Welcome to week 8, Mirror. The combination of Homecoming weekend, the presidential election and the New York City Marathon — all of which somehow took place within the past week — have stirred up a strange cocktail of emotions within me, ranging from nostalgia to dread and everything in between. While I spent the better part of Election Day glued to the incremental shifts of The New York Times election forecast needle, I’m fairly confident that no one who reads this Editor’s Note is looking to me to provide political commentary — especially since this is the first presidential election in which I was old enough to vote.
So, despite the election continuing to exhaust most of my capacity for critical thought, I’ll leave the postmortem to the Opinion columnists. Instead, I want to dedicate this Editor’s Note to the Homecoming festivities that took place this past weekend. There’s nothing like the largest bonfire I’ve ever seen to make me forget about politics. Last Saturday, I spent the afternoon at an off-campus house for a triathlon team social event. While hordes of new freshmen on the team chattered enthusiastically and displayed seemingly boundless amounts of energy, I sat on the cushioned bench of the house’s window seat, consumed three-and-a-half cans of Diet Coke and talked almost exclusively to two of my closest friends and several of the team’s alumni who had returned for the weekend.
Invariably, all of these alums asked me how senior fall has been thus far. A few days later, I still haven’t found a cohesive answer to that question. When I envision senior year in my head, an idealized version comes to mind — frolicking through the wilderness of New Hampshire, spending all of my time deepening my friendships and acing my classes without having to work too hard. This isn’t to say that I haven’t had any fun or made meaningful memories this term, but reality has, of course, fallen far short of the ideal. I’ve spent far too many hours staring at my color-coded spreadsheet of job applications, been unbearably stressed out over midterm grades and even, memorably, dedicated an afternoon to cleaning the front entryway of my house after our driveway, porch and front door were egged.
Over and over again — before studying abroad, or starting a new internship — I’ve told myself that any given new beginning must be easier than the transition to college. Of course, I can navigate Dartmouth far more smoothly now than I did during my freshman fall. I no longer care about being the right amount of fashionably late to social events or stress myself out with the pressure to instantly make scores of new friends. But, senior fall has brought a different kind of uncertainty: where I’ll live in the years after college, what my career will look like and which friends from Dartmouth will be lifelong are all questions that feel scarily up in the air. But, in a way, Homecoming left me feeling reassured. Despite the uncertainty that may continue to plague me as Commencement draws closer, seeing the happiness on the faces of young alums reminds me that eventually, everything works itself out. Soon enough, I’ll graduate, and my “freshman year of life,” as I’ve been referring to it, will begin. This one, though, won’t involve walking a singular lap around a bonfire or figuring out how to fit all my possessions into a dorm room.
This week in Mirror, one writer spotlights a visiting ambassador currently teaching a government class. Another takes a walk down memory lane through the lens of her sorority’s composite photos. Finally, one writer talks to students and a professor about burnout and strategies for combating it.
Whether you’re feeling dejected or jubilated after the election results, there’s no denying that this week has been a long one. As finals fly toward us and the days grow ever shorter, it may seem like there’s never enough time in the day to check off every item on your to-do list. But in the midst of finding a formal outfit, making winterim plans and frantically finalizing final projects, take a few moments to read this week’s articles. See you next week.
