AP English 11 -- Language and Composition
Spring 2004 Speeches
Sarah Whateley
March 6, 2004
Train
Accident
Everyday on the news you hear about people suffering around the world. There are hundreds of terrible stories recalling plane crashes, bus bombings, terrorist acts, the occasional lost puppy horror story, and train crashes. Most people hear these unfortunate tragedies, dwell on them for fifteen seconds, and move on with their lives. I can be accused of being an unsympathetic, insensitive, heartless, cold monster, which glances at the television when the news is on, and does not feel any emotion to the suffering public. How could anything awful every happen to a sheltered germ freak like me? Unfortunately, it took a disaster to wake me up from my perfect daydream.
It was the
spring of my ninth grade year at
We proceeded to the dining car for steak and salad. As I sat there eating my cherry tomato, the train began to rock. At first it seemed as if we had just went over a small rock; however, as milliseconds passed I found my self laying sideways next to a large, unhappy stranger. I quickly got to my feet, now standing on the windows of the train, and looked around. I was confused and shocked and I immediately found my brother, mom, and dad staring at the mess we were enthralled in. Our waitress went into a panic mode, and was rushing around our train car like a petrified mouse being chased by a cat. The passengers that had the hardest fall were sprawled out across the side, now the floor, of the train, moaning and bleeding. Selflessly, my parents went to work helping the vulnerable strangers on the ground. My brother and I, on the other hand, were searching for an escape from the claustrophobic disaster. As our waitress continued to rush madly around the train, the train began to get extremely dusty. My dad decided to open the window located on the top of the train to let in some oxygen. The poor design of the window made this simple task extremely difficult, and when he finally got the heavy glass out, it landed on a lady lying on the floor. She had a seizure and her eyes moved spastically. She ended up doing okay in the end.
Our escape was through an opening between the two train cars. When the train fell over, it had twisted, leaving a small place to climb through. My brother and I got out quickly, and two other children followed us. As we waited on the side, now the top of the train, for our parents to get out, we thought about how lucky we were to be alive. When my parents could no longer help anyone without medical equipment, we all climbed down from the train on a ladder given to us by the fire department that had recently arrived. I remember sitting for hours on a blue tarp, talking to other families experiencing the same shock that we were. People had brought gallons of Kentucky Fried Chicken for us to munch on, but honestly, who feels like eating chicken after they have just survived a train crash? Well, I did, and it tasted really good.
When a bus finally came to pick us up, only some people
could escape the scene of the accident, because there were so many people. My family got
on the second bus that arrived, and it was the most frightful bus ride I have ever been
on. Every bump and crack in the road felt like an earthquake shaking the bus. It is a good
thing that the
Once again, people bogged us down with chicken, hoping it would distract us from whatever was on our minds. It worked, because I was engrossed in the chicken for about an hour. Students came in to help out and support people who were in a lot worse shape then we were. It was extremely kind and many people appreciated their help. A bus finally transferred us to a hotel. My most memorable shower was taken in that hotel room; however, it was unfortunate that I had to get back into my dusty cloths after it. Our luggage was trapped on the train still. I did not get much sleep that night.
The following morning brought more distress to my parents when they remembered that our car was still on the train. As we waited to see whether our car had survived the catastrophe, we took a van to Wal-Mart to pick up some necessities, such as a toothbrush, fresh underwear, and a bathing suit. Okay, the bathing suit was not a necessity, but Amtrak paid for everything, so I figured I would get a bathing suit. We returned to the hotel with good news awaiting us. Our van had made it through the train crash without a scratch. It was a miracle, and we set off to get it from the train station. Our van driver to the station was similar to a New York taxi driver, and, yes, it was a nerve-racking trip. We made it to the station, picked up our van, and started on our twenty- five our ride back to Williamstown.
My parents drove as much as they could without stopping, but they needed a rest in North Carolina, in which we stayed in a hotel for three hours for some much needed sleep. If there ever was an appropriate time for Dorothy's wise words, "There is no place like home, there is no place like home" it was now. Home felt better than it ever had, and Martha's greeting (my dog) at our front door was what I needed more than anything.
I never expected that my Florida trip in the spring was
going to be so eventful and adventurous. I would have been perfectly content with a
monotonous trip to my cousin's house. If nothing else, I learned that you should not take
anything for granted. Anything can happen to anyone at anytime, and an individual cannot
necessarily control what might happen to him or her. I watch the news with a completely
new outlook, and I am now sympathetic, sensitive, and considerate of those people who are
suffering. Sometimes it takes a disaster or tragedy for people to wake up to reality and
put their lives into perspective.
Mary DeMatteo
April 26, 2004
Life is a
Math Problem
In math, a variable is a symbol that represents a quantity or set of values. In life, a variable is a word used to describe something that is likely to change or something that imposes change on something else. Assuming that life and math can connect, which according to Tapia they can, and knowing that one, I represent something, two, I am likely to change in my life, and three, I hope to one day change something else, I consider myself a variable, “X”.
For X, junior year is just as simple, and just as complicated as a math problem. Unfortunately for this X, however, it’s a Tapia math problem. It reads something like this: In the years 2003 and 2004, how does X change under the following circumstances?
·
When many
pressures are applied to X, not including gravity. And don’t forget, there is a one
hundred pound sausage dragging X up a hill with a rope at an angle of seventy degrees.
·
When X is thrown
from the edge of a one hundred meter cliff at a velocity of sixty miles an hour and lands
two-hundred meters away.
X thinks these questions are hard, and stupid, which is why X doesn’t like math. Yet, even Tapia sometimes gives some “no brainers”. For instance, how does X change when...
·
X is playing
soccer, opposed to when X is not
·
X goes on vacation
and comes home pale
·
X fails a chem
test
·
X never gets
higher then a B on a Dils paper and then gets a C
·
X gets a boyfriend
X is pumped and is definitely going to ace these questions because they are simple. But Tapia would never let X get away that easy. Tapia always asks one question that is anything but simple to solve. For X, the question is this: Overall, how does X change? Period. No other information is given. Typical Tapia. No numbers no nothing. He would probably go on to ask X, how does it look like? And then he would actually expect X to whip out the TI-83 calculator and graph it. Actually graph how X changed during junior year. X thinks this question is too hard, but will try to answer it anyway.
X started off junior year okay, with one exception, X didn’t really know who X was. Actually X didn’t really know much of anything. X barely knew her order of operations. X knew it was a big deal if something was raised to a big power. X knew that what was specifically in the parenthesis was important. And X knew that addition usually meant something good and subtraction usually meant something bad. X only knew the equations that were essential to X: X + soccer = fun, X - friends = unhappy, and X + food + sleep + MTV - homework = good life. X could even get more complicated. X knew that (X)(homework)(school) = sucks, (X)(Mr. Burdick)(chemistry) = hell, (X)(Dils)(sparknotes) = don’t try it he’ll catch you, and (X)(friends)(boyfriends) = well, that equation doesn’t always work. X even discovered that even though mathematically Mr. Burdick / Mr. Burdick should equal one, it still equals hell.
Out of the many equations that X was a part of, and wasn’t a part of, there was one equation in which X could thrive, but thoroughly rejected. You see, X has a twin named Max, which caused some identity crisis’s for X. Should X become 2X, or X squared because there were two of them? Or should X downsize to 1/2X because she really was half of the whole package. Well, X didn’t like any of these ideas, so she remained X, began to refer to her twin as X prime, and moved on.
X was totally concerned with the more important things about junior year, like the other variables. X wanted to be added to R, S, L, C, D, E, and all the other girl variables. X also wanted to make equations with Z, J, W, P, T, and all the other boy variables. X didn’t want to be subtracted from any variable, unless it was X prime. X became totally wrapped up in how hot J’s slope was, how close T’s eccentricity was to one, how many matrices S belonged to, and at exactly what coordinates X and R would meet up on Friday night.
Every so often, X and X prime would stare from opposite sides of the hyperbola at each other, but X didn’t seem to care. To X, X prime was on a completely different axis. X was too busy looking for her own solutions to her own problems because it was around the time that X + soccer = not captain, X + basketball = not fun, and X+ job = non-existent were the three predominant equations. By back substitution, that means X equalled not captain - soccer + not fun - basketball + non-existent - job. X began spinning through quadratic equations, hyperbolas, and ellipses. Yet, in a very small sense, X was proud because X thought she was tackling some pretty tough equations. But in fact, X had no idea about what a tough equation really was.
One day all the variables changed, because one variable changed. There was an equation with no solution. It was dividing by zero, it was long division with no solutions and no remainders, it was all things mathematically impossible, yet possible. It was all the questions the teacher said would not be on the test that suddenly appeared and all you could do was leave it blank and think about it. The variables didn’t make sense and the equations didn’t make sense and the logic didn’t make sense and the words didn’t make sense and nothing made sense. But maybe the problem wasn’t there to make sense. Maybe the problem appeared to make you think a different way.
To
answer the question, X knows her graph has been changed to both exponential growth, and
exponential decay. X knows life has changed from a straight line to more of a sine or
cosine graph, up down up down all the time with a now very low relative minimum. But
overall, it finally hits X that there was now one equation that no amount of math could
ever change. So X changed hers instead. And now, X meets up with X prime on the hyperbola,
because, now she knows the coordinates. All X ever had to do was solve for X prime, and
plug it back into X.
Erica DeWitt
April 6, 2004
My Verve Story
I was very close to giving up the opportunity of playing in Mrs. Lauser’s fifth and sixth grade band. I wanted to steer clear of “Hot Cross Buns,” and “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and band practices that stole two lunch recesses a week. But, about five minutes before school one day, my parents discovered a crumpled band sign up sheet on my kitchen counter, and said “why don’t you be a drummer, they have to do anything.” I considered this option very thoroughly the entire bus ride to school. I even asked advice from Abby Sussman, who defiantly stated “I’m playing trumpet like my brother,” and, finally, upon remembering that Scot Beattie had played in the percussion section a year before, I grabbed a pen and signed my soul away to a future of the Suzuki method, Yamaha beat books, and other forms of terrible pedagogy.
Grade school band practice was not half bad. The practice merely consisted of some catchy rhythms, interspersed with my mocking James Morrison, another drummer, who could never really tell the difference between eighth and sixteenth notes. However, I immediately found myself dreading the first band concert. I had never been much of a performer—yeah, I had starred as a Christmas Tree in my preschool “Holiday Peagant” and had been singing in what the director thought a very professional Children’s Chorus since I was about nine—but when I finally got up on stage on the night of our first Williamstown Elementary School band concert, I realized that I had never before gotten such a thrill from doing such an insignificant thing as using a stick to bang some plastic stretched over a metal rim.
It was the summer after seventh grade when my brother’s friend, Conor Meehan, offered me his old drumset. “It’s a piece of shit,” he said, “But you can have it for five-hundred dollars.” It was a TAMA, red, and sparkly, five pieces, one ride cymbal, with a gorgeous pair of hi-hats. My brother haggled down the price while my parents rolled their eyes. They bought it, eventually. After all, I was a drummer.
At first, my traps—the real name for the instruments—were placed in our a den-type addition, where my parents liked to spend most of their time to relax. I really only knew one beat, so I only played one beat, and I wasn’t too inventive back in the day. Basically, I drove my parents crazy. They immediately got the name of Conor’s former drum-teacher and set up a lesson for the next week.
Tristan Sullivan, from whom I still take lessons, has been an excellent, excellent, teacher, but quite an experience. I remember my first lesson. My mother drove me the entire 37 minutes to Dalton—which I actually have calculated by now. At our destination, we discovered only a disgruntled house with a wishing well on the front lawn and a funny-looking man building a hot-rod in an equally disgruntled garage. Tristan came out to meet us. He was tall, gaunt. Kind of a strange and not particularly good looking combination of Matt Damon, Shawn Ashmore, Brad Pitt, and my autistic cousin, William. I was introduced to his toothless mother—who somehow has acquired three or four teeth throughout her years—and we went downstairs to play. He had me jam with whatever I knew for ten minutes straight. Then he said “sit back, and think about what you just played.” We sat for about ten minutes, and as a thirteen-year-old, I dubbed this practice useless. I made it clear that he had to wait until I was a bit older to start this thinking trash with me.
Recently though, his method of teaching has helped me to connect to the drums in an entirely different way. Rather than overplaying, and over thinking, I’ve realized that you have to feel the pulse, and no matter what, you cannot lose your internal beat, lest you and the other musicians will spin out of your tight musical fusion. The foundation is essential—it’s the soul that makes the drums into the jazz-traps. I’ve learned in that dark basement of Tristan’s, that drumming is not just Keith Moon kicking his drums off the stage; it’s how you communicate the soul of your verve that creates the meat of the drums, and the love.
I don’t do this during fifth period band, as many of you may have noticed when you see me trying to catch a bit more sleep, or cram in math problems in between scales. After all, band is only a transition from one test to another, from a snack to lunch. Everyone knows that as long as you hand in a legible concert review, you can pass, and that every time your instrument has the slightest hitch you jump at the opportunity to play solitaire in Moors’ heated office. Nobody really likes the music, and the occasional pieces we do like are much too hard. There’s no focus, no connection, and definitely, no soul. I didn’t think I knew what music was all about, until last week, after four years of playing the jazz-traps, I finally received Tristan’s most sincere compliment possible: “Erica,” he said, “you are one soulful, dealing bitch.”
It was about a year ago when I decided to test my skills at the Western District Jazz Auditions. For a month or two beforehand, I worked with Tristan to master this absolutely ridiculous and cheesy Buddy Rich spin off entitled “Ain’t it Rich.” Upon trying to decipher the thirty-second note triplets over swung double time, Tristan and I decided this unusual punishment was “pedagogic debauchery” and most certainly WAS NOT rich.
As I waited outside the audition room on my judgment day, various other rhythm musicians exited, shaking their heads confusedly, or mumbling to themselves. The bassist who auditioned before me warned, “the judge is totally cracked, man.” He wasn’t wrong. My adjudicator wore a green, satin shirt, and a black cape. He scrutinized me carefully as I set up my kit, and as soon as I sat down, proceeded to insult my beloved set. Dissing a drumset is far worse than dissing the actual drummer. It is simply not done. During my prepared piece, “Ain’t It Rich,” the adjudicator decided to strut the room with a long, black staff topped with a marble globe, instead of following along with his copy of the music. And then, as I finished, he questioned the authenticity of my fake glasses, and kicked me out of the audition room before I even had a chance to complete the sight reading assignment.
I did get into the Massachusetts Western District Jazz Band that year, somehow. The festival practices and the final District concert were among the better days of my entire life. It was so different to play with other kids who shared the same musical obsession as I did, and my conductor from an inner-city high school of The Bronx taught me more during the festival than I had learned from my entire drumming career. Even now, more than a year later, I talk to the bassist, Mr. Zachary Swanson, and the pianist, Jon, and the guitarist of the rhythm section, and we plan our days as starving musicians who drive 1989 Chevy Caprices and all live in the loft of a New York City apartment, on 44th and 2nd street.
You
could say I’ve come a long way, baby. From
my first rubber “practice pad,” which was awfully reminiscent of hitting a tire,
to my Tama Birchwood Fusion Starclassic 035007 trap-set (quite possibly the sexiest
drumset on the market), not only have I developed a minor obsession, but I have also
developed somewhat of an identity, as “the girl drummer.” At MCLA band practices I am excused for my lack of
promptness and lack of sheet music organization, simply because I am a drummer and a girl.
When I’ve performed on my kit in various concerts, the conductor expected me to
ignore the dress code and wear ripped jeans and a black t-shirt because, well, I was the
drummer. And, finally, after years of
practice, I’ve even mastered pure indifference when the chauvinistic salesclerks at
Woodbrothers claim they have no hairbrushes when I ask for nylon jazz brushes, or when
they ask me If I’d prefer my usual 5B, “Promark” drumsticks in pink.
Kiersten Bell
13 April 2004
The Secret of Contentment
Usually
when people go on a trip over the summer, they lie on a beach for hours, lounge in their
hotel room, and eat at a different restaurant every night. But my mission trip
last summer to Lima, Peru was far from being a glamourous vacation. Before I even
got accepted to go on the trip, I had to give up one of the most important things to me:
skiing. I couldn't go to the post season J2 festival because I would be
participating in a team-building weekend at the same time. Little did I know that
skiing wouldn't be the only thing I would have to give up for the trip. Weekly team
meetings soon followed in addition to the teamwork we had to do outside of the meetings:
the nightly reading, the memorizing, and the lesson planning. Then came the
team-building weekend. It was two and a half days of being crammed in one room, with
our 11 team members, listening to endless lectures on Peruvian culture, food, and customs.
In
our next meetings, we realized all of the preparation we needed to do: we had to plan our
English lessons, account for all of our team materials, participate in never-ending
fund-raising opportunities, and on top of all that, we were expected to memorize an entire
book of the Bible. When I added this immense workload to my schoolwork and balancing a
social life, I found it nearly impossible to make time to sleep at night. I was
already feeling a lot of stress, and I was only preparing to leave for Peru. Then on
July 10th, it was finally time to leave for the trip.
It
was midnight, and I was already tired when our whole team met in the church parking lot.
As we packed all of our bags and piled into cars for the airport, I already had 9
mosquito bites, and my eyelids were steadily growing heavy. We had planned to have
to deal with a lot of security and luggage checks so we had arrived for our flight early,
but we ended up having to wait in the uncomfortable airport seats for an additional 2
hours. I tried to sleep on the floor, but laying on airport carpets is like when I
slept on the ground of the Grand Canyon, only without the 100 degree weather and the
scorpions. We finally boarded our flight only to get off at the Dallas, Texas
airport for a gruesome 7 hour layover. Despite my yogurt snack exploding all
over myself and the window, the flight was relatively uneventful. As we sat in the
airport, my body still failed to allow me to sleep even after being awake for over 24
hours. The layover was as boring and tedious as you would think. We filled the
time with listening to the guitar and making about a hundred balloon animals. Then
we boarded the flight for more boring sedentary hours.
This second flight, however, was more eventful for me than the first. I was
blessed with the privilege of sitting next to the most sketchy Peruvian pedophile you
could imagine. This guy would drum on his food tray, switch positions every two
seconds, and try to make small talk with me in his broken English every chance he could
find. I spent my time inching to the opposite edge of my seat, and keeping my bag
under careful watch at all times. We finally arrived in Peru only to find ourselves,
all 9 kids, in one minivan. And when I say minivan, I mean a very mini van. If
it were in the States, it would hold all of 4 passengers. But we managed a
miraculous 9. We arrived at the church around 3 in the morning and quickly headed to
bed, only to wake up again at 8 o'clock.
We
were a tired, grumpy crew with bedroom hair and droopy eyes: not a very good first
impression. Our sleep the previous night was not exactly restful, it was spent on a
hardwood floor in a building with no doors and a constant-flowing draft.
Nevertheless, we were excited and ready to start our work. But the first day
in Peru, as I stepped into the shower to finally become clean after the long flights, I
found out that the water was absolutely freezing. It wasn't just lukewarm either, it
felt like ice-water! Luckily, we talked to the church leader and we got new shower
heads that heated the water. It would seem that our problems had been be solved,
except the new shower heads were called "widow makers" because they were
literally electricity water. They worked well enough, but sometimes when the water
got too hot, you would have to turn the dial down. But forgetting that you were in
the shower, you got a rude awakening when the unit sent a powerful shock that traveled
down your arm and through your whole body.
Until
we arrived, we had no idea how different the Spanish culture is from our own. The
most obvious difference is the language. One of our leaders, Ron, was attempting to
have a conversation with the youth leader at the Peruvian church using his very limited
Spanish. He meant to say "when you were young," but he ended up saying
"when you were an egg" instead. It was awkward and embarrassing to attempt
to talk with the Peruvians that knew no English. Even my favorite 6-year-old girl
couldn't help but laugh when I butchered my pronunciation. But the language barrier
was the expected, and we were prepared to have difficulty in our communication, but some
cultural differences were less obvious. For one thing, in the States, it is polite
and proper to make eye contact when you are speaking to someone, something Dils stresses
in this very speech; however, in Peru, if you make prolonged eye contact it is assumed
that you are coming on to the person you are looking at. Also, every greeting and
good-bye is accompanied by hugs and kisses: so this meant that we received kisses from
guys whom we wouldn't even consider standing next to, let alone kiss. Plus,
being a girl in Peru, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere without at least one guy with me for
safety reasons, so alone time was pretty much out of the question. And until the
second to last night in Peru, I didn't fully appreciate this rule. It happened when
one very social and bold Peruvian asked our leader if any of us girls were promised to be
married to anyone. Temporarily stunned by the question, our leader hurriedly told
him that yes, we all were engaged.
On
top of all the social differences, then there was the food! Peruvians are extremely
proud of their country's food. No matter what we were served, we had to eat it.
All of it. This meant that we had to scarf down mounds of cold avocado,
pepper, and mayonnaise salads and of course, the famous dish called Cuy. This dish
might sound like an innocent pasta dish or perhaps rice; but no, it is Guinea Pig.
Not only did I eat something I knew was meant to be a household pet, but all I
could picture were my two Guinea Pigs I had when I was in elementary school. But by
the end of the week, we became accustomed to swallowing foods we despised, forcing
ourselves not to drink the water, and smiling and thanking the cook no matter what he or
she served. Some dishes were ok, actually some were pretty good: but more often than
not, they were dishes that we would prefer never to eat again. But getting past the
food was the easy part. It was functioning on 5 hours of sleep every night and
getting up at 7 each morning for manual labor that was not so easy. For about four
hours every morning we were forced to sand concrete walls that never seemed to become at
all smooth. Our work totaled 5 stories high and over a week's worth of sweat.
On
top of the physical stress we put upon our bodies, the schedule changes took a toll on our
biological clocks too. Our breakfast was served at 8 am, and lunch was around 3.
Then we had to wait until 11 at night to have our dinner. At 6 o'clock each
night we held English lessons at the church for the Peruvians in the area. We had
prepared for months, making vocab lists, interactive games, and idiomatic phrases.
When our English lessons began, my class was incredible. They knew more
English than a lot of people I know in the U.S. Plus, Dils would be proud of their
immense grammar knowledge. But because they were so far above the level we had
planned for, we had to take and extra hour from each day to re-plan our lessons and
activities.
All
of the stress we experienced, plus the contaminated water, and unrefrigerated food could
only lead to one thing: illness. I was the first member of our team to get sick.
I was in bed for 2 days with a fever and a stomach-ache. Then, one by one,
almost every other team member got sick too. We even had to take one of our leaders
to the hospital for dehydration. It turns out he spent all night throwing up out of
his second story window. When I was sick in bed, I remember being so upset. All I
could think was "I'm in Peru to have the time of my life and work hard, so why am I
stuck in bed not able to do anything?" But being sick taught me
something. In addition to the sacrifices I made for the trip, the comforts I gave up
while I was there, and the hardships I faced in Peru, I learned the hard lesson of
contentment. I learned that without the bad situations, we wouldn't be able to
appreciate the good times. Despite all of the things I mentioned in my speech, our
trip was absolutely amazing: we met wonderful people, experienced a new culture, and
expanded our comfort zones.
And
no matter what you personally believe, whether you believe in a God, or many, or none at
all, something got our team through two weeks of hard work and stress. It wasn't the
sleep, because we barely got any. And I know it wasn't the food, because we always
traded plates with the boys when noone was looking. But something got us through
it...so I'll leave that decision up to you.
Emily Cohane-Mann
Mr. Dils
AP English 11
Until I was fourteen, my family belonged to the big white Congregational Church at the top of Spring Street. When I was in elementary school, I sang in the choir, and went to church most Sundays. By eighth grade, I started going to confirmation classes where I had to do things like draw a picture of God with crayons and read bible passages. I hated the classes, and expected to finish them as quickly as possible. My mom asked me a few times whether I really wanted to be confirmed before I came to the shocking realization that I didn’t want to do it, and even scarier, that nobody was making me do it. I didn’t have to go to confirmation classes, I didn’t have to be confirmed, I didn’t even have to be Christian if I didn’t want to. I felt like I was breaking some kind of unwritten rule when I quit confirmation classes, giddy with the novel idea that I could actually choose what I wanted to believe in by myself, and it was terrifying and liberating and exciting.
A few months later, my family gradually stopped going to church. My mom started going somewhere else on Sundays, and a few months after that, she declared, to the utter shock of my brother and sister and me, that she was going to become a Quaker. For all I knew, Quakers were crazy Luddites that didn’t get to eat animal products or swear or have sex. Mostly, I just raised my eyebrows at her a lot. I was quite content to have no religious affiliations whatsoever.
A year later, the summer after freshman year, my mom was driving Ethan and Rosy and me back from a week at the beach, when, an hour into the car ride, she announced that we wouldn’t be going back home. Instead, we were going to go to a week-long Quaker meeting at Wheaton College, but just to give it a try, she said. At this point, I threw a tantrum. I made it quite clear that I wasn’t a Quaker, and I certainly wasn’t going to spend any time with any Quakers, even if it meant I had to sleep in the car. This wasn’t really a religious statement; I just wanted to be at home to celebrate my birthday, which was coming up. I was still sore about my birthday the year before, which I had been forced to spend atop a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, knocked out on Nyquil, and without any good cake.
When we got to Wheaton College, my mother and brother and sister went to register, and I defiantly sat in the car for twenty minutes before I got bored and hot and went to find them. The first thing I noticed is that Wheaton College is a very ugly place. It’s all prickly grass and seventies buildings that are the bad kind of retro. There was a big gross pond with sick-looking ducks and reddish stringy stuff floating in it, and the cafeteria was cooking something that smelled rank. Of course, it only got worse. When I found my mother, she told me that I wouldn’t, in fact, be seeing her or Ethan or Rosy for the entire week. I would be all alone, isolated from the rest of the world, with the Quaker high school students, called the Young Friends, whom I could only assume were crazy religious nuts. It was going to be hell.
Actually, it was going to be quite nice, because when I got to the Young Friends dorm on the other side of campus, it was crawling with cute boys. After I spent the first day being awkward and trying not to have a horrible time, I finally met some people. As it turns out, none of them were really crazy religious nuts. There was a girl called Cat who had dreadlocks and didn’t shave her armpits, and a boy called Max who had black hair and a skateboard and was very cynical, and a boy called Cassidy who was clever and had red hair and looked like a Muppet, and another boy called Allon who had the deepest voice I’ve ever heard. It was actually pretty much like summer camp, but we stayed in dorms instead of cabins and we had Quaker meeting for worship every once in a while. The worship, I admit, was weird.
Quaker meetings are not like normal Protestant church services. There isn’t a minister or a preacher, and meetings are usually held in simple rooms, without an altar or anything. There aren’t any sermons or prayers or hymns. Instead, everyone sits in a circle, facing each other, in silence for an hour. If somebody feels moved to speak, they can stand up and say something. The idea is that people don’t need anyone to tell them what to think or believe, and every person can find his or her light from within. It’s a nice idea, but it didn’t mean much to me that week, because an hour is an awfully long time for a teenager to sit quietly without falling asleep.
Other than the few meetings for worship, I had to admit that Yearly Meeting wasn’t that bad. I agreed to start going to Quaker retreats in the fall to please my mother and to see the people I knew. It’s difficult to admit, but the retreats really are fantastic. There’s a weekend-long retreat about every two months, and usually around fifty kids go, as well as six or so adults that go to make sure the entire weekend isn’t spent doing illegal things. Each retreat has a theme, like Relationships and Sexuality, Politics and Activism, or Creativity. Basically, we just hang around and sometimes play silly games with goofy names like Spanking Yoda and Sex in a Box, neither of which have anything to do with Yoda or sex. Everyone sleeps on the floor in sleeping bags in the meetinghouse with everyone else, and people hug each other a lot. People aren’t afraid of hugging each other. Coming back from retreats, it seems odd that people at school are so removed, physically and mentally, from each other. I feel isolated here. I can’t really show affection for people by hugging them or sitting on them. There’s so much information that can be exchanged with touch that we miss out on, simply because it feels awkward, too flirty, too personal, too intense. Americans seem to have forgotten how important it is to have physical contact with other human beings – to have touch. Within the Young Friends, touch isn’t sexualized the way it is here; it’s just another plane of communication.
It is truly hard to admit that I like retreats. And it’s especially hard to admit that I like retreats not only because I get to see friends, but also because I can grow spiritually. There are the normal pressures of adolescence that say it isn’t good or normal to be involved in your spirituality, and that religion is boring and stupid. On top of this are people’s misconceptions about Quakerism – mainly the idea that we’re Shakers. The Shakers were a crazy no-sex Luddite offshoot of Quakerism. The Quakers are quite normal, and get to have as much sex as anyone else. It’s hard not to always launch into long explanations when people ask what religion I am. When I tell people that I’m a Quaker, I usually get one of three responses. First, disbelief: “You’re not a Quaker. Don’t make fun of other people’s religions.” Second, misunderstanding: “I didn’t know Quakers were allowed to go to public school. Aren’t they like Amish? Are you allowed to have sex?” And third, a reaction that has nothing to do with anything: “Quaker . . . Like the Oatmeal?” In reality, Cadbury’s Chocolate has more of a connection to Quakerism than Quaker Oats.
Since I began to truly identify myself as a Quaker about a year and a half ago, Quakerism has become a huge part of who I am. Quakerism fits totally what I was looking for when I quit confirmation classes in eighth grade. Rather than a religion that my beliefs fit into, it’s a religion that allows my beliefs to grow and change. There are Quakers that don’t identify themselves as Christian, and there are even agnostic Quakers. They all value highly truth, honesty, and simplicity. Quakers have a special method of coming to agreement on issues called “getting a feeling of the meeting,” basically getting consensus. Importantly, they spend time to make change, not just on a let’s-have-a-food-drive-to-feed-the-starving-Ethiopians level, but also on a political level. They have always been involved in politics – Quakers played a big part in organizing the Underground Railroad, the Women’s Rights movement and the Civil Rights movement. Today, we fight for gay rights, we fight against the death penalty, we are pacifists. In the past few summers, New England Quakers have passed resolutions opposing racism, genetically modified foods, and the Patriot Act. There is a Quaker organization in Washington, called the Friends Committee on National Legislation, that lobbies for social and political change. This is how I like my religion – active and outspoken.
And meeting isn’t boring for me anymore. The hour of silence is not tedious. It’s more like a kind of deep reflection that leaves me paradoxically both calm and exhilarated. My decision to become a Quaker has been a huge deal for me, and at the same time, not a big thing at all. When I think of it now, choosing my religion was essentially defining my purpose, my existence. Yet the transition was totally natural for me, like I had found a way to express my beliefs that happened to be this religion. Like in confirmation class back in eighth grade, when they gave us that impossible task of drawing a picture of God. I ended up making a crude drawing of some light coming through the clouds. Little did I know, a year later, I would be surrounded by people who actually referred to God as the Light. And really, who could argue with a religion that condones activities like Spanking Yoda?
Liz Windover
2 March 2004
Italy
When I went to Italy, all I brought with me were some clothes, a wallet with some money and a passport, a camera, and an open mind. I packed as little clothing as I could force myself to. I brought as little money as I thought I could possibly need. And I brought as much film as I could convince myself was not excessive. However, the most important thing, the most valuable thing, was my open mind.
Mrs. Keeley, who has been my Latin teacher for four out of my five years at Greylock, was the head chaperone for this trip. On Tuesday, February tenth, two days before we left, we all had a meeting in her classroom after school. All together there were ten ninth-graders, two tenth-graders, seven juniors, and two seniors. At this meeting, we twenty- one students and the four chaperones had a last minute discussion of what to bring with us and what to expect on this trip. Mrs. Keeley told us that, above all else, the most important thing to remember for this trip was to keep an open mind. About everything. She reminded us that where we were going, America wasn’t quite as popular as it is around here. In Italy there would be different people, meaning both the Italians, and the people coming on the trip with us, many of whom we didn’t even know. In Italy there would be different food, different customs, different ways of doing things. Everything would be different from home. And there would be no way for us to ignore it.
So I brought no expectations with me to Italy. I tried to forget the stereotypes. I tried not to build up my hopes by imagining wonderful, sunny, eighty-degree weather. I tried to forget my ideas of American “Italian food.” And also, I tried to forget my feelings toward the people that were coming on this trip with me. Most of the kids were freshmen - an idea I was not too thrilled with. I really only knew six or seven of the twenty-one students that were coming. But I tried to be fair and remember that just because they’re younger than I am doesn’t mean they’re not capable of being my friends. As a result, I got to know four girls - yes, freshmen - whom I had never even spoken to before. And as a result, I can now call them friends. Not best friends, probably not even good friends, but any kind of friend is better than no friend at all.
For nine days, from Thursday, February twelfth until Friday, February twentieth, I forgot about home. Deliberately and completely. I wanted to get lost somewhere else. Anywhere else. My trip to Italy had seemed to come at exactly the right time in my life. At some point on the four hour bus ride to Kennedy airport on Thursday afternoon, I looked out the window of our coach bus at the passing winter scenes of cold, snow-covered hills and the leafless forests of trees and realized how glad I was to be leaving. How sick I was of the Berkshires, of the rolling mountains, of the Appalachian wildlife, and of the quaint New England houses and old stone walls. It was the first time in my life that I had experienced such a strong disgust for my own home town, my home state, and my home country. Strange how that worked out, that as I thought those thoughts I happened to be driving to an international airport in order to leave everything I had just decided that I hated.
Italy, on the other hand, was amazing. To be so completely immersed in another culture was something I had before never experienced. Even though most people there spoke English as well, the Italian language was everywhere. Many signs and billboards were written only in Italian. You could hear it all around you when you walked down the street. Television, though we hardly watched any, was almost all in Italian. Also, the cars there were all very small. Most were about as big as any small two-door cars here, like a Honda Civic hatchback. Throughout the whole nine days, I think I saw only one SUV - and it looked extraordinarily ridiculous and out of place. A huge number of people also rode motorcycles and mopeds, but even so, the motorcycles were small, not the giant, luxurious Harley Davidsons that you see around here. But even besides transportation, everything in Italy had a slightly different look or sound or smell or taste. The license plates were a different size; the siren on an ambulance had a different tone; the pizza, for some reason that we cannot determine, was so much better than American pizza. Everything had something slightly different, slightly foreign about it. And I liked it.
To those of you who have previously traveled out of the country - and by out of the country I mean besides Canada - you probably don’t think of this as such a big deal. But it was to me. All my life I had been thinking I would love to go traveling - especially to Italy. Then, after I started taking Latin in seventh grade and began to learn even more about it, I was even more intrigued and more eager to go. This trip was a dream come true for me.
Everything about Italy was overwhelming. In Rome, there was so much to see, all within walking distance of our hotel right downtown - the Colosseum, the ruins of the ancient Roman Forum, aqueducts, arches, the Vatican - the list goes on. It was amazing to be walking down the street and look over to see some crumbling columns and stones, ruins of some two or three-thousand year-old temple, not in a museum or with a crowd of people surrounding it, just standing right next to the road for everyone to pass by and admire. Pompeii had a similar effect on me in that all I could think was, “Wow, that’s reeeeally old. Someone touched that two thousand years ago. And I can touch it too.” The architecture in the other cities that we visited, Sorrento, Assisi, Florence, and Venice, was not quite as old as in Rome, but it was equally as amazing and majestic, as was the scenery. The beautiful cliffs around the bay of Naples in Sorrento, the green pastures and the grandeur of the basilica in Assisi, and the architecture of Florence and Venice dating back to the Renaissance and the Middle Ages - everything in Italy made me think of how pathetic the United States really is. Our oldest buildings are only three hundred years old, and they’re pretty darn ugly compared to the ones that I saw in Italy and on which I used up nine rolls of film.
At then end of our nine days overseas, most people were saying that they were ready to go home. They had liked being in Italy, but they wanted to go home, back to America. Not so with me. Not once in the nine days did I feel homesick or need to call home. Yes, I missed my family and I certainly looked forward to seeing them and telling them all about my experiences, but I really didn’t feel like I wanted to go back to the daily routine of home. I didn’t want to face what was waiting for me - a lot of work, a lot of stress, a lot of feelings that I had successfully suppressed for the last nine days. I felt like if I had had enough money with me, I wouldn’t have minded missing the plane and staying an extra few weeks.
On our return flight from Venice to Frankfurt, I had a seat close enough to the window to see the Swiss and Italian Alps speeding beneath us. The view of the afternoon sun lighting up the snow on those enormously towering peaks was breathtaking. Later, I had a seat right next to the window on our seven and a half hour journey from Frankfurt back to New York City. We took off at about five or six in the evening, Frankfurt time. After a couple of hours, I looked out the window and saw the coast of Ireland drifting away behind us as we started out over the Atlantic Ocean. Up until that return flight home, it had been hard to actually logically comprehend the fact that I was a quarter of the way around the world. I was actually in Italy. I wasn’t just in another part of the Unites States that looked different from Williamstown. It didn’t really sink in until I was leaving, until I saw the Alps and saw Ireland below me, until I saw the surreal curve of the earth on the horizon that night as we chased the sun in the west and made the sunset last for five hours.
I took Mrs. Keeley’s instructions to heart with one exception. I kept an open mind about people and about Italy itself, but I closed my mind to home. It was strange, the eleven days following January thirty-first and preceding my trip to Italy were some of the worst days of my life. But then, when I went to Italy, I left everything behind. I left the stress of school, the English paper I had to write, the Latin project I needed to start and finish, the history quiz I had to study for, the novel I had to read for English class. I left behind grudges or issues that I had with other people, with my friends, whether they were coming on the trip with me or staying at home. I left behind college worries - those countless cheesy letters that we get in the mail every day that all sound alike and all manage to make you feel guilty for not having looked at any of them yet. I left behind everything from home that I was upset or scared or angry about. Every time I would start to think about home and what had happened or what I would face when I returned, I had to tell myself to forget it. Not ignore it forever, but forget about it for now, so I could make my experience in Italy be the best it could possible be. And it worked. I forgot it all for nine days. And as a result, those nine days turned out to be some of the best nine days of my life.
Claire Briguglio
8 April 2004
Living
Once upon a time there was a girl named Claire. Claire was kind of shy, and so she didn’t really like to try knew things. Claire was also very lazy. This meant that when all the other kids were playing soccer or running after school, Claire would sit at home by herself. She was perfectly happy sitting; she didn’t get tired, or injured, or too cold, or too hot; she just sat.
But one day, Claire’s protected, uneventful life was interrupted when an energetic, overenthusiastic friend suggested that Claire should try to cross-country ski. Claire had tried to ski once before on a pair of old, wooden fish-scale skis. She had returned home as a cold and frustrated failure. No, she did not want to try to ski.
But her friend showed no sympathy; she persisted to demand that Claire join her in trying out for the ski team. Claire said no. Claire’s friend got her own sister to demand the same thing of Claire. Claire said no. And this continued until Claire surrendered and said yes. She really wasn’t brave enough to stand up to her friend and her friend’s sister. So, from this moment on, Claire saw the end of her life as she knew it and the beginning of her life as she would know it.
So, when winter came, I actually showed up to the first day of practice. I even made it through pre-season, but not without weeks of waking up with sore muscles in places I didn’t even know had muscles. And then the snow came, and I learned how to ski. Like any new, inexperienced skier, I fell a lot, and my glide was very weak and unsteady. I trembled every time I glided to each ski, but I did move forward.
Now that I was skiing, my parents bought me a pair of skis, and I learned how to wax them. And then I went to my first race. And I raced. And I came in last. But it was too late for me to quit; I was tied to the cross-country ski team and according to sixteen years of learning how to not be a quitter, I had to finish what I had started.
I did finish the season, and I finished it again and again for four more years, and will probably continue finishing it again and again until snow becomes an endangered natural phenomenon.
Ok, yes, I can admit that skiing is an obsession. Or maybe it really is an addiction. And I know I look stupid when I wear my underwear outside of my racing suit, or wear a paperbag crown to be a “paperbag princess,” or switch clothes with my teammates all day long until I’m wearing all one color. But I love it. Not to sound trite, but skiing really has changed my life. I know that there is so much else to do besides sports, but I also know that if wasn’t running or skiing, then I probably wouldn’t be doing those other things either.
Skiing as a sport has made me more athletic and probably healthier. But cross-country skiing as a team, has imparted me with successes and failures in competitions, and in my own life. Every year at our banquet, we write a note to our coaches. And every year I thank them for making the atmosphere of the team so enjoyable. We are a family.
I have learned how to be social with all types of people that I meet on my team, on other teams, and all of skiing groupies that watch every race. I have made friends because of skiing that I know I would have never grown close to if I hadn’t been part of the team. I never would have experienced any new friendships besides that of my closest friends. I do feel like skiing has changed me.
And before skiing, I now do cross-country running thanks to another enthusiastic friend, who made me join. Running is a different environment where I can meet even more people and grow with them. And, yes, we run for fun because it is fun. I can admit that running is a struggle that is often very unrewarding and painful, but only if you carry a negative attitude. When you complete a race, you are overwhelmed with a runner’s high. Like starting a puzzle and finally putting the last piece in, you can bask in the triumph of your completion. The same goes for skiing—with time and effort you are rewarded, and your improvements make you confident about your abilities.
I’m not trying to defend why sports are good, or why I run for fun, ski in subzero weather, or wear goofy outfits. I’m trying to show you how I seized an opportunity, and how it has been important to me.
Within the past few months, I have overheard numerous people say this: “live your life like you’re going to die tomorrow” or “live today like you’re going to die tomorrow.” They don’t mean that they think you should go out and party or go skydiving: the things that actually come to most people’s minds when they imagine if they were really going to die tomorrow. What everyone really means, and what I really mean, is “live today.” Take hold of the opportunities that you know you would regret not seizing, if you lost the opportunity. Like joining the cross country ski team, or trying out for the musical, or taking Russian. Even things like having a party with your AP class on a school night or competing with your friends over word-games.
Even though I’m trying to promote this idea of “living today,” I know that I’m personally not entirely living today. The start of my “living” was joining the ski team and the running team. But from there, it’s still hard to see the opportunities that I should probably be engaging myself in, especially when I’m stuck in the middle of very stressful junior year, and during my limited free time I usually want to watch TV, not think about the jobs I should be applying for or the colleges I want to visit during break. I’m not really living today, I’m probably living somewhere in February—I’m a little behind.
But every time I hear somebody say “live your life like your going to die tomorrow,” a little red buzzer goes off somewhere in the back of my mind, underneath the TV and food and sleep, and it tells me, “Yes, Claire, go out their and live!” I feel like I’m connected to the person who reminded me of this action, and I agree with them and say, “Yes, it’s true, we should live!” And, so, I do something that makes me feel like I am living, like trying new foods with my friends or going on an especially long run, but then my life today starts to go away again, and I go back to living in February.
Sometimes I feel like my life is like one of those Nike commercial. They always seem to be very gloomy and dim with someone running in the rain or playing basketball all alone, but then in the corner an emblem pops up that reads, “Just do it.”
Even as much as we want to deny the fact that the people who are assertive and go into the world ready to do things are the ones that succeed, it is true. As teenagers, we want to not care about school or jobs or choices, but the rest of the world pressures us to care. We’re supposed to do things because if we don’t do anything, then we won’t go anywhere. And we need to start doing things now. And that buzzer in the back of my brain keeps telling me to do it now. And the list of things to do now just keeps increasing.
The situations we have experienced this year have emphasized the fact that we need to start living. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m fortunate to even have opportunities, and that I should accept these opportunities because other people wont ever have the chance. But when I say this, I realize that I sound like someone’s grandmother “during the depression, I never got to do the things you kids get to do now.”
Nevertheless, your grandmother probably is right.
So, I guess I’ll begin by looking at my calendar and figuring out how to get out of February so that I can catch up with my life and continue to “live today.”
Lara Moody
AP English 11
Mr. Dils
1 April 2004 (April Fools Day!)
If Only Speeches Could Read Themselves
Mount Greylock loves sports. Actually, all of Williamstown does, whether you yourself are one of the jocks that is on the field or one of the dedicated pre and post-gaming fans; sports are everything is this little, Division III college town.
Living in such a town, it is nearly impossible to escape the fascination with athletics. Being the one and only non-athlete of my friends, I guess I feel the suffocating power of them more strongly than most. Whether you are a mocho guy who plays sports so he can body slam the other team and then slap his teammate’s asses while jumping up and down and grunting in circles, or a member of the “run for fun” elite, I just don’t see the superseding appeal to organized sports. The hours of practice and late night games just don’t seem worth the losing seasons and chronic injuries. And yet, to the majority of this class, sports are the chosen pastime both with students and teachers alike.
The other day, as I entered this very classroom, I was stunned to realize that our own English teacher, king of grammar and punctuality, was no where to be found on the day that Williams college had a game down in Virginia. Lo’ an’ behold that night I was watching the game from Brofman Hall-- the next best thing to being their in person-- and on the big screen in the center of the “Purple Fever”—for those of you that read Dil’s essay—there was Dils; while his devoted students were still stuck in Williamstown reading Moby-Dick. I was left to wonder what incredible attraction pulled Dils from his beloved classroom full of students and away from his stacks of un-graded papers to drive eight hours and watch Williams lose with .2 seconds left in the game. It was then I realized that sports in this little college town are not just a form of entertainment or healthy hobbies, they are an obsession. Actually, they are not even just an obsession; they are an addiction that causes both young and old alike to waste away hours upon hours of days upon days fixating over these endless competitions.
To me, it seems silly that students can’t find time to do their homework or get a full night’s sleep and yet they still have time to obsess over there new pair of 2004 gel Kiambas—for you non-running fanatics, they are the new top of the line running shoes that one of our friends has just purchased. Meanwhile entire Saturdays are wasted away at the mall trying on every single pair of cleats they offer so as to find the 100% leather, side-lace, strategically placed, multi colored, high-tech molding devices that will maximize your dribbling and passing skills. It is extraordinary how much time can be wasted on the footwear of sports alone.
It’s not only the games and accessories that people love; it is also the entire allure around them. On a typical school day, as you walk into Mount Greylock, you will be confronted with the hideously dressed Mounties parading the halls with the infamous clash day, thug day, and “wear your underwear outside of your clothes” day; school spirit mostly just becomes an excuse for students to wear the clothes that are usually crammed to the back of their closet. Once again, it is not only the athletes that participate in the spirit rising; for especially big games, adoring fans can be seen sashaying down the hallways with faces painted and super hero capes intact in anticipation of the night’s game, or even better, maybe a “soda” party to lift their spirits.
Even out of season, the jocks are evident as they strut their stuff in the unchanged 60s style Greylock jackets, covered with felt patches and bars and maybe even a “CT” captain enigma embroidered on the front. Or, if you have trouble remembering you are a Mountie, just look at the girl’s soccer team with “MOUNTIE” scrolling across the hind-side of their matching black sweatpants for everyone to admire. They really look like a serious soccer team.
As for me, I am clearly not the sporty type. Minus a fluke season of track and a failed attempt at elementary school basketball, the only sport I ever really played was soccer. For those of you that followed youth center soccer, I was on the green team. I absolutely hated it, but I must say, we played some competitive soccer, with strategies such as Jessica’s stink defense, where she would warn the other team that she had gas and she would fart on them if they came near. It was obvious we were a team of winners. But not even the beloved game of soccer stuck with me. It wasn’t my mature teammates that turned me off of a soccer career, it was the league itself. Since in the Village Beautiful everyone gets a fair shot, we played with rotating positions, which inevitably meant that for a dreaded three minutes every game I was the goalie. Now goalie is a horrible position. You can never do well at goalie; you either fail miserably and let the other team score, or you have to constantly throw your body in front of dirt covered cannon balls. Of course, being the sissy fourth grader I was, I never attempted to block a single shot and I finished off my entire soccer experience in one season without scoring a single goal but undoubtedly costing my team many.
Overall, it’s not that I think sports are bad, just over emphasized. People are idolized for running in circles and jumping on top of each other instead of for actual achievements that have an affect in real life. It seems that the night’s game becomes more important than the day that precedes it, and the athletes become the school celebrities simply for being able to dribble a ball. I mean if sports are really so important maybe we should just put it in Greylock’s mission statement, that way Piechota could recite “to achieve athletic excellence” every time he spoke instead of about academics. The entire façade that sports are made into a Greylock forces me to wonder what has our school come to when the fans leave school before the players to see a game and the teachers don’t even show up to school when another educational institution has an event.
Rachel Finan
March 9, 2004
Belize
In Belize, there’s no such thing as traffic jams, rush hour, or even stop lights. There’s no endless honking or searching for hours for a parking spot. In fact, there’s hardly even any traffic at all. The few cars that are present on the island, are old ramshackle hippie vans that serve as taxis. They usually have multiple rust spots, a tire strapped to the top, and very few seat belts. And, you could almost guarantee, that there was a driver without a license. But fortunately, that doesn’t end up mattering much, because the roads are all packed dirt, with enough naturally made speed bumps that it’s impossible to go more than 20 miles an hour anyways.
Most people, though, rarely ever take taxis. Instead, they ride their old school bikes around, and if they can manage to afford them, they use beat up golf carts to clamber up and down the island.
However they end up getting to them, their typical jobs are about as different from ours as their typical roads are. About 50% own restaurants ...almost all of which have sand floors and a combination of shells, empty beer bottles and sports illustrated swim suit models lining the walls. Another large percentage own small shops in the middle of town, or make wood carvings and jewelry that they try to rope people into buying, by telling them how sexy they look.
Since Belize is right on the Gulf of Mexico, there are also a large number of people that make a living off the water. There’s more weathered old fisherman than you can image, and there’s a number of parasailing shops for tourists, and then there are snorkeling and diving shops. Belize is on the end of a 200 mile coral reef, the second largest one known to man, and the diving and snorkeling is supposedly the best in the world.
The most well known dive shop on the island, called The Caribe Dive Shop, is owned by a woman named Sarah. Light skinned with corkscrew blond hair, Sarah has more freckles than probably every local on the island combined. Everyday, she teaches people how to scuba dive and then takes them out to The Blue Hole, an ancient sink hole famous for diving. Or, if she doesn’t have anyone to take out, she dives with her 5 year old daughter, or just by herself. But says that she hasn’t missed a day of diving since Hurricane Keith, 3 years ago.
Sarah didn’t always love Belize so much though. In fact, she was originally born in Minnesota. But she was forced to move to Belize when she was 12, because her dad got a job with Tropicana Air, the local airport which flies mini 10 seater planes in between the islands of Belize. In Minnesota, Sarah was a 12 year old clad in black leggings and a plaid jumper, whose curly hair could be perfectly ironed down in the cold weather. But 2 thousand miles south, in Belize, she was amongst people that ate almost all sea food, and had to wear uniforms to school.
So of course, having grown up with the Mall of America and McDonalds, Sarah hated Belize. She barely spoke Spanish, and although Belize is legally an English speaking country, virtually the only time they use English is at school, when their teachers make them, or if they’re trying to sell to tourists.
As she grew up though, Sarah became fluent in Spanish, learned to love the ocean life, and most of all, the deep sea diving. And, when she was given the opportunity to go back to the States, she turned it down, opting instead to remain in Belize. Shortly after her twenty second birthday, she got married to a native man, started a family and opened the dive shop which now stands as the most prosperous one on the island.
When Sarah told me this story, it captivated me. The idea of leaving her entire way of life to live in a 3rd world poverty stricken country, baffled, yet, intrigued me. It wasn’t that she had never missed the states, I’m sure as a kid she longed for shopping malls and speeding car rides, but the impressive thing was, she had adapted and become content with what she had and in doing this became happier than most of the people I know now. What truly amazed me about Belize, was this laid back attitude that Sarah, and everyone else on the Island had. Everyone you walked by or met, was so friendly and seemed so genuinely happy and content that it was almost strange.
Guys that built houses out of mud blocks and grass roofs everyday were constantly seen laughing and joking while they worked, regardless of how hot it was or how much work they had to do. And three year old kids were entertained for hours by being chased around in circles by puppies. Neither the men nor the little kids seemed at all phased by the fact that they’d have to go home to a 20 by 20 foot government built house that night. And it wouldn’t just be two other people living in the house with them. On average, there were 7 people living in a single house. None of the houses had yards, or even any grass at all to speak of. There was just sun-baked dirt, and muck, in between the houses, all of which were only about 25 feet apart. And yet, no one seemed to let that bother them, they simply seemed to live in the moment.
No one really seemed to worry about the future either, whether it be the next year or the next week, or even the next day. There are no such things as retirement plans, or pensions, and even the thought of the future didn’t seem to cross their minds too often. Every opportunity they got, they good naturedly joked about something or the other, the 60 year old topless French lady, who somehow found herself in the middle of a snorkeling group, being the favorite topic of Sarah’s husband. Or, just as often, they reminisced about good times from the past.
One local woman, in particular, who braided hair for a living, was the best storyteller I’ve ever met. She had been born on the island and lived there her entire life. When she was a kid, she had 17 brothers and sisters, all of whom lived in the same house. For more than an hour she told me about stories from her childhood: how life used to be like before there were any tourists, or how her uncle came face to face with a full grown octopus when he jumped out of his boat for a swim.
This woman had 9 children and no husband, so she definitely had things to complain about if she had chosen to. And, if she had complained, it would have been completely justified and probably not taken negatively at all. However, even with such valid troubles in her life, she hardly focused on them, choosing instead to talk about things that made her happy or amused.
Her laid-back attitude and care-free manner, despite all the troubles in her life, made me realize that stressing over things, no matter how big or small they are, really isn’t worth it…that complaining about things you can’t change won’t make you any happier….and that being miserable in a situation that you can’t change, won’t change it any faster.
So more important than the colorful shells and the random pages of my English book that I brought back, I took from Belize an enlightened view and a new perspective on what really matters.
Henry Smith
Mr. Dils
AP English 11
04 March 2004
Camp Takodah
I am not the camp type. I hate cheesy traditions, I hate regimented schedules, and I hate not having my own space. Camp Takodah filled all of these requirements, and, by process of elimination, I should have hated it too. An all boys YMCA camp smack in the middle of shitwad New Hampshire, it sounded more or less like my idea of a crappy time, with its creepy cabins, its bland-at-best food, and its almost obsessive tradition. And yet, for the last five summers of my life I have found myself returning to Camp Takodah, consciously exposing myself to the bad food, the early bedtimes, and the mediocre games, and feeling, of all things, excitement about returning every year.
I hardly remember my first summer of camp. For the most part I hated it, just as I had planned to. I returned home with bad memories and my first “CT”, a small piece of felt each camper receives annually with the number of years they’ve been to camp glued next to the Takodah symbol. It has three sides, each of which stand for the YMCA’s “core values.” I brought it home and threw it in a trunk, never wanting to hear about Takodah or its idealistic values again.
The next summer however, Conor and Max were ready for another go, and this time Mathias and Dave were along for the ride so I figured with that kind of backup I might as well try it again. This time I walked into my cabin and looked around for my counselor but he was no where to be seen. When I asked Dave who we had, he pointed to a grinning boy sitting on the edge of a bed in the rear of the cabin. He looked to be about fourteen, and for the next two weeks little was done to convince me otherwise. Casey was about five foot five, hyper, slightly arrogant, and an Abercrombie and Fitch addict, a sharp contrast to the apparent brooding, nipple-piercing, and drug-abusing tendencies of Caleb, Casey’s counseling partner.
They balanced each other well. Every night Caleb would provide eight 14 year-old boys with enlightening stories forewarning us of the dangers of acid (“My friend tried it once and all he can do for the rest of his life is greet people at Wal-Mart” he’d warn us). During the day, it was Casey’s incessant Beastie Boys rapping or “bare-assing” our pillows that provided cabin-wide amusement. It was these two that made camp different for me, not because I particularly enjoyed them, but because they made camp fun in the only place where no one could set boundaries or rules: they brought camp into the cabin. I could hardly deal with “moon ball” or Koosh name games, but waking up to Casey rapping Beastie Boys lyrics into my ear I could handle. At the end of that year I received my second CT, traded it with Casey’s, and fully expected to return the next summer.
It was this way for three more years, each year better than the last. I began to overlook the tedious routine of the camp schedule and focus more on the people. I still didn’t like “moon ball,” but twelve hours of foursquare with your cabin was pretty good compensation and as we grew older, everyone got closer. Slowly, kids stopped coming to camp and soon we were narrowed down to a small, devoted pack, most of whom had been coming to camp for far longer than I had. This group grew extremely close and many a night was spent making up jokes about the camp director, Willie T, whose heart was in the right place but whose head was far too big for people to take him seriously.
Together, the eight or so of us went through the upper ranks of camp and, through reading Batman comics and hosting foursquare tournaments, we became the undisputed kings of Takodah, destroying our older equivalents with our far superior level of coolness. At a camp like Takodah, it was hard to find a more interesting, cultured group of kids; from nationally ranked mountain climbers to quiet, contemplative pot heads, we became a force to be reckoned with in the small confines of our camp. True, there were a few unlikeables. Dave recently wrote a paper about Mike Langdon, a boy who calculated precisely his grimy appearance. This is true. But to the younger campers we appeared to be the ideal cabin: friendly, social, and fun loving. Naturally, when I left camp last year I said the typical “see you next year” and left.
I recently made a very difficult decision not to go back to Takodah next year. For the first time since I entered junior high, I will not see Camp Takodah, partially because a month is a long time to spend in such a small place but mostly because I’m ready for new summer adventures. Ironically, I’m now having many of the same doubts about my summer that I felt upon first arriving at camp. What will my summer be like without the one thing that has shaped almost every summer I remember? Will I be driven crazy by the monotony of Williamstown life? Will I feel overwhelmed by people, events, and social gatherings? Pinned to the shelf in my room is a trail of five CTs, four of which are mine and one that I acquired in a trade with Casey. Every once in a while I’ll catch myself looking at them and missing camp: the food, the tradition, the schedule. It seems everything that I had hated so much in the beginning has now become a staple in my summer plans. I’ll wish I was back at camp, away from the tests and papers and stress that can come with being in high school, and I’ll calm down for just a few minutes of nostalgia. I just hope I don’t find myself looking at them this summer and wishing I had gone to camp, if only to look around and visit my friends. That sounds almost as cheesy as the idea of “CTs”, doesn’t it?