This year's Homecoming presents the members of the class of 2006 with an inordinate challenge -- what is our role as upperclassmen, if not to run around the bonfire like heathens?
Do we beat up the little freshmen who try to escape from running laps around the fire? Do we scream our lungs out in lustful exuberance? Should we just sleep through it all?
I'm sure I'm not the only '06 who feels a bit overwhelmed by this dilemma. All men and women have at one point in their lives contemplated their existences, only to discover identity crises, fallibility and infinite solitude.
This existential problem becomes particularly acute for the members of the sophomore class, as the novelty and frivolity of our freshman year recedes behind the backdrop of maturity. We couch ourselves in the fact that we're older and, perchance, wiser -- not that we're actually any more mature than we were 12 months ago.
As I've walked around campus this fall, after an extraordinary summer, I've realized how freshman-like I still feel. Perhaps it's my height, perhaps I'm still amazed by my surroundings or perhaps it's just simply the fact that others ask me whether I'm lost. Although I usually reply with a wry smile and a simple "I'm an '06," I still can't help but feel like a freshman.
Not, necessarily, a member of the Class of 2007. There is enough conclusive evidence to prove that I am not a '07: my class is "woefully" less diverse than the Class of 2007, I'm probably less academically qualified than the uber-students who took 20 APs in high school, and I'm mercifully not stuck with a long walk from the River during the height of winter.
Yet there's something I miss about freshman year, when we were all just discovering Dartmouth and learning to appreciate its extraordinary beauty, when we were just getting used to hanging tough when the alcohol gets rough. Whatever the case may be, I miss my freshman year -- and I will always try to keep that freshman I was last year dear to my heart.
Now, now '06s! I'm not disowning my class (at least not until we do something frightfully ridiculous).
I am saying, rather, that we must re-examine who we are as Dartmouth students. I propose that we should strive to remain freshmen at heart. That's right, you lazy upperclassmen, as corny as it sounds, we are -- or can still be -- those pea-green freshmen who played sports in the halls of our dorms, discovered the art of getting to class after late-night rendezvous and even learned to run like pagans around a burning wooden idol.
To be a freshman at heart means to rediscover Dartmouth's greatness -- to marvel at its colors and its smells, to enjoy the few sunny days and the many wintry nights, to partake in all the College has to offer and to surround ourselves with our many, talented peers.
Who knows? We may appreciate our days this fall and winter a little more if we recall what makes Dartmouth so unique. Though we may attend a school entirely cut-off from civilization, Dartmouth's exceptional character, flexibility and pioneering spirit, as well as the wonderful people who comprise its eclectic student body, make its isolation a small price to pay for our experiences here.
But most importantly, rediscovering our inner freshman means understanding Dartmouth's essence. We can find it in the heights of Baker Tower and the beauty of Dartmouth Hall illuminated at night. We can hear it every evening in the chiming of the alma mater. We will endure it every winter with every foot of snow.
These images and experiences represent what Dartmouth should mean to all of us as students, scholars and refreshingly-naive freshmen.
To love Dartmouth means to share in the collective pride for our "College on the Hill." It means remembering our alma mater when we are 3,000 miles away from New Hampshire, a full 30 years after we graduate. It means having an appreciation for what we have while we have it, the same appreciation shared by thousands of alumni worldwide.
I urge every member of the Dartmouth community -- past and present -- to take this time to rediscover their inner freshman and to strive to reinvigorate our school spirit.
Nearly 12 months ago today, I found myself dressed in every single item of Dartmouth clothing I had, with paint and freshman pride glowing on my face, standing out on the Green preparing to dance like a lunatic around that ghastly bonfire.
And I loved every moment of it.
This Homecoming weekend, with a year gone by since that unforgettable night, I will have to be content with standing on the sidelines, preventing freshmen from escaping that infamous circle. But if there is anything I share with those pea-green freshmen today, it is the enthusiasm, which still seeps forth every now and then -- my unbridled love for "Dear Old Dartmouth."
