A Break - Finally!

I'm home, and have been home since the 18th (after tour) and am driving back up to New Hampshire in two days. It's so strange; I can't believe I've been away from Dartmouth for 3 weeks! While I've loved being home (WITHOUT work!!) I am really excited to go back and see all my friends, and begin new (hopefully interesting) classes. The D-plan will surely introduce me to many new people, and I'm excited to meet them. My dog is whining about something, so I better go check on him.

Enjoy the rest of your breaks, and happy New Year's Eve!!

Touring in DC and Baltimore

Many of the a cappella groups at Dartmouth do some sort of touring during winter break. This year, the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics went to Washington DC and Baltimore for a week. Other groups traveled around the east coast, with one even going to London! Every year groups change the locations of their tours, so hopefully I'll soon be able to travel even further across the country or (keeping my fingers crossed) internationally! Dodec tours in the past couple of years have been to New York City, Austin, Chicago, Florida, and other areas of the country.

So after trudging through finals and finally finishing up all my work, I was able to relax (somewhat) as I prepared for tour! Of course, we had rehearsal every day before (and during) tour. We left a day after the actual term had ended (so nobody was around- it was so strange being at a deserted school) and took the Dartmouth Coach to Logan Airport in Boston. From there we flew down to Baltimore (though we started in DC) and eventually transferred back to Baltimore. Thanks to the generosity of two of our members in those areas we were housed by them the entire trip, allowing us the comforts of a real home instead of hotel rooms or a rented place.

Many of our shows took place at elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as local alumni clubs. Performing for younger kids was a blast, as they never really get to experience a cappella, at least at the collegiate level. Every show the kids were really excited about us coming, and responded enthusiastically to our shows!

Additionally, meeting alumni at the Dartmouth Clubs of DC and Baltimore was also a very cool experience. With alums from '50 to '09, it was interesting to speak with them about their experiences about Dartmouth and how the school has evolved over the years since they graduated (especially for those who graduated before the school turned co-ed in 1972). Meeting a Dodec '84 was awesome, as she was one of the founding members of the Dodecaphonics! One of the funnier moments of the evening was when she remarked "Oh, you guys are cool now?" Yes, alumn, yes we are.

(Self call.)

A Cappella is A CaAwesome

Yes, that's the title of this post.

Anyway: Here at Dartmouth I am a member of the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics, Dartmouth's oldest co-ed a cappella group. Founded in 1984, this group of 12 (dodeca-) people has grown into a group of 20 that still love to make sounds/music (-phonics). Every term we have many performances ranging from shows at greek houses (fraternities and sororities) to shows on Spaulding (a big auditorium in the Hopkins Art Center - the hop- that you will know well by the end of orientation) and even shows for our president, Jim Kim. We sing a variety of music mostly in the pop/rock/r&b spectrum and perform a bunch of different songs every show.

As a co-ed group the Dodecs (commonly used nickname) has a wider range of song choices than our single-sex counterparts (all-male or all-female groups on campus). It's really cool to be able to have both guys and girls singing solos and their own background parts, and the result are songs with many different layers and sounds.

Being in an a cappella group at Dartmouth is a pretty big commitment, with rehearsals usually 3 times a week for about 2 hours each, not including extra rehearsals for shows and the shows themselves. It's a lot of hard work and requires a lot of concentration (something we sometimes struggle to achieve) in order to make sure our parts blend, we're all together, dynamics are present, etc. But the experience is well worth the work. For me, the Dodecs is like a family away from home providing support and help in any way that I, or another member, needs it. My a cappella group is very tight-knit, and I'm thankful that I've been able to take part in such an amazing group with such talented people!

If you're interested in auditioning for one of the nine a cappella groups on campus (3 all-male, 3 all-female, 3 co-ed) auditions take place at the end of orientation, right before classes start. So you have a while. But feel free to look around the website I posted at the top of this blog (see the hyperlink), listen to some of our work, and get excited about this, among many other, musical opportunities at Dartmouth!

This is Why We're Hot

In case you didn't get a chance to see the other bonfire picture I have, here's a second shot of the giant bonfire that epitomizes a freshmen's first real Dartmouth Experience (yes, with a capital E). If this is all new to you, let me explain a little about one of Dartmouth's oldest traditions:

On homecoming weekend (usually some weekend in October), many many many alumni make their way back to campus as the freshmen class gets geared up to celebrate the beginning of their Dartmouth careers. A giant wooden structure (seen to the right) is built by MEMBERS OF THE FRESHMEN CLASS (that's you, next year- hopefully!) in anticipation of the actual bonfire that takes place on the friday of homecoming weekend. The actual fire is what I'm about to get to. (For some more history and information, see this page from the Dartmouth website. It's a few years old, but the traditions haven't changed much since then.)

On the evening of that friday, the entire freshmen class gets swept up (in the Freshmen Sweep where, starting at one group of dorms, freshmen go from cluster to cluster gathering up their fellow classmates) and make their way to the center of the green where this giant wooden structure is hanging out. The rest of the school, faculty, administrators, alumni, and local families gather around in a giant circle to watch you participate in this exciting event. After a speech by the President (made without a microphone, and which no one I spoke to was aware of until after the fact) the bonfire is finally lit. Flames crawl up the 50+ tiers of wood, until a giant fire is blazing that lights up the entire green. (The fire tends to be so hot that the ring of students is immediately widened, as we try to escape the heat!)

Then, the RUNNING commences! As per tradition, students run around the giant bonfire almost as a rite of passage, and the first of many Dartmouth Experiences. While saying this may sound arbitrary, it's hard to articulate the feeling you can get from being surrounded by so many of your peers- both those that you know well, and people you've yet to even see or learn about- and taking part in your first Dartmouth act. I won't waste time trying to elaborate more on it and will let your future experience stand for itself!

Also, history calls for students to run 100+ your class year times around the bonfire, which meant for me 113 (100+ 13), and for future students 114 and 115, etc. Obviously, many choose to abstain from what are many miles of running, and instead stick to smaller numbers, like 13, that still hold significance. I am proud to say, however, that I ran all 113 laps this year about the bonfire, an experience I will not soon forget! In short, it was raining consistently throughout the night, half of my body was hot and half was freezing, I was unprepared with clothing as I had not believed I would run it all, and felt both humiliated and proud as upperclassmen continued to yell at me as I completed my 40th, 50th, 75th, 100th lap and so on.

But don't let this dissuade you! Once I finished I was in a daze- both because my body was deprived of oxygen and could barely support itself, and because I had completely surprised myself in completing all of the laps. I, and the people I ended up running with, felt both exhausted and exhilarated by what we had done. Never had I run around a giant bonfire; now I had- 113 times!

While some traditions may be seen as outdated or obsolete today, the bonfire is one that shows me how alive Dartmouth is, and how important its history and community are to its success. The number of alumni and return to campus to support the freshmen class show the strong bonds that they created with the school and the important role it played in their lives. While I'm only a freshmen- excuse me, a '13 - I'm so glad to see how active and involved the alumni are in current student's lives, and know that even after I graduate from Dartmouth (which is VERY far away, thank goodness) I'll still have a vibrant community to be a part of, and one that I will be able to be involved in for the rest of my life.

Back to School

One of the most exciting parts of coming to Dartmouth, apart from meeting a ton of great new people and realizing all of the great opportunities that are present here, are classes. While academics may be one of the furthest, or closest, things from your mind when you think of college, but when you see all of the classes that are offered it often becomes exciting to think of the possibilities of learning about something you want to learn about, rather than what school has planned out for you. A new, freer and more flexible schedule allows for less stress and, best of all, classes that don't start at 7/8 am! (The earliest class you can have is drill for languages at 7:45 am, but even that can be taken later. After that the next class is at 8:45, and the majority of classes are at 10 and after, so far later than you're probably used to in high school.)

And since we start so late (quarter system starts late September, about a month after all of your friends!) most people are somewhat eager to begin classes again! And with so many classes to take, there’s almost always something interesting to learn about. One of the best aspects I found was the ability to study areas I had never thought about before Dartmouth.

This coming term I’ll be taking a course in the Native American Studies Department titled “Native American Oral Tradition Literatures,” about the history, culture, and development in Native American society of oral texts, a medium rarely studied in contemporary western classrooms. I’m very excited to encounter this unique perspective; when else would I have studied something like this? Not to mention Dartmouth has one of the nation’s best Native American Studies departments (Fun fact: This is thanks in part to the college’s charter, which said that the college would be founded to educate natives, then referred to as “savages.” Unfortunately, the success of native education never crystallized until the late 20th century when the college finally came around and honored its promises).

So: while academics may or may not be the thing you are most excited for in coming to Dartmouth, once you get here there are plenty of opportunities to pursue your interests and “expand your horizons.” Take that as you will.


That being said, enjoy the remainder of high school and ESPECIALLY the summer. While Dartmouth is extremely fun, the mantra "work hard, play hard" is definitely in use here!