Reflection: Finding Your Balance
(01/11/23 7:20am)
According to an average Instagram scroll, there are a couple different types of winterim available to Dartmouth students, all of which have their pros and cons:
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According to an average Instagram scroll, there are a couple different types of winterim available to Dartmouth students, all of which have their pros and cons:
And just like that, we’re back. Hanover might not have looked like a winter wonderland when we stepped off the coach, but it was still a welcome sight. Maybe it’s just a sign that we’re settling into our senior status, but there’s something oddly reassuring about returning just in time for a bout of dismal weather. Every year, our six-week winterim has a funny way of feeling both too long and not long enough, but coming back just feels right. I (Caris) even caught myself telling my family — while home in California — that I was excited to fly “home” (to Dartmouth) after New Year’s.
The days of inevitably and routinely finding yourself at the mercy of Domino’s delivery after a night out, of eating an assortment of snacks for dinner if you dared to wait until 9 p.m. to eat on a weekend, are over.
Dartmouth College is a little bubble surrounded by beautiful scenery. Only 17% of the students in my class — the class of 2026 — who go to school here are from New England, so the environment is a new experience for the vast majority. I talked to students who travel to campus from far and wide about their perspective on New Hampshire and the Upper Valley as a whole.
It’s been November for a couple of weeks, but it’s finally starting to feel like it. Today, while procrastinating papers and attempting to clear my head, I went for a walk in the woods behind the golf course. It’s easy to forget that we’re so close to nature — the golf course has gone untended since the varsity golf team stopped practicing there, and now the overgrown grass is less of a stark separation from the forest behind it. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and looked up at the sharp branches which made up the canopy above my head. It will look exactly like that until March or April. The winter always feels like the longest part of the year, even though it has the shortest days.
I recently sent my first flitz to a girl that I met briefly at a party. I was nervous, but hopeful. She flitzed me back a day later, agreeing to a coffee date — only to tell me five hours later that she had a terrible habit for flirting and was already involved with someone else. But we still got coffee and had a good time, and I gained a friend in the process.
When our alarms go off in the morning, we drag ourselves out of bed, mentally cursing every extra minute that we stayed up the night before. With late-night homework, the temptation to go out and the ever-earlier wakeup times for class and cramming in the morning, our precious sleep hours are the last priority, the first thing sacrificed to shove something else into our schedule.
In the words of “The Office” character Kevin Malone, “I just want to lie on the beach and eat hot dogs. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Injuries are bound to happen at a college like Dartmouth.
As an overthinker with an individuality complex, I’m always looking for some witty, descript answer to “How’s it going?” I’ll be damned if I hit the one syllable “good.” Somedays, I’ll launch into an unwarranted monologue about my latest DDS hack or dire need to do laundry. Other times I’ll respond with a simple “it’s going.” My answers are arguably no more insightful than “fine, how ’bout you?” but at least they transcend the good/bad binary that reduces entire states of being into meaningless, digestible boxes.
In a classic 2000s movie, the individual intricacies of high school students are boiled down to stereotypical and generalized high school tropes — the jocks, band geeks, nerds, popular kids, theater kids, etc. — that constitute the school. The movie-esqe stereotypes may be an exaggerated interpretation of high school students, but it’s true that from the outside, our interests are sometimes the first thing people see.
It’s week 9 and I’m tired. Between problem sets and outlines for final papers, I’m looking for an escape. So whether you’re on the market for a movie that will scare you more than finals or a book to curl up with once you’re home for Thanksgiving, here are five of my favorite fall stories with fall written all over them — pun not intended.
When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the entire world stopped to watch. Since then, despite constant media coverage of the war, many non-Ukrainians have let the invasion slip into the background of their lives. But for members of the Dartmouth Student Alliance for Ukraine, who are doing everything they can to raise awareness and help the war effort, not paying attention is not an option.
The early hours of Oct. 23 found me deep in the woods, thirty-something miles away from campus. I was cold and exhausted and my headlamp was running out of battery and it took everything in me to stomach a few more Sour Patch Kids before I kept hiking, nearly sixteen hours in.
Here at Mirror, this week’s sunny skies are holding off the stark reality that fall is almost over. It’s the time of the term when we start rushing from the library straight into formal attire and then back again. There’s something triumphant but bittersweet about the term’s final push before our extra long winter break. We’re going to miss seeing the sun after 4 p.m., almost as much as we’ll miss seeing our classmates for six weeks and spending autumn in the idyllic woods of New Hampshire.
Dartmouth is a unique place. From the moment you step on campus, the lively, spirited feeling of “Dartmouth” is in the air — a sense picked up and carried with us through twelve hectic terms.
Friends, Romans, Dartmouth students — lend me your ears. As week 8 descends on an unsuspecting student body, we at Mirror have been stocking up on everything you’ll need to finish this term off with a bang. On the docket: a non-negotiable eight hours of sleep, a full water bottle, socks that feel like a warm hug around your ankles and a playlist that sounds like sunshine in your ears.
Scrolling through an “Architectural Digest” article on the most beautiful college dorms in America, I’m not even a little surprised that Dartmouth didn’t make the cut. Although my family and friends from home have often called our campus idyllic, that’s probably because they’ve never had to use the gender-neutral bathroom in the Masses or decide whether or not to turn on the sterile overhead lights in the Choates while they’re hooking up with someone. Despite the challenges presented to students by our shabby dorms, some have managed to make it work.
As I reflect on the term, and trace my recent year of change to its origins, I realize I may not have had as much authority over my metamorphosis as I once believed.
From freshmen to seniors, Homecoming serves as a way for the Dartmouth community to reunite and celebrate the start of a new academic year. Additionally, the bonfire attracts alumni — particularly young alumni — as they seek to relive their college glory days and take a walk down memory lane. Although Dartmouth may look the same to these recent graduates, they themselves have grown exponentially during their first few years, or even months, in the real world.