February is the shortest month of the year, but then again, short is sweet! It’s one of my favourite months of the year at Midd: the days are getting longer, the spring semester begins, and it’s the month of Winter Carnival. This year we celebrated our 91^st! Winter Carnival Weekend is a celebration of our varsity ski teams, where students go to the Snow Bowl or Rikert and watch the alpine and cross country ski teams race at home (that means students get Friday off to go watch races)!

The carnival also entails a big kick-off bonfire and fireworks show followed by a comedian performance right across the street! Everyone shows up to the bonfire in their big jackets and grabs a cup of hot chocolate to watch the fire grow, and soon coats are off because the heat from the fire (and the hot chocolate) is keeping everyone toasty. Soon enough, the fireworks are up in the sky and the DJ is playing tunes as everyone enjoys the evening!

Friday is always the first day of races, and friends will get together and take the shuttle up to the Snow Bowl, or to Rikert to watch our teams compete, listen to some live student bands, and get some grub, and as the day is done they come back to campus just in time for a small concert to get their groove on! Saturday entails more races, an après-ski hot chocolate bar (yes we’re big on hot chocolate here- but don’t worry there is white chocolate too!) and the Ball. Every year, 1500 students will fill the decorated Nelson Arena and enjoy snacks, some drinks, and dance till they drop (or until the ball finishes at 2am).

Now that the races are over, the ball is done, and February is starting to draw to a close, I’m waiting to see what March brings…

I finally got my thesis carrel!

At Midd, seniors have the option to sign up for reserved study carrels (not carrols, carolls, carels, carrells, or carells and I now confidently know) in the library. Last semester I did not have one because I was not yet working on my senior project, and, while working at a library table or at a friend’s carrel, I nerdily pined for my own. These carrels become campsites where you can hunker down with your fave snacks and work away. And now I have one, and it’s lovely.

I’m writing my senior essay on the role of governesses and haunting in Victorian novels. Victorian governesses operated in liminal space because of funky dynamics with their class and gender, as do ghosts because of their being neither alive nor dead. The books I’m examining (Jane Eyre and The Turn of the Screw) both have ghosts and governesses with a lot going on between them, and it’s the area I’m exploring for this essay, which by May will (hopefully) be around 40 pages. It’s a topic that I know enough about to want to learn more, and I’m currently doing a lot of that at my carrel (and checking email, reading articles, and taking Buzzfeed quizzes). 

So if you’re ever around the the North Side Main Level Mezzanine in the Davis Family Library, come say hello. I might even share my snacks with you.

When do pop culture, gender, and racial identity intersect? Here at Middlebury, J-term (January semester) injects life into the campus as students return refreshed from December break. J-term allows students to deviate from traditional academic courses and explore sections of academia outside of their comfort zone. This semester I took Performing Power as my final J-term class of senior year. In this course we explored the myriad dynamics of power as related to class, race, gender, etc. Following such, classes ranged from examining the power dynamics between female wrestlers to analyzing the role of performing masculinity in professional football. While the class was non-traditional, it still represented Middlebury as an institution that embraces all forms of academia whether in a laboratory or theater. Similarly, the class was composed of students from all four grades, three different countries, and several cities across the US. Each class was started by students performing a creative work that showed performing power in modern pop culture. As a neuroscience major this class was without a doubt outside of my comfort zone.  And yet that was the very reason each day was a refreshing and challenging endeavor to explore my creative side. In essence the class represents the very reason that J-term exists—to allow students to not just leave their comfort zones, but instead go flying out of it. Ending my final J-term with a class that was unlike my previous experiences has allowed me to come full circle in terms of my academic experiences at Middlebury.

As J-term comes to an end one can sense the changes in the student body. Dining halls slowly empty, tearful goodbyes are said to graduating Febs, and professors begin to prepare their Spring lesson plans. It is certainly a period of change—change that resonates through the whole school.