Tag Archives: McCardell Bicentennial Hall

First Snow

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Three years later, I still find myself feeling a little ridiculous.  My mind blamed my gut, the same gut that as a first-year responded do the loud yelling coming from the halls of Battell that had kept me from getting into bed. 

 

The source of the noise was a member of my first-year seminar, but no more than an acquaintance.  She was sporting a bright pink bikini, a ski helmet, goggles and the furriest boots I had seen since arriving at Midd as a first-year not more than two months before.  It had already been a non-descript week night, the kind where Chinese homework, 5:00 dinner and astronomy lab all mesh together to form one long block of time capable of sufficiently making me exhausted to the point where it was not hard to want to pass out for a good week.  So yes, it was my gut and not my common sense that responded to the voice instead of tuning it out.

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End of Summer

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Summer always goes by too quickly. Whether or not you live by the academic calendar, Labor Day seems to mark the end of relaxed living, even if you are just as busy in the summer as you may be during the rest of the year. At a barbeque tonight, I was asked a few times where I go to school, always followed up with, “do you like it there?” The answer to me is a no-brainer: I love it. So why do I suddenly have that old “back to school” feeling?

 

I had a great summer, but spending all of my time outside of small-town Vermont made writing for this website challenging. After all, it is a blog about Middlebury, as told by me and Sam. Looking back on the last three months as a whole, however, made writing a blog entry much easier. I was far away from Middlebury—spending most of the summer with family in Maryland and in New York—but my thoughts often drifted to life and friends at school. (And not just because I unexpectedly ran into Middlebury graduates in College Park, Maryland, at the Washington Nationals Stadium, and in mid-town Manhattan.)

                                          

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The Great Outdoors

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Tonight I made a comment to my sister that she should use her backyard more. As a graduate student, she told me that she would love to get outside more and “take advantage of nature,” but lately she has not had the time. For someone who grew up in a city, in a land of high-rise buildings and attached houses, this idea of nature is not so strange. David Rakoff summed it up best: if a New Yorker wanted greenery, he should order a plate of spinach.

 

I chuckled as I looked out at my sister’s fenced-in plot of nature. At Middlebury, I have been “introduced” to nature firsthand. I spent my first few semesters admiring the natural beauty from afar—from my room in Ross, overlooking the Champlain Valley and the Adirondacks to the west. I had a few outdoor labs for my first-year seminar, but I think I was too wrapped up in the newness of school to realize what a fantastic opportunity the surrounding areas offered. It was only this year when nature and I finally had a real introduction. I went on my first hike—a great hike—up Camel’s Hump, part of the Green Mountains in Huntington. From the peak you can look across from New Hampshire to New York. It was one of the best days I’ve had in Vermont.

 

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