Scene Twenty-One: Chillin' With the Profs

I step from New Hampshire's resurgent winter into the warm quiet of Sanborn. A handful of students sit in pools of light at the heavy wooden tables, pouring over texts for their winding-down classes. Through the paned-glass door that leads to the offices of English professors I hear the low rumble of classmates in conference.

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As part of my Writing 5 with Professor Crumbine, I am required to attend conferences to discuss recently submitted assignments. Along with three or four other students from either her 10A or 2A, I slip into one of the round-backed wooden chairs that fill her library-office and, sentence-by-sentence, review the structure and content of my papers. Professor Crumbine remains largely silent, allowing her students to exercise their burgeoning propensities for criticism and compliment.
At Dartmouth, professors are marvelously available. From office hours to scheduled meetings to impromptu conversations after class, the opportunities to interact are virtually endless. But, to sweeten the deal, Dartmouth provides an added incentive for students to hang with profs. Once a term, each student has the opportunity to receive a stipend to take a professor to lunch at the Hanover Inn. I've not yet done so myself.. but I will.

Scene Twenty: Lullaby...

I slosh across the green from Arabic drill to my Religion I lecture, drowsy after a late night of revising papers for Writing 5. As I near the melting coliseum at the center, Baker's bells start singing, "Lullaby, and goodnight-"

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The bells play songs at three specific times during the day, but students can also blitz requests for off-hour renditions. "Happy Birthday," "Blackbird," "Hey Jude," and "Hi Ho Hi Ho" are the most popular this term, but the list of possibilities is much longer. As a fall-term first-year, "Hell's Bells" was my introduction to the unorthodox chimes. Unfortunately, the only recordings of the bells that I can find are more traditional. Guess you'll have to visit campus to hear the rest.

Oh, and I had no trouble staying awake in my Religion lecture. With Professors Ackerman and MacEvitt, it is the sort of class in which, regardless how sleep-deprived I am, I never feel drowsy.

Image Source: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/bakerberry/general/bells.html

Scene Nineteen: Filmna bi-Antom - Our Movie for You!

Two classmates and I were to make a movie set either in a restaurant or in a supermarket, in Arabic. This is what came of it.

Scene Eighteen: Thanksgiving, revisited

Have you noticed a trend? With Winter term winding down and finals-papers-readings-homework-midterms-(midterms?!) piling up, I haven't much time to devote to anything other than the essentials. School. Food. Sleep. I dearly want to paint a picture of Dartmouth for you with words, but in this case I think my silence does just as well. Perhaps it does better.
Here are some photographs of the Thanksgiving dinner that I enjoyed at Phi Tau and some of the wonderful people with whom I enjoyed it. Yum!

All photographs © 2009 Kelsey Harris

Scene Seventeen: Layoffs II

Despite the efforts of SEIU Local 560 and Dartmouth Students Stand with Staff, despite the vigil on the Green, and despite the opposition of numerous other faculty and community members, President Kim released a letter to the Dartmouth community today that includes the following passage:

We have taken a number of measures to avoid layoffs, including offering voluntary retirement, reducing hours, eliminating unfilled positions and freezing salaries. To date, more than 105 non-teaching employees have accepted the College's retirement incentive, and we have reduced unfilled positions by 43. These actions come on top of 158 positions that were eliminated last year.

While these steps and the other actions noted in this letter have made a significant impact, they unfortunately did not fully eliminate the need for layoffs. We have had to make 38 layoffs now, and expect a comparable number in April. Approximately 60 percent of these layoffs involve professional and managerial employees. We are deeply grateful for the work of these employees, and for the contributions they have made to Dartmouth College.

Dinner time at Homeplate is usually lively, but even the students waiting in line for the evening's special caught the somber mood of the staff behind the counter. Of the faces I have come to know, which will I no longer see? The letter asserts that "approximately 60% of the layoffs involve professional and managerial employees," but I heard a laid-off staff member quip, "Managerial? I oversee a bunch of kids behind the sandwich counter!"

I love my school, but this was not the right move to make.

Scene Sixteen: Terry Tempest Williams, Revisited

I stand in the foyer of the Montgomery House with Terry Tempest Williams and two others, discussing a statue that occupies an alcove by the main entrance. It is of an unnaturally tall, unnaturally slim woman with a bun and long dress. Her almost nonexistent mouth is contrasted by hauntingly large eyes and her spidery hands are laced in front of her groin area...

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After the intimate conversation that we had last week at the White House dinner, Terry Tempest Williams invited we eight East Wheelockers to join her, along with any friends we wished to bring, at the Montgomery House for a reunion over dessert. With cake from the Hanover Inn, we enjoyed the low-key setting in which people came and went as their schedules permitted. Too often, my life at Dartmouth lacks the low-key. Even though it was wedged between an FSP application and Religion homework, I relished this respite.

Scene Fifteen: The Two-Hour Lunch

"I found the budget cuts!" I chortled, gesturing to the down-sized sweet potato that made up part of my Homeplate dinner. Two trippees sat across from me, rolling their eyes at my quip.

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If you plan on coming to Dartmouth, go on a First Year Trip. I repeat: GO ON A FIRST YEAR TRIP. On my trip, I knew the love of H-Croo, Lodge Croo, AND VOX Croo. I earned the nickname "Baby Cairn" while lost in a storm in the Presidential Range. I ate Nutella-fondued Canadian Groundfruit. I kissed Mother Nature on her open mouth, and I liked it. So, go.
The bonds you make on trips will last much, much longer than the ache of your muscles (unless you do psycho-hiking; I think its kind of a toss-up there). Let me return to my narration..
I sat in Homeplate with two trippees, trying to make merry the dually grave topics of budget cuts and portion downgrades. An hour after finishing our meals, we still sat. Our quarry was life goals, after all. Two of us are quite attached to the idea of a title, a degree, a.. future? Typing it, I feel even more ridiculous than saying it. Yes, I admit that I am one of we two. Since childhood I have fantasized about being a doctor. I want to be the mythical being that knows how every part of the human body works and how to fix it when something goes awry. I want to travel the distant lands like the Inner City and the Gambia to treat illnesses that I can't yet name in people that I can't wait to meet. I want to wield life.
But, I do not like math. The problem is not that I cannot understand complex mathematical concepts, I often did better in high school math classes than in my coveted language classes, but that I do not enjoy understanding complex mathematical concepts. What am I to do? Even for the most bio-based med school requirements, I resent the amount of physics and chemistry that I would have to study. When Dartmouth offers classes like Goddesses of India and Intense Greek, why would I put myself through a math-based curriculum?
I am still clinging to my dream of being a doctor, but I am coming to terms with a different (*gasp* - uncertain) future. That doesn't mean that I won't take the Biotechnology First Year Seminar, though.