Odessa's Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 5/5/2025

Dear friends,

A lot has happened since my last newsletter. I filed my taxes. Ran 13.1 miles. Turned 22. Turned in my thesis. Took my last class at Yale. Turned in my last assignment, and earlier today, I took my last final. I am officially done with college. (holy shit)

‘Tis the season of being ceaselessly verklempt as Yale works to usher out the Class of 2025 with flourish. We had Branford Senior Dinner last week on Monday, book-ending Branford First-Year Dinner. Dean Galindo made me cry. (Also, shout out the Branford College tradition of blue and yellow Jell-O shots for Senior Dinner?) Followed by a beautiful acapella concert from the UnorthoJocks, and more sobbing during the last nigun circle.

I brought in 22 with 13.1 miles at the Newport Half-Marathon. I fucking did that! I did cry around mile eleven where I realized that I was in fact going to finish. I had this crazy anxiety that I was just going to trip and break an ankle for the whole week leading up. This half-marathon was for my 10-year-old self who could barely run a mile. For many hours running in the blistering cold. For all the podcasts that got me through the training. And mostly for all the people who had to listen to me talk about running: I love you! (And all the people who had to listen to me complain about my aching knees, they really do hurt, so bad)

I hate my birthday. I wish I didn’t. On my birthday, I transform into the most dreadful, destructive version of myself. For some godforsaken reason, I can simply not deal with my birthday, despite my very best efforts. My parents can attest to the fact that I would have a tantrum at every single birthday party growing up—still, I don’t think I’ve managed a birthday without bursting into tears. I’m sure this is ripe for psychoanalysis. But thank you to all who sent me birthday wishes, and apologies I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to respond adequately. I felt very loved (even though, in the moment, I felt like the worst person on the planet).

For my last class field trip (ever!), my Young Adult Writing class went to Horse Island—one of the Thimble Islands off the coast of Branford, CT. Many of the islands are so tiny that the houses on them look oversized. The glassy water and maze of islands felt plucked out of a fairytale. We spent the afternoon exploring the island then settling on the rocks to write and talk about our novels. Pretty perfect.

In an unintentional (?) full-circle moment, in my Yale application, I wrote that the class I would teach, if given the option, would be a study of the mind through literature. In my final semester, in one of my final papers, I used The Search for Lost Time to examine ideas in psychology: locus of control, cognitive appraisal, and mental illness.

I’ve really been trying so hard not to succumb to the graduation blues…walking the very fine tightrope of soaking it all in and buckling under the pressure it to make it all perfect. Even writing about it is a challenge—why I’ve put off this newsletter.

So I’m going to distract you with some media.

Medad taught me that the Jews are instructed to celebrate Passover before we even leave Egypt. This idea that we need to commemorate redemption to experience redemption. Some kind of metaphor for manifestation?

One of my favorite sites to buy second-hand clothes is ThredUp—which has the best filtering system of all the thrifting websites. I really enjoyed getting insight into their operations in this video from Business Insider. To be honest, I think they stitched 3 or 4 videos together into one…the ThredUp section is the first 5 minutes or so.

And this delightful use of AI to determine what animals on wine labels best predict the price of the wine.

In one of my classes, we’ve spent a lot of time considering what we can learn by examining people’s social networks especially aided by social media. But really we are at the end of social media based on social networks, these days, the Tik-Tok-ification of it all has made social media reliant on the algorithm rather than social relationships. The depth of that didn’t strike me until listening to this Hard Fork podcast on the Meta trial, and how Zuckerberg floated deleting everyone’s Facebook friends.

This great article on tax evasion in Ancient Rome. And we really need to start talking about Pantone’s color monopoly more. (watch more here.)

One of my favorite silly podcasts, Giggly Squad has a launched a YouTube series. Very silly. Very funny.

I just started Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green, and it’s every bit as moving and brilliant as I expected from him. A beautiful example of following your curiosity. Cannot recommend enough.

Speaking of following rabbit holes, this delightful dive into the New York City flower market. My family always stays in the flower district in Manhattan so I loved this behind-the-scenes. And the reporter is so enthusiastic.

OH and this was fascinating! How they design airlines routes!!! This video. Watch ASAP. Ever wondered how airlines differentiate themselves by route? This video has been in my head for days.

I’ve been deep in my logistics video grind (as you can tell), so speaking races, a video here into the logistics of the London Marathon.

And this investigation into the trucking industry. One benefit of trucking (not mentioned in this video) is time to listen to plenty of podcasts.

I was so hopeful about the novel First-Time Caller, hoping it would fulfill all my Sleepless in Seattle dreams, but the characters were rather bland and the dialogue uninteresting. I’m so unimpressed that I’m not even going to link it for you GASP.

I’ve been trying to find my post-half-marathon fitness routine (following a bout of insane muscle soreness) and if you’re looking for a barre workout you can do from home (or the Branford dance studio), I really recommend Move with Nicole — specifically this one. I really got my start with working out independently from YouTube workouts (shout out PopSugar), so it always feels nostalgic to me.

And Liana and I binged The Four Seasons on Netflix — Tina Fey kills it once again. Very funny (probably aimed an older demographic than us…)

Now I’m off to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where Yale seniors sojourn for debauchery before graduation. I personally plan on playing lots of minigolf, strolling the boardwalk, and spending quality time with some of my favorite people.

With love & curiosity,

Odessa