<p>...for dessert & wine last night. </p>
<p>Home for two weeks and then she's off to NYC for a job in one of the smaller investment banking firms. (A couple of her Smithie friends got positions in one of the larger IB firms). Smith does just fine in terms of recruitment for these high-profile positions.</p>
<p>We've known this girl since she helped carry D's French horn to the car in middle school and it's a pleasure to watch her turn the pages and start yet another new chapter.</p>
<p>"Wind to her wings" as they say in bad fantasy novels, and to all smithies , current and to be.</p>
<p>Sounds like Anne McCaffrey to me.</p>
<p>As a group, I find Smithies--and Wellesleyans(?)--to be a pretty impressive group, measured either on an absolute scale or the delta between where they came in and where they graduated. There are young women like them on many many college campuses but it's the density of them at Smith that is impressive to me.</p>
<p>08 Grad?</p>
<p>Please don't scare me like that. I don't wanna leave Wellesley. Nooooooooo.</p>
<p>We just call ourselves Wellesley students. Wellesley Women, or Wendies on other days.</p>
<p>Gah. I was thinking ahead. '07 Grad. Moving backwards and forwards through time as I do, I get confused with some of this linear stuff. </p>
<p>Wendies, for me, is unfortunate...it suggests pairings with all the Peter Pans out there in the world. And while I subscribe to the theory of you're never too old to be immature, it's <em>how</em> you're immature that counts and PP isn't very attractive, you know what I mean?</p>
<p>Peter Pan is a story just like any other one.</p>
<p>The term "Wendies" comes from "Wendy Wellesley", which is our version of John Doe or Joe College. Wendy Wellesley is usually the main character of the Junior Show and the CS Musical. Yes, J. M. Barrie invented the name, so anyone who uses it is referencing Peter Pan. The name has taken a life of its own as a normal girl's name, IMO. </p>
<p>"Wendies" can be derogatory, which is why "Wellesley Students" is the norm. "Wendies" usually describes the pearl-wearing masses.</p>
<p>But the Peter Pan bus line runs our busses to Cambridge, a development that started my first year. I am told the old service was both G & W and lousy. Everyone was very amused.</p>
<p>Yeah, I've seen all the WW riffs in the W propaganda (as opposed to the Smith propaganda). WW is a more of a mouthful, but "Wendies" on its own just conjures up Peter Pan-enablers. Or maybe I've just got a slightly twisted outlook. After all, it's well known that in real life I bear a startling resemblance to Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow.</p>
<p>The eyeliner?</p>
<p>Do you have Susie Smith or something similiar?</p>
<p>Wendy, as far as I can tell (and I've been here for three years!) there is no Smith equivalent of "Wendy Wellesley".</p>
<p>"Sounds like Anne McCaffrey to me."
Wrong, for once, TheDad (but close). Mercedes Lackey.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The eyeliner?
[/quote]
No, the beard, the walk, the attitude, and the overwhelming hotness. Though I'm a bit put out that none of either my D's or TheMom's friends seems to recognize this last.</p>
<p>LiT: Ah. Yeah, Misty is a notch or two down from McCaffrey in my estimation. I have a more than casual interest in all of this as I'm a <em>very</em> lightly published SF writer myself.</p>
<p>Thedad, nothing to do with this thread, but I'm an avid reader of SF and would love to know your top five authors as well as your own stuff.</p>
<p>LiT, we can have a more expanded discussion out of thread when I get back...taxi is coming in three hours to take me to the airport and I won't be back for two weeks and the first week after that I expect to be inundated with things as I catch up. (Off to personally inspect the results of the Budapest Semester in Mathematics on my favorite Smithie and then to Vienna & Prague.)</p>
<p>The best of Roger Zelazny rates very highly with me, i.e., NOT the "Amber" books after volume 5; LORD OF LIGHT is exquisite. Avram Davidson is also a quirky icon of me. I like Harry Turtledove in general and think his RULED BRITANNIA is very good. Greg Benford gets a nod for hard SF, as does Vernor Vinge, whose A DARKNESS UPON THE DEEP is one of the best hard SF novels of the past 20 years, imo. And for pure fun, it's hard to beat David Brin's STARTIDE RISING...I nearly packed that for the plane for a re-read, subbing Mary Renault's historical, THE LAST OF THE WINE instead...I have a duplicate copy and it may be something to leave a a host gift with one of my Hungarian contacts who's interested in history.</p>
<p>For non-SF, I would give my left arm to be able to write as well as Mary Renault (historical) or John LeCarre (literary spy novels). I tend to tread upon the line between genre and literary with some frequency. I also have great admiration for Robertson Davies, the Canadian mainstream author.</p>
<p>Must get back to packing...this was just a quick break. :) A tout a l'heure.</p>