It's the Little Things

Madhavi (another intern) and I got asked a great question in our student forum this morning: "What has been your best moment at Dartmouth?" Of course, there are really so many that it's impossible to say which is the absolute best, but I picked one of my favorites, and I just thought I'd take a minute to relate it to you all.

There's a pub on campus called Lone Pine Tavern. It's in the basement of Collis, our student center, and it's the only dining place on campus that serves beer (they definitely card), but it's also a really fun place for the under-21 crowd to hang out at. They've got really great shakes and bar food - the quesadillas are my favorite - and tons of board games, word games, and a poker set. There's also a performing space with a piano and a sound setup, so usually at some point there's a performance, whether it be karaoke (every Thursday night this summer, I believe), open-mic stand-up comedy, or, most often, a student solo act or maybe a small group of performers (guitar/voice, piano, keyboard kind of thing).

So back to my favorite moment. It was nearing the end of sophomore summer, and a lot of people on campus were feeling an urgency about spending time with their closest friends before the term was over. I hadn't seen my friends Ray and Sarah in a while, and we decided to get together to catch up with each other.

We go to Lone Pine and got some shakes and snacks, and then walk down to Dartmouth's golf course for a midnight picnic under the stars. The night skies here are absolutely breathtaking. I come from a rural area where there aren't a whole lot of lights around anyway, but the sky this night at the golf course is particularly remarkable. I throw down a blanket I brought and we sit down and start sharing stories from the past year. I tell them about some of my experiences in France on the Language Study Abroad+ Program, and Sarah and I reminisce a little about our previous summer's experience on Bike and Build. So anyway, we're hanging out having a pretty good time when pretty far away on the golf course we hear a sprinkler come on. "Uh-oh guys," I say. Ray says not to worry about it; we're pretty far away from the sprinkler. But then another one comes on, a little bit closer. I look around and in the moonlight can see that we've got our stuff spread out all over the place. "Guys, I think we should move." They're still not that concerned. Another sprinkler, closer. Another. "Alright, time to go!" We throw everything we have - shake cups, quesadilla containers, the blanket, our cameras - into our bags and start running, just as a sprinkler buried no more than 10 feet away comes to life, managing to spray us just once as we make our escape.

When people ask about things to do at Dartmouth, I usually don't mention events like the one above. Prospective students usually don't want to hear that hanging out at the golf course at night is one of the big things to do on campus. But when you get here, you start to realize that having fun isn't about the things you're doing, but about the people you're doing those things with. And Dartmouth has got some of the best people there are. Who wants to spend a night in the city with a bunch of random people? Not me. A midnight picnic on the golf course and a run-in with the hydration system with two of my closest friends? Anytime. Unless it's the winter.