best of a bad situation...wonki to the rescue

it started out bad cuz i drove home this evening and kind of smushed the curb turning off the highway by my house and BANG goes muh tire (not fun) so i was bummin bout that and then thought life would be simpler if we didnt need expensive cars to get to our jobs to make money for the damn cars and things would be better if we didn't have these vicious cycles and instead all lived in the woods with our friends and BAM chewonki hits me (like my car hit the curb) and i missed it. but then later my dad finally taught me how to change a tire and we were lying in the snow/ice in this mini-garden park where we fixed it and it was like work programs all over again cause i was accomplishing something real and my hands were covered in grease and it was cold but i was wearing LJs and so it was all fine and the total of 5 visible stars in the city were out and the feeling reminded me so much of what i had gained at chewonki so i just felt straight up happy and wished i could return the love. so i blogged bout it.

Okay, so I miss you guys all so much. I really hope you're doing all right at home. I had to go to school this past Monday so this week was my first day back. It was a little bit painful because there was at least one thing per day that reminded me of all of you guys! So here it all is.

Monday: I was watching the news that morning when I woke up and they were talking about football. I was soon after reminded about how the super bowl this year is number 45, XLV (I know this was already mentioned, but it still made me think of all of you). I got to school early because my car is broken (different depressing story) and my mom had to give me a ride. I was sitting in the front lobby at school and this short bus pulls up, but it wasn't green! How dare it have the audacity to be yellow? Geez. So, I'm sitting there all frustrated and I shove my hands in my pockets. I feel around and then I grasp it's contents. It was a Gelato Fiasco spoon from our last Advisor dinner. Mind you, it's only 7:30 in the morning so this day was going down hill fast.

Tuesday: I woke up and decided I was going to wear my Semester School sweatshirt, so I threw it on. Later that day I had history with Mrs. Duffy (yeahh! Eric Duffy's wife). She had a Wilderness Medical Associates sticker on her water bottle. At this point I proudly announced that I was WFA certified.

Wednesday: Libby came to do a presentation for the sophomore class at my school. Not only were there extremely embarrassing photos of me, but also the kids in the grade below me were talking through what she had to say. I was so angry. In the end there were only 4 kids that stayed after the presentation to talk to her. I was disgusted.

Thursday: I was sitting in chemistry and the walls are covered with posters about lab safety and out-of-date El Nino charts. This huge poster of a fish caught my eye and I realized it was the same one that Meghan McNierney hung up on the ceiling above her bed in Orchard House! Also, Ruth, Annika, Adam, and Megan came to watch my basketball game and I got to talk to them for a little while after! It totally made my day.

Friday: Today I woke up and stayed in sweat pants and a t-shirt. I went to school like this. Sound familiar anyone?

Well that was my first week back, and I hope that everyone else that had to go back this week coped with everything all right. It's currently like 7 degrees here with lots of snow. Oh yeah, heat wave. Love and miss you all.

Carolyn

OMG, BED?!

also the word bed looks like a bed!

hope everyone's weeks are going well. miss you guys a lot

OMG, LOL?!

have you guys ever realized that "lol" looks like a drowning man?

......betcha he's not laughing out loud.

ps noah just burst my bubble and sent me a link where i am not the only person who has realized this........i hate my life

Hankering for some loving, and something that was meant to be.

I miss you guys so much, and in a way, I hate saying this. I hate it because that's all each and everyone of us say. But what does it even mean? It's not personal. At all. And saying it, well it won't change anything. I am hankering for some 45 more than ever. Reading all of these posts are just so amazing. Again, Eloise with the most amazing pieces ever, DIG IT! With all of these updates, I want to update you guys! As each day passes, it gets more and more intolerable to walk down my schools prisonlike hallways. My school was built in 1958, and well, it needs work. It actually looks like a prison. Ask Anna, she loved it as we rolled in playing "We r who we r." I love being back in the sense that I get to see each and everyone of my friends, but something about it makes me miss you guys all that much more. The constant "Hi Nick!" down the halls are always the greatest. I always get a glimmer of hope that it will be one of you, who have completely changed the meaning of hi into; I know everything about you and I love you for it. And each time it is said, its not you guys, and I miss all the things, big and small about each and everyone of you. I miss the constant genuine nature of the semester. Being home in Concord, full of snobs and stuck up people is just so fake, and really hard to deal with; polar opposites. I feel myself slipping back into some of my old ways. My friends haven't changed and I'm having trouble finding the boarder between being funny, and genuine. I think that being forced to school just to dive has made the transition that much harder. To do an extracurricular activity, you have to be fully enrolled, and I am currently taking four classes, jumping into them 3/4 of the way over. Stupid, I know. I still have to take my math and Spanish midterms, and yes, they count! Being forced into a place that I hate, for reasons in which I don't think I have to be there, has made me dread it that much more. Way to go CC! Each and everything that I have done back at home pertaining to school has caused so much stress. I haven't been allowed to take the classes I want to. Supposedly, its against the law for my school to hold spots in classes for me. Because of this, I always get the last choice classes; the boring, utterly mind-draining classes. What's that mean? School sucks even more! And because classes couldn't be saved for me, Maggie, Francesca and I currently don't have a second semester science class. I'm not allowed to take advanced math classes because Mr. Beckwith, the department head said "Chewonki's math program is not near as advanced as ours." I feel like each and every teacher and administrator takes down to me about Chewonki, and I can't really stand up for it, because it's nothing they will ever understand. I overheard Mrs. Goldrick, Francesca's guidance counselor outside of the guidance department, she was bitching to the administrator about how Francesca doesn't want to come back just for 3 weeks before second semester. She stated that she has "never had anyone come back ahead in any of their classes," again, talking down the Chewonki experience. She thought it would be ok to continue on saying "I don't think we should offer programs like these." I was PISSED. Who was she to say that? Anyhoo, the academic transition sucks, nonetheless.

Yesterday Fran and I drove into Boston to pick up Anna who took a bus from NYC. The day was so great. It involved taking the Red Line into Harvard Square because she wanted to see what Harvard and Boston looked like in comparison to New York City. We stopped off a Dudo to get the famous "bubble tea" that Fran and Anna were having an orgasm about, yeah, well it was the worst thing I've ever tasted. We decided to just wonder around, with no particular place to go, and walking down the other way was another XLVER! Anna casually shouts "theres Laura." I FREAKED OUT, ran up to her, and she had to do a double take, hugging all of us. She was accompanied by her French exchange student, so cool! We went to "the coop" and browsed for books, not really. Anna and I really had to pee and we went upstairs the hogwartseque bookstore and looked at the huge ass line. We both looked at each other and decided to leave. I suffer from stagefright and couldn't go knowing that there was a line of people outside waiting for me to finish, so I just decided to eliminate all of those possibilities. We then proceeded to drive back to Fran's house just in time to walk up the pass, stare in the window, watching Francesca's mom jamming out, dancing like us at our raves, to her favorite song. LOVE SUSAN! We hung out for a little while as I watched Anna and Fran pamper themselves for the night out at Paparazzi's! We went there... our meal sucked! Fran and I's salad was like soup - drenched with salad dressing, sweet! During dinner, I don't even know how this came about, but I exclaimed "I touch myself"just as the waiter was walking by, classy! Proceeding dinner was the CC hockey game, and then my house. From there on out, Anna and Fran left to party it up. I didn't go cause I had stayed up till 4:40 the morning before. I was dead. They stayed out to three and did some crazayy shit! Ooo, Wyatt Bramhall, Anna! This morning I was awaken by a phone call to meet Fran and Anna for breakfast at DD before we dropped Anna back off in Boston. But of course, before I left I had to shower, which made me a tad late! OOP OOP! Breakfast was where I heard bout all this crazy stuff. Driving into Boston felt like the 18th all over again saying goodbye to Anna, it was the worst. I miss her so much already. I miss all of you guys so much.

Hope all is well. Look for another post from me later this week.

Love and Miss you all to the moon and back,

Nick

strange moment

As some may recall, on the EI trip and at other points during the semester there was a lot of discussion of human recognition and memory. for example, there is a theory that you can only remember 150 people at a time before your brain starts replacing them with others you meet. Discussing this at Vinylhaven prompted furious journaling and listing for verification. Also beyond Vinylhaven I remember conversations about how when you meet someone you automatically place them against people they remind you of. this can mean you treat them differently, favorably or unfavorably, based on your previous encounters.
well, xlv, you must really have gotten into my brain because not once, but TWICE have a seen people at school who i thought were somewhat familiar. they i realized, wait, i know why! they have the same voice/clumsiness as Noah! or, the same announcement/tide presentation voice as corey! (while making the step team announcement, oddly enough) ...i hope thats not creepy. the weirdest part is that these were people i knew before chewonki. one even, since 5th grade. with each faux-chewonki person i was never really close to but still had at least cursory interactions with, but i guess they were simply replace-able.
i just thought it was interesting that you guys (and i mean collectively, because im sure it'll happen more) are now the most familiar references for my brain. strange, but nice. it made my day.
hows that for taking chewonki with you!

First Pilgrimage

            The familiar sites of Brunswick greet me as Ben Semmes, Laura and I pull into a parking spot downtown. We cross the street, Ben asks if we think it’s ok to use Tararra Deane-Krantz’s account, Laura laughs and shakes her head.

         “You know I never paid J-Chan back,” I say remorsefully.

         “When I paid him, Ben says ‘he told me he knew I’d be the only one, but that was okay.”

        Classic J-Chan. As we head into Gelato Fiasco, we’re greeted by the Marjo’s sister’s art work, and the familiar smells of good coffee and smooth, creamy gelato.

         We each decide to get the same three flavors in a small dish; vanilla bourbon (for you Ben, Abby and Katie, and sort of Aidan), espresso chip (for all you coffee-loving New-Yorkers, + Lee), and nocciola, the classic gelato flavor (for Adam, the I-talian). We sit and zealously scoop the pilled-high trifecta of brilliance with little red shovels into our mouth. After scraping the little clear dishes clean, we head back to Ben’s car.

Driving down route one, as we pass each familiar sight my stomach churns with anticipation, the roadhouse, the shelter institute, finally norms and the turn. With each curve on chewonki neck road, we’re brought closer, and our excitement grows. Finally we reach the sign, and hop out for a picture, only to realize we’ve left our cameras at home, but we taken pictures with Ben’s cell anyway.

At last, as we pull into the empty pack-out lot, we’re home.

           Campus is snow laden, beautiful, and lifeless. The place is utterly empty, barely a single foot print in the two feet of snow, more ski tracks then prints. We hurry excitedly down the road to spruce lodge, not hearing a sound, and head to its door. After a knock and a moments pause, we’re greeted by a hugely bearded Peter Sniffen, garbed in red ants pants and the dirty white hoody he always wears, smelling of chainsaw bar-oil, and with a smile that lit up the room. After exchanging hugs we head to his kitchen where he puts on a kettle and brings out his selection of about a dozen loose leaf teas, each in there own different jar, labeled in neat Sniffen hand writing. We sit, drink, talk, and laugh. The happiest I’ve been since leaving you 45. Already the light is fading, a brilliant orange has descended upon the pristine snow, and regretfully we must leave peter and head to the farm and north pasture to see Megan. Walking to pack out, we first stop in the farmhouse so I can get my geranium and leave a note on Bill’s desk. Just as we pass Hoyts, Laura offers up the idea that we go inside. After leaving notes al over Adam’s d-g cologne, Rutherford’s neat clothes, and Anika’s prayer flags, not to mention the almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels, we head up the path to the farm.

      The snow between the wall and the farm barn had not been touched; it was a sheer, soft blanket that ran undisturbed throughout pasture and over resting bed. Just as we are about to begin trudging, we see a tiny figure exit the barn, and, realizing this person to be Jeremy, we yell exuberantly and sprint through the snow, not caring as it enters our sneakers, to the barn.

       The sweet, soft smell of hay, and the bassy baas of Michael and Jackson greets us. Jeremy is ecstatic, and his beard is magnificent, after talking with him for a while and letting Clementine (who has grown so much) lick us we continue on to north pasture.

Megan’s twinkly eyes welcome us in to her warm, woodstove-heated home filled with canned goods. We meet shy 42 alum who has come for a visit and is making strawberry rhubarb tarts with Megan.

         “I want an update on each of your lives from vacation until now”, Megan says in a demanding yet deeply caring tone. After this from each of us, we chat and chat, all the while the orange sun fades behind us into the white marsh, its red and eventually purple rays piercing across the fields. Before we know it dark has reached, and we must sadly say goodbye. We head down the road to hill top, to visit Abby, who arrived only moments after we did, and Marjo, the two remaining people on the neck we hadn’t seen.

           We enter another old, warm house, decorated with plants and worldly things, with Marjo’s soft zydeco music playing in the background. Again we sit and talk, and it is so good to be back, to hear comforting voices that care, and after another astonishing two hours fly by, the utter blackness of out side tell us we must go. Just as we’re putting on our hats and gloves, Megan and the 42er show up, tarts in hand, offering them to us. We chomp on these delicious morsels, hug, and say goodbye. We go to Peter’s house for a finally firm hug then head to Ben’s car, to drive off. In Portland we have dinner at Ben’s house with Sarah Hemphill, hang out a bit with Ben and my friend Mary, and then return to our houses.

          Now, XLV, I was great to be back. But returning home I was faced again with the cold reality that it’s over. And while it was fantastic to visit, the cold January air of chewonki was filled with hollowness without you guys. It’s easy to wallow in this truth, it can consume you. There’s something else I’d like to attempt to glean from this experience, something I tell myself most days, that so much blossoms from the end, new relationships, fun reunions, nice chats with teachers, even new things at your schools you dread going to each day. Use your experience to better others, hug more, laugh more, live more, guard Eloise’s flame carefully within, and you will be happy.

-ns

HELLOOOOOO CHEWONKIIIIII

I just woke up from a nap so excuse me if this post is strangely worded or unreadable. But let me tell you about my life in Atlanta.

My transition back was certainly an adjustment, but in all honesty it went a lot better than expected. Surprisingly, the first few days were the easiest because Katie and Abby and I got a lot of attention - everyone seemed really surprised/excited/happy to see us, and that made the first couple of days pretty easy, at least for me (I know Katie and Abby felt COMPLETELY differently).

But as the first week went on, everyone's excitement began to die and I slowly began to realize that I was home for good, and that was a little hard. The worst part of my day was walking into the cafeteria and seeing a few things that bothered me.

1. The teachers and students sat at separate tables
2. You weren't exactly "welcome" at any table you might like to sit down at. Cliques were in full swing.
3. The meat was not from a nice little cow named Gus, or a chicken that lived no more than half a mile away. God knows what grey jiggly mass that ravioli had inside it.
4. There were no mail slots to look into in anticipation on the way in.
5. There was no dessert after lunch. Not even grapes.

Comedic value aside, there were definitely times in that first ten days or so where I felt very alone. I wouldn't say that I was depressed or having extreme Chewonki withdrawal; it was more like little flashes of nostalgia hitting me at random points throughout the day. These little flashes definitely haven't gone away, but now I'm more able to see them as happy, fond memories, and not reasons to feel sad or upset.

-Side note: my weather extension for Firefox is telling me it's -1 degrees in Wiscasset. Carolyn, I hope you are alive. -

The second week of school was kicked off with Snowpocalypse '11 here in Atlanta, where we got a whopping 4 inches of snow last Sunday night. I know a lot of you northerners are laughing, but it was the most snow I've ever seen here. Atlanta can't even handle an inch of snow, so four inches was enough to shut down the entire city for a week. I literally didn't have school a single day last week, which was nice, but I got mad cabin (hey, we lived in those!) fever by the end. Sledding down an icy asphalt street gets old after a while. But the week served as a nice interim in my adjustment to life back at home - with the cold weather and the snow on the ground, suddenly things didn't feel so different from Maine! Plus having time off just to sleep/read/watch obsene amounts of Modern Family was nice.

Last Friday was the day I was looking forward to all of last week, as the one and only Lee Barker was coming to visit me. Katie and I met him at the airport on Friday night and

attacked him as he emerged from the bowels of the Atlanta airport into the baggage claim area. And my mom was there to document it all!

We had a great weekend. I took him around Atlanta on Saturday to experience his first real day in the South. We went to the World of Coke, where we did shots of 60 different Coke products from around the world (little note: sodas from Africa taste like actual pee.) and called the tour guide out on all his "Coke is a green company" bullshit. It was nice. After that we ate lunch with Abby and then went to the hippest neighborhood in Atlanta: Little Five Points. Any of you who visit will definitely be taken there. It's the former cocaine capital of Atlanta until the cops drove those people out so now it's a really cool artsy community with tons of street performers with dreadlocks and thrift stores. To give you an idea of how cool the people there are, we ran into 2 Chewonki alumni from Westminster in one of the stores! We bought a bunch of incense (which we burned later that night to my parent's dismay) of all different varieties: Morning Garden, Misty Mountain, and Coconut were among the many flavors.

After that we played the right-left game where Lee shouted out a random direction to turn at each intersection. We ended up in a nice part of Atlanta I'd never seen before. Who knew there was so much left to explore?! (that should be read in a really cheesy voice).

Later that night we played some guitar, watched some Modern Family, and chatrouletted with random people. The people were your standard chat roulette fare - you know, penises, creepy eastern European men, awkward tweens, college kids, and JUSTIN BIEBER. That's right. I kid you not. Let it be known that for a glorious 14 seconds, Lee and I talked to the one and only Justin Bieber. And we know it was real because he nodded and talked and responded to our questions so it couldn't have been a recording. I, of course, ruined it by asking "... so do you like being famous?", which he responded to by moving on to the next person. Whatever.

The next day Lee and I went to my lake house in northern Georgia, which I hadn't been to since early August. We picked up some fried chicken for dinner at a local southern diner (Lee was delighted) on our way, and rolled into the dock area around 3 or so. Our lake house is actually pretty cool in that you can only get to it by boat, so we loaded up our stuff onto the boat, only to realize that the battery was dead. What were we to do?! Southern hospitality saved the day, and our neighbor gave us a ride across the lake.

We had a great time up there. It was beautiful - it was the first time I'd seen snow on the ground - and we canoed, walked in the woods, and completed a quasi-work program by hauling firewood to our porch. We had a thought-provoking intellectual discussion about the sad state of the environment at dinner with my mom, and then sat by the fire and read/watched tv/talked some more. Once my mom fell asleep we had a little more fun by playing Battleship with a little twist... I'll let you guys figure out what it was.

And now we're here today. We dropped Lee off at the airport a few hours ago, after I took him to a super greasy but awesome drive-in restaurant and gave him a tour of Westminster. It was really sad to see him go, but at the same time reassuring. I'm sure all of you guys who have seen each other post-semester have felt this too: it's really comforting to know that everyone in our semester is real and actually exists outside of Chewonki! We had a really great time and I can't wait to see all of you sometime soon.

Lots of bisous.

Ben

"The most fun you can have with your clothes on!"

“The most fun you can have with your clothes on!” is the phrase proudly displayed on the posterboard for CDNY, New York’s East Village Contra organization. Rachel, Lily, Hillia and I ran down the stairs, inhaling the chlorine smells of the YMCA. We had just had a delicious dinner of soup and sandwiches, choosing to sit outside of the restaurant rather than wait for seats inside. When our waitress looked at us like we were insane, I responded, “We’re pretending to be in Maine!”. She didn’t get it, and neither did the lady giving us the stink eye through the glass. Well, we didn’t stay there long. Forty-five minutes later we were skipping across the wet streets at high speed. Even though I had freshly duct-taped the holes in my shoes that day, I could feel the puddles from the thawed snow last Wednesday reducing the cardboard in the soles to a soggy mess. Dig it! (Earlier Rachel and I had agreed to start saying “dig it!” to things that were ‘Wonky’ or were otherwise deserving of an optimistic perspective). Wrought iron fire escapes? Dig it. Taxicabs powered by gnomes?*

Dig it.

So we stumbled our way up and down a series of stairs to get to the gymnasium where the contra dance was taking place. We paid our way in, and watched the first dance from the bleachers, feeling like contra wallflowers. It seemed incredibly complicated, and everybody knew what they were doing. What had we gotten ourselves into? An elderly woman in the spirit of Granny Clampett stuck her tongue out at us and whirled away in the arms of her partner, a rather dashing young man wearing a beautifully embroidered shirt. All right. It was on. After the band finished the first number I was asked to join a four by a lovely man named Artie, and quickly got the hang of it. He showed me the best way to swing and promenade, and soon I was grinning and clapping and feeling completely dizzy and disoriented. Dig it! Judging by what my friend Lynn the Librarian had said, I was expecting there to only be old/middle-aged folks there, but there was a wide range of ages and sexes. I was told that I was having too much fun by a bearded man wearing a long, sequined skirt, who led me through a Ladies Chain back to Artie. A man who seemed to be at least seven feet tall clumsily tried to swing me, and I repeatedly lost my footing trying to reach up to his shoulder. After the dance, I shook Artie’s hand enthusiastically and, wiping the sweat from the back of my neck, found the others to go drink some water. My next dance was with a Middlebury student; she led me chivalrously from one end of the line to the other, her arms always where I turned to find them. I caught a glimpse of Rachel do-si-do-ing intently with a really cute old man. The dance ended and we had a brief water/snack break, where Rachel and I realized that replacing the word ‘blood’ with ‘life force’ makes it sound so much more intense. For example, Noah somehow manages to lose a lot of life force whenever he is around an exacto knife. You can catch some pretty awful diseases from somebody else’s life force. A nearby college student overheard us and joined in, creatively adding, “I often donate life force”.

After this exchange, a gentleman named Mark taught me how to waltz, and I told him all about Chewonki. We talked for a bit about high school and working in a business (respectively), and about environmental education and farm work and living in the city. And then the dance was over, and all of a sudden it was 10:00. I said my goodbyes, and we left. My life force cooled down once we got outside, and we walked to a nearby coffee shop for some hot chocolate and cider before going home. Dig it!

¹ Gnomeo and Juliet, anybody? In theaters February 2011. Yeah Gillies!

from the science exam

i just found my group's cheer from the final field exam - brings back so many memories!

"Sumac growing by an open field
Rosa carolina's pasture rose
i can id my trees any time anywhere..
eastern hemlock, white pine.

They know that Peter's on his way
he's loaded lots of gorp and frito lays
and every semester student is going to spy
to see if ammanita really can fly.

So I'm offering this simple phrase
to semester 46...
although its been said many times many ways
merry learning to you!"

so much love,

lily

p.s .instead of doing any homework tonight i spent most of my night thinking about chewonki and reading all of these amazing and thoughtful blog posts and i miss all of you more than ever!

Don't yuck my yum.

I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone who went back to school on Monday when I say this has been a rough week. If not, kudos, because this has probably been the strangest, most discombobulating, most difficult week of my life. I was surviving pretty well, though, until Friday. I woke up and knew it wasn't going to be pretty. My first class was Junior Seminar, where we talked about college applications. fun. After that I had a math class full of calculators and devoid of any interesting ideas or revelations. Then I had a meeting with Mia Ritter, semester 43 alum. It was awesome talking to someone about Chewonki and about the transition, but it wound up just making me sad.

After history and english class, I went down to the cafeteria for lunch. By this time, I was not in the best mood, to say the least. I found myself at the same table as a girl who went to the Mountain School. We talked about the similarities and differences between the two. First we talked about classes. Apparently, they have a class there called Environmental Science, which is similar to P. Sniff's class except with wayyy fewer field trips and altogether lamer. (i might be kinda biased...) She said it bored her to death and she hated having to memorize all the tree species. I was starting to get annoyed, but I tried not to show it as I told her that I had loved identifying species. The conversation turned to living arrangements. At the Mountain School, they live in dorms, not cabins, so they have their own rooms. I told her about our cabins and how great they were and how much I missed Ranch House. And she was all,

"Wait, so you all live in one room with a bathroom attached?"

"No bathroom. Three cabins share a bathroom."

"But you all live in the same room? You don't have any personal space? I would hate that. How do you live like that?"

End. Of. Conversation. I went to the library, sat in a comfy chair by myself and listened to the Avett Brothers while pretending to read King Lear. I had sat in this chair a million times before, but I never realized until then that the books in front of it were about plants! So I put King Lear away and instead picked up an Eastern Trees Field Guide. So, as I listened to Paranoia, I read the descriptions of Yellow Birch, and White Pine, and Balsam Fir, and wished I could still go outside and see them, but wished I could see all of you more.

I miss you all!

Love,

Rachel (Shelley, the Taoster)

P.S. I got a skype! rachel.oat. I don't really get how it works yet...but yeah!

Dear XLV...

In the first week after December 18th, I found myself faced with everything from an actual work ethic to obscene consumerism to bad puns and the blank walls of adolescent melancholia. This is the memory of my winter break, along with long hours spent reading (that would have been lovely, had I not been trying to escape my family) and some delightfully cliche moments of gazing out to sea wistfully. I was interrupted from my reverie on numerous occasions, often by my sister flatly reminding me of my next challenge: taking on the second half of Junior Year at Spence.

Once I escaped from enforced family time during the second week, I spent all of my time with Rachel and Jake, often joined by Corey, Lily, Lydia and Anna, and Laura, and Leila, and Hannah visited us as well. That first Sunday that people started to trickle back into the city was coupled with incredible relief. I remember walking to the bus stop to meet Rachel, and, upon seeing her trademark hiking books protrude from underneath the kiosk wall, running as fast as I could to hug her. The relief was, I think, nearly as immense and cathartic as the soothing feeling I felt the minute I walked into the Wallace Center after Thanksgiving Break and was swooped into somebody's (I don't remember who's, but I think the fact that it doesn't matter is important) arms. And when Jake sleepily arrived, I swear Rachel screamed higher than Christine's aria in the Phantom of the Opera. To make a long story short, we went on a yarn run, bought a pie, found Laura in the blizzard, and listened to Jake's mom argue with him about how chocolatey hot chocolate should be.

But then it was time for the thing they call Junior Year. So I did it, I went to school, I picked up my schedule, I went to my classes, I sat at the same table with my same friends, I was in the same rooms and everything was different but, unbearably, it seemed like nothing had changed. And I muddled along, trying to catch up in my classes (Math and Biology seemed easy enough, but Mod Euro was a disaster), and trying to catch up socially to people that I realized were years behind me in some cases, and seemed years ahead in others.

At Chewonki, for the first time, I was with teenagers who accepted me as a fellow teenager. My age has always been important to me; I've never really felt like I could relate to my peers, but I knew that I should, so I always tried to remind myself and the people around me of what being sixteen (or fifteen) meant. But at Chewonki, I didn't really need to do that, because I could talk to all of you with more ease and comfort than I had ever felt before. Age didn't even matter because people looked past even the line between student and teacher; everybody learned from each other and acknowledged that behind the years we label ourselves by, lie a world of experiences, varying greatly in type and amount. But at my sending school that wasn't the case anymore. I had even less in common with the other students.

Alright, well since then I've gotten over myself a little bit and have been a lot more forgiving towards the others. After all, they didn't go to Chewonki, and who knows what I can learn from them in these next few months. So I kept going throughout my day and finally made it to the first rehearsal of the musical I told you all about. I introduced my brother to all of my "adult friends", and he quickly befriended them with his typical charm. There are a lot of people in the show and I'm excited to spend more time with all of them. Tuesday passed, in which I had a three-hour choir rehearsal after school (We're learning 'Heartbeats' and also 'The Beautiful People' by Marilyn Manson for the Dance Concert. It's eerie) which seemed to go by quickly. And Wednesday made everything better because Libby came to school to talk to the sophomores about Chewonki.

I swear guys it was like BLAM spotlight on me and 25m away BLAM spotlight on Libby. I dramatically turn my head to notice her, and she waves enthusiastically. Cue the violins swooping from a classical build to a folky, twangy key change, the spotlights move as she comes down the stairs and I run across the lobby for one of the best hugs I have ever had in my life. Not just because it was with Libby Irwin and she smiled a lot but because she was was real proof of Chewonki, not one of the NYC 45ers. So we had a wonderful talk and after eating a plateful of kale (yes yes yes) and rice/beans for lunch I waxed positive all over the Chewonki experience for the dubious little sophomores and kept glancing back at Libby in case she suddenly disappeared.

Unfortunately, my emotions are as the tides, and as Wednesday slipped back to the ocean I found myself stranded in the midst of a lot of wolfish high schoolers. I continued with my studies until the next day, Thursday, which brought with it a wonderful walk with an old friend in which we talked endlessly about Chewonki and her gap year WWOOFing. It also brought the worst night, worse than the Christmas Eve dinner that I walked out of, despondent, worse because I tasted a little bit of the reality of our situation; that I will not be able to return to the place that I consider home, not for a very long time. And even then, it won't be the same. It is so heartbreaking for me to realize (for I re-realize it every single day) that it's gone. During the semester I learned to stop living in the past, but now I wish every single day to be back hugging and kissing all of you, loving and laughing and feeling at home.

I keep telling myself that you can only be happy with what you have. I am facing the fact that I don't have you all so present in my life anymore. Well, I still have you; I have the memories of you, I have your skypes and emails and facebooks, but I do not have your personal touches and eye twinkles and foggy breath. I have some friends at home that I am trying to make new connections with, I have a lot of music that makes me happy, I have New York City at my disposal, but, to be frank about it, I am still deeply unhappy. Looking through this blog and after talking and talking to the NYCers, I can see how many people feel the same. We try and we try to be positive but we are still grasping just as desperately as the next person for the last bit of contentment together. And is that a good thing, or a bad thing? I'd say good- you all are what's keeping me sane right now. But we must keep going, I must keep going. And when it gets tough, I remind myself that I'll see you all soon. We are all just a phone call away from each other. I would give anything to be back at Chewonki right now, but I can't, so it's time for me to hold my breath and dive.

Love Always,

Eloise

is this real life??

hey everybody!!
i miss you more than life! life around here is dastardly. and quite strange. i've been keeping in touch with a few of you (gillies girls special love!) and just though i'd share with all of you. eloise wrote a really lovely narrative of her first day of school so i thought i might try the same.
the morning began quite odd, i lept out of bed at the sound of my alarm, thinking it was the bomb and i would have to run to katie's bed to stop the impending destruction of my eardrums. then i realized it wouldnt get louder and furthermore i didnt have a morning gather (to be late to, despite my best efforts) and so i felt quite dejected and unmotivated and went back to bed.
so eventually after getting up and driving to school i found myself wandering around the halls of a building. and the mere fact that there were halls, and bright un-sustainable lights on everywhere and metal confused me so much! where are the worn flintstones and the weathered planks of the bridge? where are the adirondacks and white pines? where is the wind or rain or snow that greets me walking between classes in the allen or wallace center? this isnt what school is like!
the confusion just got progressively worse over the course of the day. despite having gone to the same school since fifth grade i was the quintessential n00b, not knowing where any of the rooms are or where to go in the new dining hall. everything was a hectic mess all over the place with people rushing all around me knowing something i dont (i.e. where the fuck to go). 45 minute classes rush by and the "Mr."s and"Mrs."s of NCDS are telling me "see you tomorrow!" before the thought "i need toast/tea" even crossed my mind. everyones so busy rushing around under so much pressure i feel like i havent had one legit conversation yet. especially in classes. it feels like no one, particularly teachers, takes the time to listen what others contribute and i hate it. so guess who's stuck in the office of Mr. Blanchard for sass? laura is. apparently "the man" doesn't like it when you question his authority in front of your classmates. thank goodness for book club and the ability to eloquently deplore the evils of institutionalized education, so i got out of that one! im not sure how your schools are going but i highly recommend kicking the asses of people who try to put you down. we learned a lot from chewonki and you should show it. the NCDS faculty is currently reevaluating its treatment of class participation (a victory for introverts everywhere!) and teaching to the test, at least in AP english lit.
as much fun as i am having being "that funny/pain in the ass hippie chick" its just not the same as being where i belong with semester 45. i truly appreciate how much it meant to me being surrounded by caring, intelligent people who could think for themselves. stay awesome.
xoxo laura

Small town blues..

Hey Crew,

This place is awful without you. I knew I hated my hometown, but never have I been this bored within it's confines. My day consists of waking up at 11:30, sitting and knitting, and then going to basketball practice at 3 or having a game at 4. rinse, repeat.. you know the drill. Anyway, it stinks. You may think I'm lucky to be so close to Chewonki, but what would Chewonki be without you guys?! Nothing!

45 hugs from Wiscasset, Maine (the most boring town in the United States and outlying islands). Love and miss you all so much.

Carolyn

So..

I begged and pleaded to get you guys to write on our post and now you HAVE YOUR OWN BLOG? WHAT IS THIS?!

Hey there XLV,

So right when I got home basketball started up, as expected. As an added bonus I found out that some new girl took my number, also sort of expected. However it didn't really matter to me, as a number is just a number. My coach apologized, not really meaning it, and said we could go look for a new uniform/number during practice. As we walked into the jersey room, yes we have a whole room devoted to jerseys, she picked up the first girls basketball uniform. Guess what number it was? Yup, 45. Guess what number I am now? Yup, 45.

Thinking of you all, on and off the courts.

Sarah O.

Exacto cut....take 2

Dear XLV,

         As some of you undoubtably heard over the fb and sky-pe, I cut my hand with an exacto.....again. I shall now recount to you the gory details of the incident. The night of the 30th started out innocent as any other;  dinner out with the fam, then down stairs to the basement to work on the doll house kit "santa" bought my little sister for christmas. this doll house was--is a menace. My older sister and I had spent hours in the basement in the days leading up to christmas; secretly sanding, hot-glueing, painting, assembling. But alas! We didn't quite finish the house come christmas morn'. Determined to finish it by new years, we spent the days and nights of the 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th, working in our sweat-shop of a basement. Anyway, on the night of the 30th, the end was nigh, we were very close to finishing, all that was left to do was put on the roof, shingle it, and install the trim and lighting.  Due to a small painting error I had made, I had to make some adjustments to the house to fit the roof on. These alterations involved some cutting -- cutting which i had chosen to do with an exacto knife. So there I stood, at approximately 9:43 pm, cutting toward myself with a new-bladed exacto. then my hand slipped. and the knife slipped. into my thumb that is. looking down, even before the pain hit, I immediately saw the blood begin to rush forth. I ran to the upstairs and into my kitchen, leaving a trail of blood as I went. As my mom and I ran my hand under the sink, the bleeding increased. Within a few seconds we both new it. Hospital. i grabbed a wad of paper towels--sorry tom twist not so sustainable-- and bolted out the door and into our car. While my mom drove 80 mph down our traditionally 35 road, the paper towels started to become saturated with blood, becoming a deep crimson. Shit. What does a WFA do now? I thought. Ah. Well aimed direct pressure! (thanks eric duffy ;) ) with this, the bleeding subsided but the pain increased. Within a mere 10 we had made the usually 20 minute trip to maine medical center. about 5 seconds after we had hopped out of the car I was waiting in a chair with  a bracelet that had my name on it on my wrist. after about 15 minutes some dude came over to see if it had stopped bleeding. It finally had. After that my mom and I waited for about an hour before I was taken into a room, had my heart rate and bp taken, bandaged up, and then sent out to wait so more. My mom finally bugged me enough to the point were I had to tell her.....about the semester, about you guys. This was a topic I was thoroughly tired of explaining. After about another hour and a half (it's now 12:30) we're taking into an exam room where a 'nurse' named will told me that they were waiting for the doctor. Then, after another hour of waiting, a nice doctor named jack (this made me nervous, I didn't want kevorkian  jr. sewing me up) stuck his head and the door and said he'd be back "in two minutes". Forty-five minutes later he returned. Following a quick look at my hand, he headed out to get some numbing medicine. He returned with a syringe which he promptly stuck into my wound, exclaiming "this part sucks!". with the needle at least an inch into my flesh and the blood beginning to once again gush, he injected the clear liquid into the cut  and I was ambushed by what felt like a thousand little fists punching my lacerated thumb. After about ten minutes, he had me wash it out, and after another 20 minutes he returned with his suture kit. With a brief six stitches, the last two of which I clearly felt, I was sent home, all in all the trip took about five hours, 10 pm to 3 am. Be careful with knifes kids.

-NS

p.s. sorry about the length. i encourage all of you to share stories--any sort. if you're confused on how to post on the blog, just email me. unfortunately, to post you need a gmail, account. if you have the perseverance to create one email me (noah1313@gmail.com) and I'll add you as a contributor to the blog. peace ya'll.

Tom Wessels Rap

Ecological Dynamic Rap

Happy New Year XLV. Ring it in with this fresh track.

- Ben Semmes [SOHO]

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM NY!

hi everyone! it's corey and leila! new years in new york was soopah fun. we were at jake's house with lily, eloise, rachel, lydia, and hannah (a nice chewonki ratio) and we tried making a ginger bread house, but like all chewonki ginger bread houses...we didn't finish it. in the process we skyped with noah (who couldn't make it because he cut his thumb with an exacto-knife....again) and we also skyped with aidan. we watched the third and fourth harry potter movies (with a 10 second interruption for the ball dropping). during those movies, we decided to play a little harry potter drinking game--this consisted of drinking every time hermione was anxt-y (spelling?), when the twins spoke in unison, when dumbeldore revealed a secret that he was too wise to share with you, and when mad-eye-moody drank his poly juice potion. it was loads of fun! we played in the snow, trying not to step in jake's dog's poopie. we ended up in a nice chewonki circle--twas cute. we also played the world's longest game of beer pong. then the night really took off when mr. and mrs. stamell returned home from their 10 course dinner. some memorable quotes were: "why didn't you make them a tequila sunrise-mom" "because you said no-jake" "well you shouldn't have listened-mom"/ "do you want anything for the morning-jake" "just a tequila sunrise-mom"/ "jake's toast has to be at least three sentences or else he won't make a good toast for the rest of his life-mom"/ history of champagne from mr. stamell.....and those were just the super funny ones. all around it was an amazing night and we had so much fun! but we missed the rest of semester 45.

ps. the superbowl this year is number XLV..........it's a sign

Hi XLV!

I hope you all had a fantastic new years eve! I just spent mine with a couple close friends, nothing too exciting. I also just got back from Colorado where there was tons of snow, but I guess the majority of yall are used to all the snow. Oh, and Atlanta got snow on Christmas! woohoo! Anyways I already made my resolution (yes i still make cheesy resolutions) to try and visit as many of you as I can in 2011. I hope all the new york-ers had a great new years eve party and I hope the boston kids have a great reunion as well. I really wish I could be up there with yall, but don't forget to come down South and visit Ben, Abby and I as well! Have a great rest of your vacation and a great start to the new semester!

Love,Katie R.