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.
The idea of Dartmouth's unlimited snow used to be intimidating, but the past two weeks have been full of peaceful coexistence between students and seasons like no other. To celebrate our first three-day weekend and wrapping up Week 2, a bunch of my friends and I decided to take to the Hanover Country Club, just north of Occom Pond, to go sledding on the golf course. We retrieved a bunch of sleds from the Native American House — a Living Learning Community built around celebrating Indigenous values and lifestyles and also where the Dartmouth Indigenous community has most of its meetings. After selecting our sleds of choice, we made the very brief trek to the golf course.
You see that hill, I see burning hamstrings. Saved me a weekend trip to the gym, though.
Going to the north side of campus reminded me of when I first arrived to campus. The first event of Native Pre-Orientation was actually a dinner right after getting back from my First-Year Trip at the neighboring DOC House on the south-side of the golf course. We passed that house and I realized it's actually been almost twenty weeks since that first dinner where I met almost everyone I was now going sledding with. And here we are, sharing almost every meal and going on random impromptu sledding trips. Thanks, Pre-O.
The golf course was abuzz with families, a handful of other Dartmouth students, and surprisingly a lot of middle-aged people armed with skis and snowboards. Joining the fray, my friends and I hiked up a snowy hill with our freely-obtained Walmart-brand circles and looked down with very eager eyes.
NAD '23s take on 20W!
A few members of our party had never seen snow before coming to Dartmouth, but here they were ready to take on a downhill slope like seasoned veterans. Their energy was infectious, and after a little photo shoot at the top of the hill, we decided to let loose.
My friends Sean, Kaulana, and Claire -- all 23s, all wet from the snow. We love to see it.
The system we worked out was pretty functional — we'd freeze at the top, glide down (and most of the time, if I'm being honest, we wiped out and got snow everywhere), and to warm up, try running up what was rapidly changing from a hill to a mountain. And I loved it.
The shower and coffee after this little excursion was like regaining my soul. The Dirt Cowboy, a coffeehouse just down Main Street in the same building as Tuk-Tuk (best Thai place, hands down) makes a very mean "mochachino" (mocha cappucino, aka the superior coffee drink — get two shots, three if you're studying).
All in all, this was the best way to return to sledding since I lived in Kansas. And I will definitely be back very, very soon.
I applied through Questbridge's National College Match, but did not match. To others who also did not match, this is not the end of your application process! Here's what I did following match decision day.
Unlimited buffets, flavorful drinks, an assortment of breakfast pastries—Dartmouth has so many great food and drink options to choose from! Join me as I rank my favorite ones.
Walking around the Wellelsey campus, it's clear that it was built with intentional incorporation of the surrounding nature. The architecture of many buildings were also mindfully crafted to support Wellesley's unique principles.
