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 middle of the term, just as any middle of the movie, is either a roller coaster ride or the quiet before the coming storm. For me, it's been the latter. At the time of my writing this post, I'm heading into Week 6, which means I'm officially in the thick of it. In between my classes, it's definitely been a challenge to find ways to simply get away from everything, but recently my friends and I decided to take advantage of some of the virtual programming that all of the beautiful minds working at the Collis Governing Board (CGB)…Thursday Night Trivia!
In high school, I was a massive nerd and played for my school's quiz bowl team. We actually had an amazing run, but since coming to Dartmouth I've somehow always found time for at least one night of trivia per term. There is absolutely no better socially-distanced/virtual activity than trivia, and the CGB managed to put something together that linked both everybody elsewhere than campus studying virtually and everybody that wanted to participate on campus. Some of our teams (like mine) were from several different locations, while some groups were playing socially-distanced at Collis, or from their dorms, or from different countries. Again — who does quarantine community better than us?
In the picture of this blog post, you can see me from multiple (mostly somewhat unflattering) camera angles in addition to my three housemates and our two other friends (basically the ones most recently called on my friend Lana's FaceTime history, because I think most any of my friends would've been amazing at trivia but the team limit capped at six — sorry guys <3). My housemates and I are currently living and grinding in New Orleans, Louisiana while my friend Pete called in from Oklahoma and my friend Aaní from Virginia Beach. How's that for a little geographic diversity?
We started off strong, but dropped from second to third to fourth place, which just inspired us to come back bigger and better for next time. Live and learn. We basically sat in our breakout room and just shouted out an answer if we knew it, and honestly with like twenty teams or something participating our quarantined performance was not nearly as shabby as it should have been, which basically means we're good at trivia. If anything, it was just nice to have a small part of the gang back together for a fun hour or so of trivia while we ate some delicious Domino's pizza — just like any other good night back on campus.
Even virtually, campus stays active, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I might not be able to pop into Collis for a smoothie and some pinball action, but Dartmouth still brings Collis to me. Thanks, Big Green, and see you all soon.
Planning on visiting Dartmouth as a prospective student or an interested person wanting to see our beautiful campus? In this post, I share insider tips to ensure your visit is fulfilled!
Witnessing an eclipse was one of the most exciting days in my life to date, and a solid reminder of our place in this universe. Read on to hear about it!
Coming back from Spring break usually means coming back to an entirely different campus than the one you left in the Winter – but that was not the case this year! Read on to hear more...
