For as long as I can remember, I have always had an interest in student government. Whether it was running the classroom “variety shows” in elementary school in China, being Class Rep during middle school, or getting elected president of my high school’s student body, I have always found satisfaction in making student life just a little bit better for my peers.

At Middlebury, I have continued my involvement in this area through the Student Government Association, colloquially known on campus as the SGA. In my first two years at Middlebury, I was elected Senator for my class, which meant that I represented the voices, concerns, and ideas of my classmates in the SGA. The Senate is the deliberative body of the Middlebury SGA, consisting of class and Commons representatives. It has the ability to spend the student activities fee on initiatives beneficial to the student body and pass resolutions that state the official opinion of the students.

For the last two years, I have been involved with the SGA Cabinet, in my capacity as the Chief of Staff to the SGA President. Each year, the president of the student body appoints a team of people to help him or her with managing the operations of the SGA. As Chief of Staff, I have the fortune of leading this team of 15 passionate, ambitious, and incredibly competent individuals as we implement resolutions from the Senate, distribute the student activities fee to organizations and ensure their smooth operation, and lobby administrators on issues as diverse as sexual assault prevention to changing our distribution requirements.

While at times, the multitude of SGA-led projects and initiatives can be overwhelming and progress on them painstakingly slow, being a part of the student government at Middlebury has allowed me to learn about the issues important to the student body from many different perspectives. I have learned, through my SGA experience, that nothing is black and white, especially at such a diverse institution like Middlebury. It has also allowed me to meet so many students that I would have never otherwise met before. Even though we may not agree on everything, everybody in the SGA has one thing in common: we all share an abiding love for the Middlebury community that we are willing to spend hours and hours changing it for the better. That student-driven passion and sense of ownership to leave our community better than when we found it is what I will miss most about this place.

It’s the end of October. This means a lot of things are happening in my life at Middlebury. It means the last savory days of 60 ^oF weather are here in Vermont; Fall Family Weekend is around the corner; as is Halloween, Day Light Savings, my birthday, and – special to this end of October of 2014 – the removal of all 4 of my wisdom teeth! I know, all very fun things you wish you could enjoy within just one week of each other.

About two months ago, I still proudly proclaimed that I would never need to part with my wisdom teeth. Then a little less than two months ago, I had to retract that statement. It seems as though my wisdom teeth were a problem, a problem I needed to take care of now. “Now” was early September, also known as the first weeks of my senior year at Middlebury. Long story short, the date was set for October 27 – the Monday after Fall Family weekend – at which point I would part with the teeth that are deemed the wisest.

It is now October 29. So you can calculate that it is two days after the date of removal, and you may guess that my face may be reminiscent of Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. I honestly expected the worst for this end of October of 2014, but I soldiered through the 32 minute surgery and came out on top:

The doctor assured me I’d be back to eating Champlain Valley chocolates and bagels in no time. Until then, I have been ordered to press two adorably pink ice packs to my face for 20-minute intervals throughout the day. Without any clever mechanism by which to hold them in place, I’ve taken these 20-minute spurts as a time to reflect (and listen to podcasts). So on a warm and fuzzy note, Middlebury has yet again proven itself to be a wonderful place to spend not only my College years but also the weeks during which to recover from wisdom teeth extraction: my professors have encouraged me to take care of myself, friends have made me delicious smoothies, and Senior Fellow Zoe took over my shifts at Admissions so I wouldn’t have to lisp and blubber my way through an hour long information session. All in all, my road to recovery has been made easy and full of smiles, thanks to things that are Middlebury.

As President of the Middlebury College Activities Board, I knew I would have a packed Fall Family Weekend. MCAB serves as the largest programming board on campus, with different committees to plan a wide range of events: concerts, speakers, trivia nights, dances. You name it, we help with the planning.

For this Fall Family Weekend, we had two major events on the schedule: a Roller Rink on Friday night and a lecture and Q&A with Mary Robinson.

We traditionally do Roller Rink every Fall Family Weekend, which usually draws a big crowd. I arrived early with a crew of 10 MCABers to set up the event. We pumped 90’s summers hits and country road trip songs as we laid down the Roller Rink floor. We finished the set up about an hour early so we had the rink to ourselves before the event opened. With the disco ball spinning and green lights flashing, we skated around the smooth rink, singing “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd and “Water Falls” by TLC. Shortly thereafter, the Roller Rink filled up with students, parents, and little siblings. Almost 200 people skated around over the course of three hours, each one coming out sweaty with a big smile slapped across their face. I returned to my room at 1:30am post-cleanup for a quick sleep before prepping for the next day.

In the morning, I had a bagel brunch at my house with my friends and their parents before my mother and I did a quick hike up Snake Mountain.

We rushed home from our hike so I could prepare for our big event, Mary Robinson.

The MCAB Speakers Committee is awarded money every two years to bring a prominent speaker to campus. We wanted to bring a speaker that both reflected the values and goals of the College, but we also would challenge the audience to think more critically about their understanding of the world. Mary Robinson stood out to us as a perfect candidate, both for her unparalleled leadership record as well as her unwavering commitment to social justice. Mary Robinson served as the first woman President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is now the President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and a member of the Elders, a group of world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, who contribute their wisdom, independent leadership, and integrity to tackling some of the world’s toughest problems with the goal of making the world a better place. We felt her range of speaking topics (women in leadership, climate change, and corporate social responsibility) would resonate with a wide audience. Additionally, bringing Mary Robinson during Fall Family Weekend would give parents a taste of intellectual life on campus.

The Speakers Committee, with the support of Cook Commons, was lucky enough to share dinner with Mary Robinson before the event. She spoke of her time at Harvard Law School, her work with the Elders, and her travels around the world promoting Climate Justice. She wowed us with her knowledge about human rights in the context of climate justice, and she answered students’ questions eloquently and accessibly.

After six months of intense planning, the event was over. The much anticipated weekend came to a close. But I could not have been happier.

I have always loved stories. When I was a child, I used to sit at the dinner table late into the evening eavesdropping to my parents and their friends talk. I would listen to the same book on tape over and over again. I loved the sound of narration, how it could enrich words. When I read printed books, I would say the words out loud, relishing the way they filled my mouth and tripped over my tongue. I still do that.

Now, I channel my love for stories by hosting and producing the Middlebury Moth, which is a live storytelling hour. About twice a month, my fellow producers and I find five or six people who want to tell stories. Then, a crowd of listeners join us, and we all meet in the Gamut Room, which is a student-run performance space. Storytellers speak about anything and everything from their bad dates, to their parents, to their failures. Speakers must follow only two rules: they can’t use notes and their stories must be true.

We love using the Gamut Room, but it can get a little crowded. So, this year and last year, we produced an event we call “Cocoon” in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA). The event takes place in the Concert Hall, which seats almost four hundred people and uses professional-grade sound and lighting systems. Plus, it’s beautiful! Liza Sacheli, who is the Director of the MCA, worked directly with us to put on the show. I felt very lucky to have the opportunity to use such a wonderful space and work with such an amazing, talented person.

The event itself occurred on Friday, October 24. Students, parents, and community members packed the Concert Hall, filling every seat. A guitarist played music as people filed in, the lights went down, and the show began. Six different people told stories, including an actor, a logger, an alumnus, a student, and a dance professor. They spoke about everything from their fathers to their high school shenanigans, and everything in between. Their voices filled the Hall, comingling with the sound of laughter and tears. After the show ended, the audience moved to a reception to eat dessert, drink apple cider, and talk. Everyone had a different favorite tale, but I truly loved them all. More than any individual story, I loved the listening.

Senior year of college, like the senior year of high school, can be an amazingly exciting but also frighteningly nervous time. Unlike the previous three years of college or high school, you are in a completely different mindset. Instead of looking up to students older than you for guidance, you are those wise, maybe even intimidating, seniors who you once admired. Instead of panicking about switching into the classes you want, you revel in all the tricks you have learned over the years – emailing professors weeks in advance and playing the “I need this class for my major” card. Instead of worrying about getting an internship for the summer ahead, you are madly studying for the GRE or MCAT or LSAT, or of course, looking for that elusive offer of employment.

This prelude to the transition into the next phase of our lives means that we have a whole lot more things to balance on our plate during the next nine months, more so than any other time in our college career. Perhaps you are finally leading the club you’ve been a part of since your first year here. Perhaps you are writing a monstrous 100-page thesis. Perhaps you are walking around campus in a suit and tie three days a week, networking and attending interviews. If you are a high school senior reading this, you will certainly relate with this everything-is-happening-at-once feeling. Leading clubs. Planning events. AP exams. Volunteering. And of course, applying to college.

So how do we keep sane? How will you keep sane? Well, first there’s sleep, that precious thing we’ve all learned to treasure here at Middlebury. You can’t possibly expect to balance what’s on your place without the rest and energy your body and your mind need to function. Sure, caffeine helps, but it can’t substitute for the time you spend in bed.

After getting the rest I need and climbing out of bed ready to tackle my day, I like to use a calendar and to-do lists to organize my time. I like to visualize my time so I can plan out my day in my head – what dining hall is closest to my class before lunch, how long I have in the afternoon to do homework before going to that lecture at 4:30, when I can sneak a hitting session in on the tennis courts with my friends. My dad  told me an old Chinese proverb once, “the best memory cannot beat the blunt point of a broken pencil.” In other words, if you are feeling overwhelmed, it helps to write things down so you can use your brainpower to do other things.

But my favorite way of finding balance amidst the craziness that is senior year is taking stock of the little things that happen over the course of a day and going out and doing something spontaneous once in a while. This time of year, it’s enjoying the fiery reds, yellows, and oranges of the fall foliage, or taking an afternoon off to go apple picking. In the winter, it might be going sledding at midnight with your friends, or extending dinner into a two-hour conversation with your friends. In the spring, it might be finally asking your crush out on a date, or going for a late night drive with the windows down and the radio blasting. There is value in the spontaneous, especially when going between classes, the dining hall, and the library begins to feel a little too routine. There is value in the things that we overlook because we are going too fast. Who knows? Along the way, you might just find the perfect inspiration for that Common App essay, or find a new argument for your thesis, and if nothing else, you will come back with a new dose of energy to tackle the challenges of senior year.

Hello y’all!

My name is Steve, and it’s great to introduce myself. I am finishing up my last first month of school and am very excited for the coming school year. As a senior, it is a tradition to reflect on the last three years and create a bucket list of all the fall/winter/spring activities I have yet to conquer. I decided that this year I want to share with you my entire senior bucket list which is a combination of very Middlebury and Vermont activities that I have yet to accomplish in my time here.

Bucket List:

Fall:

-Apple picking

-Swim Belden falls

-Hike Camels Hump

-Breadloaf Stargazing

-Visit Montpelier

-Finish the book East of Eden

Winter:

-Learn to Ski

-Dog Sledding

-Snow Shoe the TAM

-Read two non academic books during J-term

Spring:

-Camp out in the Organic Farm

-Spend a day in Montreal

-Visit the State Capital building in Montpelier

-Enter in the Middlebury Chili Festival

-Go on a sunrise hike

I think these goals are all super manageable and really span everything from things I’d love to see myself doing in general that would be fun, but also Vermont specific activities that seem super finite at this point during senior year. I hope to stick to these goals and I’ll check on in with y’all as these goals are being met.

I can remember freshman year, navigating a brand new social climate, introducing myself over and over again, trying to achieve the college version of myself that I had always pictured and getting a feel for my new home. I look back at sophomore year – making new choices, regretting them, learning, growing and  accepting that friends were becoming family. My junior year brought new responsibilities, freedom, introduction of life decisions, and the solidification of who I was on this campus. And now senior year… a year where I find myself looking back while still experiencing Midd. A year in which every moment I spend with my friends, my new family, is bittersweet as I wonder where we will all be next year. I watch as my friends, usually clad in ill fitting old tshirts and flip flops, walk confidently in dress shoes and suits as they attend interviews. The breakfast conversations have shifted from stresses about classes to pragmatic discussion of the future. As I go through this year I find myself analyzing all of the amazing ways that Middlebury has helped me grow into the person I am today and given me the opportunities to think critically and fully about the world that I will be entering into. I know that I will miss my experience here and that my college family will be spread throughout the US and overseas next year, but it is felt with a sense of gratitude for my experiences and hope that I will be able to put the Middlebury stamp on whatever I do after.  I want to live in the moment during my last year here, for I am currently living the final 25% of my college experience. I watch the leaves change and the gorgeous fall foliage transform the campus and I smile. I smile a smile that is wrapt by its beauty and is aware that this is my fourth and final time starting a new year at Middlebury – incredibly excited and nervous about what this year and my next chapter will bring.

Hair. Make up. Costume. Poses? Different costume? Fix hair. More makeup. Different costume, again?

Every year, the Middlebury Dance Department puts on a photo shoot for all majors and minors in the department.  It’s an exciting time to work with a photographer who really knows dancers.  It’s also a time filled with indecision.  As I walked into the costume closet–hair a mess, makeup only half plastered on my face–I had absolutely no idea where to begin.  I’m almost certain some of those costumes have been in that closet since before I was born.  There was everything from silver unitards to oversized red blazers to dresses only a barbie could fit into, and I wasn’t interested in any of it.  Did I want to look pedestrian or full on diva?  Use the clothes I brought or be completely transformed?  And for heaven’s sake, what was I going to do with my hair?  It’s amazing how quickly such trivial questions became so vitally important when there’s a camera involved.

I was at the shoot with the three other senior dance majors, who were also trying on and throwing off costumes at an alarming rate.  Each of us was to decide what our solo shoot would look like, but also how we wanted to look for our shoot as a group.  Here we were, four very different dancers with four very different bodies, all trying to look like we fit together.  There were some serious, and thankfully some not-so-serious, decisions to be made.  Ultimately, we decided we would all don jumpsuits of varying colors.  My first thought: you want me to dance in this thing?

Once we were all together and under the lights, I had a second thought: this might be kind of neat.  I had done the shoot the year before but only as a soloist.  For the most part, solo shoots are all basically the same, because I know how I dance and what it feels like to be in front of the camera.  Shooting, and more specifically moving, as a group would prove to be an entirely new and surprisingly rewarding experience.  None of us knew where to begin, but we knew we had to start dancing eventually.

What happens when you put four dancers with different backgrounds in jumpsuits and tell them to move?  They move!  Although our collaboration typically starts and ends with us all being in the same room for technique class, there was a mutual understanding of each other’s strengths as both people and dancers that allowed us to create some truly beautiful images.  It was surprising how well we knew each other and were able to respond to each other’s movement.  All having to overcome the awkwardness of the clunky jumpsuits gave us a common enemy, and this created a level of comfort with each other we had never been able to achieve before.  At first, we were afraid to even get close to each other, but as the shoot progressed, we learned how to lean on each other for both moral and “oh my gosh, stay still, please don’t let me fall over” support.

Having completed both sessions, I can now say the group shoot actually taught me more about who I am as a dancer than did my solo shoot.  Being me is pretty familiar, but being me in a jumpsuit with three other dance majors, that’s a whole other story.