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.
Live, Laugh, Lodj: Dinner at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge!
To celebrate a wonderful first spring term, my friends and I got together for a dinner at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge (or simply, "the lodj"). Located at the base of Mount Moosilauke, the lodj sits at a beautiful place and going there for the first time during my First-Year Trip is one of my favorite earliest Dartmouth experiences. It's a place where I met many of my current friends and a place sorely missed over the past couple years, but being able to go there this term has immediately been a highlight.
For the spring term of 2022, all students could make an individual reservation and eat dinner there completely free of charge. The dinner changes by the day and is cooked entirely in-house. From what I could tell, the position of "Head Chef" changes on a nightly basis, so Although you can stay at the lodj overnight, we opted for the dinner route—it's finals season! We ended up carpooling and eleven of us took an hour-long roadtrip north to the lodj where we were greeted with a dinner of freshly-baked cheesy bread, tomato soup, honey-baked chicken and tofu, and a dessert of seven-layer bars.
Let me just say that our lodj dinner was incredible. In retrospect I think that it was one of the most memorable meals of my term. I went for the vibes because hey, dinner in a beautiful cabin mountain lodge off-campus? How do you say no to that? But the food was so much better than I could've imagined that I have been raving about it ever since—massive thank you to the wonderful chefs (all of whom were alumni or current Dartmouth students)!
It was so beautiful out that I totally forgot to take pictures of the skyline but just look!!
After dinner, we decided on an impromptu photoshoot outside in the twilight. Thanks to the wonderful Julia Levine '23 for being the best photographer ever (the picture at the top of this post is all her!). We threw a frisbee around, my friends bought "lodj"-themed sweatshirts, and we totally forgot about it being week 9 for like five hours. It was exactly the kind of getaway I needed to mentally refresh and soak in some elusive vibes during the busiest part of the term. Doing things that shift your gears away from the academic whirlwind, I'd argue, both epitomizes the work-hard, play-hard mentality that I think Dartmouth students embody and actively battles the inevitable stress buildup. Burnout can feel really real, but that's exactly what friends and food are for!
If you're a Dartmouth student and haven't made it up to the lodj yet for your very own evening getaway, I can't suggest it enough. And if you're '26…I will just say that I'm so excited for you to see this place for yourself when you go on trips. 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!
