Bradley Wise '14

After school ended, the summer has started with a bang! I finally got a car that I can call my own – a 2011 Ford Focus. It’s pretty cool!

To give a further update on my music, it is really starting to pick up some steam. For those who may not know, my twin brother and I produce music under the name Dyadic. We had our first of hopefully many shows to come at the Quad in Atlanta earlier this month. If anyone is interested in following us, you can click the link here or here. Our production quality continues to get better and better, so be sure to check us out if you can!

Also, now that it is almost the end of May, I have made my way back to Wabash College to do my internship with Dr. Aubele. We are doing some cool research on behavior in rats, and I will be sure to give you more updates as things progress!

What a year this has been! I have been through a lot of ups and downs this past year and this second semester. It’s unfortunate because I haven’t been able to blog as much as I would have liked because I have been experiencing one of the harder years of my Wabash career.

But I am really happy I am close to finishing up my exams this week. In the next few days, I will go back home to Georgia for a few weeks to see my brother and family before I head back up to Wabash College to work on my internship with Dr. Aubele, which I will start on May 27^th.

Awards Ceremony on April 28th, Before Finals Week!

It’s hard to believe that my Wabash career is nearing a close. I know by this time next year, it will be all over for me. I have talked to many seniors, and most have said how excited they are to finally be leaving, but I wonder how it will be on graduation day!

Anyway, I will be blogging from time during the summer to update you on what I’m doing here at the school. It should be fun! Congrats to all the seniors who have finished up! WAF!

Campus Finally Looks as Good as It Feels!

On Saturday, we had our annual swim team banquet in Detchon, where the team was honored for its accomplishments in the pool. I would like to congratulate our team on a crazy fast season. Next year should be even more intense!

On Thursday, President White will be giving his last chapel talk of his Wabash career. I will be sure to update you guys on that after his great leadership on dealing with the hardships and the fun times on this campus.

A month after spring officially started, it is finally beginning to feel like spring! There is one more official week of classes before finals week. Things have been stagnant on campus lately, so there is not really much more to talk about! Let’s make it through dead week guys! And if anyone follows baseball, be on the lookout for the Atlanta Braves. They are looking pretty hot right now with Justin Upton at the forefront!

Zed’s Dead in Urbana by the University of Illinois

With the school year slowly winding down, those without a car, me in particular, have trouble getting away from the school. This Friday I got to remedy that by going out to University of Illinois to go see Zed’s Dead in concert with my friend Logan Rice. It was a pretty awesome show, and it was great to get off campus for a few hours.

While the weekend is full with activities like Pan hel and Lily Scholar weekend, I have not had a hugely eventful week on campus this week. However, I am extremely excited to announce that I finally got a summer internship lined up! I will be working with Dr. Aubele over the summer in the rat lab here at Wabash. It should be an interesting 8 weeks, and it will give me a chance to learn more about the brain and neuropsychology research, as I am starting to look at graduate schools in those fields.

Now it’s beginning to feel like the end of my junior year here at Wabash. After the freezing month of March, it finally feels like things are coming to a close.

On Thursday, I had the privilege of going to Dr. Horton’s Chapel talk, “Happy Enough and Getting Better.” He offered some powerful insight into the struggles and challenges that many people face in their lives, using stories of his children as a way to illustrate those challenges. In short, he explained that while some periods in life may not bring the most happiness, they will be worth it. To watch the full Chapel Talk, click here.

Dr. Horton’s chapel talk got me to thinking about my future as a student here. While it is one full year away, I know it will be over before I know it. While this school has not been the easiest (I have definitely had my rough patches as well), I know that it will be worth it in the end.

For those who live far away from home, it can sometimes be hard finding places to go during short holidays, like Easter. I was fortunate enough to get invited to Kim Johnson’s house. She works in the Communications department and edits the Wabash magazine. Even though I live far away from home, there are always people at Wabash who are welcoming and warm!

It’s spring isn’t it?

I have had such a hectic week with the surprising amounts of spring snow, I was not able to announce that earlier this week the psychology department picked up its new candidate, Ryan Rush. Coming from UC Riverside, his work focuses on cognitive psychology, particularly on social interactions and memory systems.

While my Final Four Tournament bracket has gone to complete trash, I think it’s pretty awesome that Wichita State has made such an incredible run. I don’t want to jinx them, but I hope they make it all the way!

National Act Ralphie May Takes Advantage of the Basketball Court For his Comedy Routine

After a pretty intense week of classes, including an exam and a few papers, the weekend brought some relief. Wabash had its first “National Act” of the spring semester, comedian Ralphie May. We had a very non-traditional setup for the act with the basketball stadium, but Ralphie May took full advantage of it for his comedy routine. While vulgar, he was definitely entertaining.

In addition to the comic, I have been taking a little break from the studies to watch a little of the NCAA Final Four Basketball tournament. My bracket is less than stellar because all of the upsets in the first few rounds, with unlikely wins by Wichita State and Florida Gulf Coast University.

Snowing in Spring!

Also, when will the madness end? Wabash is inches deep in snow and it has officially been spring for about a week now! Personally, I love the snow, but it might be because I am stuck on campus with nowhere to go!

If any prospective students Honor Scholar this weekend, they know that it was an action-packed ride, with a plethora of tests, the “final” Phi Delt bouts, a crazy belly flop contest, and numerous nagging fraternities. Even after all these activities, the weather has still decided not to change.

Last night, to get a study break and think about something other than the cold winter-like weather, I attended a screening of the documentary Hot Coffee. Not knowing anything about what the film entailed, it was actually about one of the most famous lawsuits in America during the 1990s, the McDonald’s hot coffee suit. This film had a very interesting take on the lawsuit, exposing me to the common misconceptions and misconstructions behind the lawsuit to begin with. It also went into other cases where the legal system made blunders, including the KBR/Halliburton case involving Jamie Leigh Jones. While biased, I definitely learned a lot about tort reform and arbitration, tactics used by businesses to avoid “frivolous” lawsuits. If anyone is interested in understanding the story from the people’s perspective, I highly recommend this film.

Althea Bauernschmidt from Indiana University gives her talk on memory, metacognition, and learning

A too short spring break lead right into one of my busier weeks this semester. It has also been a busy week for the psychology department, as they have to pick candidates to take the place of our professors who are going on sabbatical, including Dr. Bost and Dr. Gunther. We have had a cool selection of people coming in so far. The first candidate to present was Althea Bauernschmidt from Indiana University. She did her talk on memory, metacognition and student learning. She talked specifically at how our brains cannot retrieve memory as well as we think we do, and that one of the best strategies for learning is to do memory recall, which is not high on the list for most people. The second candidate came from University of California, Riverside. His talk was the social contagion of memory. Basically, he looked at how social interaction could affect our recall of memories, in that people may help us “remember” things that were never actually existed. Both talks were very well done, and it will be exciting to hear from our third candidate next week!

Light Snow and A little Chilly, but Honors Scholar Weekend Is Still Around the Corner!

Also, in case you did not know, Honors Scholar Weekend is tomorrow. Like always, it will be packed with prospective students rushing and getting to see the Wabash festivities. Unlike most years, it will be cold and snowing, which will put an interesting spin on some of the outdoor activities going around on campus like the annual Phi Delt bouts. Whether it is warm or breezy, though, we will be sure to have an epic weekend with the prospective students as they try to make their college decision!

Without giving it a second thought, spring break has just flown by. I have this feeling that the break came way too early, as Wabash was showered with snow and it was still extremely cold outside when I left for home in Georgia.

Spring break, in which I had planned to get a little work done, has quite literally become a “break” for me. I have done relatively little in this past few days, except for watching a few very good films on Netflix and going to a  concert in Atlanta. Even though I wish I were more productive over these past few days, I feel it is necessary sometimes to just turn the brain off.

Now I have to scramble to get back into “game mode,” if you will. Otherwise, this week back at school will be a little bit busier than I want it to be. So long Georgia! It was fun, but Wabash is calling back!