Here we are, at the end of Week 1! So far, I'm really excited about both of my classes:
- Critical Writing: This class offers far more freedom than most people are comfortable with, but I am pumped to take on the challenge of it. We will read articles and a few larger texts while writing on topics (mostly of our own choosing) before creating a final "project" that showcases our growth as writers. It can be about anything from food literacy to musical criticism, so we'll see what my classmates and I can come up with!
- Lit and Culture of World War I: We've only had one day of this class so far (it's a Tuesday/Thursday afternoon class), but I'm already obsessed with it. The reading list is insanely intimidating: it started as several novels and nonfiction texts, which several more paintings, songs, poems and articles were added, and the reading for just my next class included 70 pages of nonfiction, multiple poems by 5 different poets in our anthology, and 4 extra poems from a handout in class. Despite how crazy that might seem (and it is), Day 1 was absolutely incredible. Within the first 10 minutes of class, the professor had already engaged us in personal imaginings of what the war was like, probing us to dig deeper into our reasons for our thoughts, and almost the entire class was involved in the discussion. The way the professor asked questions, and then sincerely listened to and elaborated upon the answers, showed that she truly cared what we thought and that she was really listening. As we did cold-reads of some poems in class, the professor had a blank copy of the handout in front of her, and she was taking notes on what we were saying as we talked about it! Obviously we were doing the same thing, but seeing a professor write down what you said is both highly intimidating and highly encouraging because it makes you feel intelligent, important, and heard.
Aside from that, the biggest new thing is my housing. Last summer I lived in the Annex, a fairly small building next-door to the Inn, which is the main business-ish building on campus (mailboxes, offices, the dining hall and writing center are all in the Inn). In the Annex, the feel very old-dorm-y with their dark carpets and almost rustic furniture. The best part of the Annex is its porch, which is an awesome social space. The bathrooms, though, are the worst part of the Annex: your knees touch the stall door when you sit, the showers are only big enough to turn around in, and the space outside the shower in which you would get dressed is the same size as the shower itself, while also facing the next shower, so you share dressing space. If that's confusing, just know that it's really tight quarters. The Inn, on the other hand, is freaking gorgeous. Everything has recently been renovated, so the rooms have furniture that I wouldn't say is sleek, per se, but it's definitely more modern. The porch usually feels more like it's a place for passers-by than socializing, but the bathrooms are absolutely amazing. You don't realize how wonderful a bathroom can be until you've lived in the Annex. I can't even explain in words how glorious it is to be able to wash your hair without hitting your elbows on the walls of the shower. Just know that it's wonderful.
Anyway, bathroom talk aside, everything here is just as great as it was before. I've already spend what feels like 100 hours in the library (which is an accomplishment I'm strangely proud of), but I haven't just sat in the new comfy chairs there the whole time. I also explored the fancy gym down on the actual Middlebury campus, saw the "opening ceremony" of the summer, went for the inaugural Flatbread journey with a gang of 8 of us, made some new friends in the dinning hall, and went to the contra dance on Saturday night. Fun fact: I walked into the dance only having taken about 4,000 steps (it was a double-library day), and left about 3 hours later with more than 15,000. So if you're looking for a decent workout, find a way to contra dance.
The Reflection:
While traveling back up the mountain just five short days ago, I realized that absolutely nothing had changed; the scenery was exactly as I had found it a year ago, almost like Holden's view of the Museum of Natural History. (I'm sorry! I don't even like that book!) That sameness is both beautiful and tragic. These mountains are still intimidating in their stately grandeur; the sky is still an impossible shade blue; the buildings still show their classic green and gold. Last summer when I first drove to the mountaintop, I was awed by the magic of it all. (For the first-year version, click here.) It's sad not to feel that wonderment again; however, while this time wasn't a magical adventure, it was a homecoming.
Every moment of my time here just feels right. Within the first few hours of my return to campus, everything was already back to the same-old swing of things that it had been a year prior, as if we'd never left. After the initial "How was your school year?" and "How've you been?" chatter, we all dove back head-first into the normalcy of what friendship means at Bread Loaf: knowing people who are all just as obsessed as you are about the same things that you are...and they're also just awesome people in general. I love having this sense of community so immediately instilled, even with the first-years I've met. The reason for the human-magic of this place, I think, is because it's not just about our literary obsessions, though; it's because of our obsession with doing all that we can to make the world a better place. Our jobs as English teachers (publishers, writers, librarians, etc.) are not simply to force the books down people's throats. Instead, our jobs are to instill empathy, to promote justice, to challenge norms, to require contemplation, to engage humanity, and to bring passion to all that we do. That's a high bar for a pretty "normal-seeming" job, but that's the bar we set for ourselves here. We are not the types to be satisfied with letting the world pass us by unchanged; we are the types to get our hands dirty (in the ink that we read and write with, and in the conflicts that arise in conversations) in order to, as Ignatius would say, "go out and set the world on fire." With only two days of classes under our belts, I already know that we are ready to take on this beast of a challenge this summer to do all that is in our power to make this world a better place, starting in our classrooms, and Bread Loaf is the perfect place to do that. As our faculty-celebrity, Oskar Eustis, said at the welcome ceremony, "This place is destabilizing. It's in the world, but not quite of the world. It's a great place to get lost, to slowly put yourself back together so you can go out into the world and bring change to others." And that's exactly what we intend to do.
