Scene Forty-Six: 10X

I rose at seven this morning and wove my way to Novack for a bagel in advance of my final final: Abnormal Psychology in Moore Filene. The exam is well finished and all my things are packed and stored. I sit in my bare room hoping that I haven't done anything to warrant repair charges and failing to forget that in two hours I will board the Dartmouth Coach and bid all of this farewell for the next three months.

Truthfully, not everything about Dartmouth is as I expected and not everything is wonderful.. but so many things were unexpected and so many things are wonder-filled. The odd-hour tolling of Baker's Bells. Collis baked goods. Percussion. Wishing on northern dandelions (they're different, I swear).

I feel like I'm leaving home, again.

But I'm returning to a place that for the past half-decade or so of my life was my home away from home: Duke University's TIP Summer Studies at East Campus.

From 2005-2007 I spent three weeks of summer among the most intelligent peers I'd yet encountered, under the pretense of experiencing the sort of rigorous academics that were likely lacking in our standard educations. In progression, I studied The Vampire Theme in Film and Literature, Abnormal Psychology, and Madness and the Mind (a philosophy-psychology mash-up that challenged us to define sanity, reality, and other such undefinable things).

TIPsters, both from within my classes and without, remain among my closest friends.
 
This summer I will be working as a Residential Counselor back on my home campus, Duke East. Given the large number of campuses that host the program and the high demand for RCship, I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to return to the campus that defined my TIP experience.

I'll be directly in charge of about twelve adolescent girls and less directly involved in molding the overall social atmosphere of the program. We RCs are responsible for planning evening activities for TIPsters- I need to come up with something really quirky. Suggestions welcome.

Because I am not on Dartmouth's campus and will not be as fountainous with anecdotes and observations thereabout, I'll be posting here less frequently until early September when I return to lead my DOC trip. In the mean time, I'm ever-available by blitz (at least until it goes under): cally [at] dartmouth [dot] edu.

© Callista Womick 2010

(I took the above photo from the top of Baker Bell Tower during one of the tours offered for First-Year Family weekend.)