Student Orientation Program at Columbia)

And as with any orientation meeting, we were met with the task of *ice-breakers*! My new favorite ice-breaker is one that my new student (shout out to Vish!) suggested: “Share a funny/embarrassing story about yourself.” Sure breaks the ice fast. 🙂

I had originally started off with the generic “What’s a fun fact about yourself?"—which is a deceptively simple question. It’s one of the most difficult ice-breakers to answer!! One of my other new students shared that "fun people don’t have fun facts,” which I guess makes sense if all the “fun facts” about the fun person are just “facts.” Teehee.

Anywho, I think I’ll go with the embarrassing story ice-breaker for the future. And now I have to think of an embarrassing story to tell for next time. 😅

Oh! By the way! My NSOP group this year is a “TVC” group, meaning instead of first-year students, I’ll be leading transfer/visiting/combined-plan students! Specifically, my group is composed of combined-plan students who have completed three years at their original institution and will be attending Columbia SEAS (engineering school) for the next two years. I’m actually very excited for this NSOP since we were virtual last year and because this will be my first time leading a non-first year group. 🙂 

🔄 Throwback Vlog!

Speaking of NSOP… here’s a vlog I made about my experience as an orientation leader (OL) for NSOP 2019! It was my first time being an OL, and I had such a great time I decided to re-apply to be an OL for the rest of college.

If any of you can’t wait to be on campus this fall, here’s a peek of what to expect!

That’s it for this issue. Have a lovely week! As always, cheers to being inbox buddies!

❤️ Caroline

P.S. If you have any feedback/comments for me, please reply to this email or contact me on my website: carolinechen.me. I’m always happy to hear your thoughts on content, what you find useful, and what can be improved with some “re-thinking.” :D