Aloha to the page of a wanderlusting writer juggling college life and several other hobbies into an eternally-short 24-hour day. I hope to shed light on the Dartmouth experience as I explore the brave new world of Hanover, NH and everything going to college here has to offer. In my free time, you can find me trying to learn a new language or building the perfect Spotify playlist (alternative/indie, anyone?). I hope you enjoy!
Taught by Gordon Henry, an Anishinaabe poet and author, this class taught me to explore Indigenous storytelling within digital contexts. I took this class with only seven other classmates, allowing us to really engage with films, comic books, and television shows in Indigenous languages or produced by Indigenous artists.
Taught by Timothy Pulju, this class taught me how to identify and understand how languages evolve over time and why. I analyzed and reconstructed fictional languages of imaginary nations in order to understand the link between language and culture, and ended up having such an appreciation for the complexity and beauty of language's place in history!
Taught by Lindsay Whaley, this class let me discover a newfound love for ancient apocalyptic literature. We analyzed ancient texts and compared them to modern apocalypses, looking at the zombie apocalypse phenomenon and other apocalypses in pop culture and comparing them to the ancient tradition of writing apocalypses. Additionally, I learned the Greek alphabet and now I can even stumble through ancient Greek passages.
FallNew Orleans, LA
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught and organized by David Peterson, this class let me get into the shoes of a real linguist as we did fieldwork (virtually!!) with the Zophei language. I learned how to describe a never-before-learned language's phonology (sound system), how to characterize its grammar and words, and ultimately got to present my research to experts in the language family around the world in a workshop at the end of the term!
WinterHanover, NH
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class taught me how Native literature can provide lens by which to evaluate, critique, and ultimately revise Federal Indian Law. During this class, I read works by Native authors like Tommy Orange and Louise Erdrich '76 alongside the opinions of definitive case opinions in American law and explained how literature can be a catalyst for Indigenous sovereignty.
Supervised by N. Bruce Duthu, I spent this off-term performing research after being awarded a Sophomore Research Scholarship to study contemporary Hawaiian cultural and linguistic revitalization. I studied 19th-century newspapers and contemporary Hawaiian texts in order to understand how Hawaiian language revitalization both past and present has advanced and continues to enable a contemporary bodied Hawaiian politic of sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me about how languages create meaning through words. During this class, I learned how to analyze different languages' morphological processes and compare different approaches within the field as to morphological structures.
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class offered me a glimpse into the lived realities of Native people in Indian Country Today. I learned about the economic, social, cultural, and historical roots for the struggles of Indigenous people today within the United States, and was able to write about the contemporary battle for Native Hawaiian visibility and Hawaiian sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me how to engage in language documentation and how, as a linguist, we can put our skills to use to help communities seeking to document and revitalize their languages. I worked on the Satawalese language, spoken on the island of Satawal in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ultimately, my team created two dictionaries - one in English, one in Hawaiian, a website, and several materials that focused on the Satawalese tradition of wayfinding and non-instrumental ocean navigation.
Taught by Charles Eastman fellow Sunaina Kale, this class taught me about the role of sound in delineating, conceiving, and comprehending relations between people and the land in Indigenous musical traditions. Over the course of the class, we discussed Indigenous musicians, listened to music from Native peoples around the world, heard from masterful Indigenous musicians, and ultimately presented a project that creatively analyzed a song of our choice. My project focused on the song "Ask Yourself" by Foster the People, and I wrote a poem that integrated aspects of Indigenous languages and worldviews to answer questions posed by the song.
This term, I formally began the research process for my upcoming honors thesis in the Linguistics department on Hawaiian semantics! While living in Hanover, I also began working as a Senior Fellow with the Admissions department—a position I will be holding for the entirety of my last year at Dartmouth.
Something I've noticed in the three years I've called Dartmouth home is how so many of the ways we spend our time are based on fully embracing the seasons. When it's wintertime and super cold outside, Dartmouth students do the Polar Plunge and literally jump into a hole carved into the surface of a frozen Occom Pond. When the cold is just beginning to kick in towards the twilight of fall term, we build a massive bonfire on the Green to kick off Homecoming. And when it's summer? We go to the river.
I had the absolute pleasure of going on a little paddle with one of the Dartmouth Outing Club's (DOC) sub-clubs, known as People of Color in the Outdoors, or POCO for short. In a long-awaited crossover event between POCO and Natives At Dartmouth (NAD), we got together, rented a bunch of canoes and kayaks for free, and paddled to nearby Gilman Island. As a piece of land tended by the Ledyard Canoe Club (the same fine folks who rented us our canoes for this lovely paddle), it was the perfect place to disembark for some hard-earned lunch.
Absolutely gorgeous day and perfect weather for an island picnic.
Not taking classes this summer but staying in the area means that I get to enjoy so many of the recreational activities the Upper Valley has to offer without midterms or group projects looming on the horizon. I also fully relish my weekends when I'm not working, making times like these outside with friends all the more fulfilling. It's incredible to have all of the infrastructures for a canoe trip readily available and completely free too—the only thing required on our ends for this trip was registration through Trailhead, a free platform used by the DOC for excursions of this kind, and the entire process took somewhere between two and three clicks. Accessibility on all fronts is a beautiful thing.
Over my time at Dartmouth, I've gotten to meet an incredible number of students from our neighboring institutions, and I can safely say that they're not having experiences like these. For someone like myself who felt ill at ease in the outdoors being crunchy before coming to Dartmouth, I can happily say that I've learned to really treasure the opportunities afforded to me by our more rural campus setting. I'm not going to lie, Dartmouth's seemingly massive passion for nature seems a lot more intimidating from outside of the club, but once you're in it as a Dartmouth student everything feels within arms reach. The fact that I can sign up for different excursions based on when works for me thanks to an ever-enriched array of available trips (usually advertised to all of campus via email!) means that I can stay in my comfort zone anytime and every time. Nobody is telling me to pack a bag and hike the Appalachian Trail, but if I want to catch a ride to a nearby mountain for a slight hike and accompanying gorgeous sunset watch party, I can do that. If I want to jump into a late-morning archery practice session on a range just across the street from the Dartmouth Organic Farm, I can do that too.
Yes, the water always looks this good.
As you navigate your college search process, I encourage you to not only think of your immediate wants and needs and how each school provides those, but also about how much room there is for you to tread new horizons. I didn't originally choose Dartmouth because a crunchy side to life existed, but I've loved the fact that that's something always open to me and ready to be engaged with on a when-I-want basis. I knew even as a high schooler that I'll probably work in a city one day when I've graduated and gone, but your undergrad years are a time to do those random things that your future self might be denied. I'm just here to say opportunities are everything and are kind of the icing on the cake when your college is already amazing. Sincerely hope everyone's summer is going incredibly and can't wait till next time!
In addition to blogging, I work as a Fellow for the Tucker Center, which focuses on promoting spiritual and ethical life on campus. As part of this role, I'm leading the Interfaith Alternative Spring Break Trip. Read on to learn more about my work!
