Through the Looking Glass: Trying to Understand
(01/11/15 7:29pm)
Maybe this will help you understand.
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Maybe this will help you understand.
My father passed away the summer before my sophomore year. That’s how I always start the explanation, and that’s often how I end it. When people ask about my father, they don’t expect a tragic story as a response, and I truly do not wish to present them with one. Death is already painful and complicated. Loss of a parent is immensely difficult — the story is already sad, regardless of the circumstances.
On the biology foreign study program in Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands this past winter, I was surrounded by some of the most diverse and engaging ecosystems in the world. Spider monkeys cavorted outside the classroom — scorpions lurked under the bathroom sink. As someone who grew up catching insects in Mason jars and playing in the mud, I felt alive. That’s not to say that the program wasn’t challenging. We wrote scientific papers every four to five days and moved to a new field station each week. I stayed up late and woke up early, but I felt happy and fulfilled.
Self-care at Dartmouth is hard, especially as someone who transferred here from an institution that let me count classes like “Math 120: Appreciation of Math” toward a degree my freshman year. I used to have time for two naps, a four-mile run and a Zumba class every day on top of my schoolwork, and I assumed that was just what college was like. It was with this mindset that I arrived in Hanover last fall.