Day 12: Senior Project Polar Swim & Weekly Reflection

This Saturday we decided to wake up early and head to our own polar swim. We fought against the early morning laziness and we overcame the cool morning air and carefully walked into Elbow Pond. The water was not as bad as I'd expected, but it still took us a while to get used to the cold. Actually, we spent about five minutes just standing there before we finally had the courage to jump all the way in. The morning was beautiful, so was the pond, and there were no black flies. The experience was a lot better than I'd expected and I had a lot of fun doing it, we may even repeat next Saturday.

This week was very different from our first one. Location wise, we got to spend a lot more time exploring the Proctor woodlands which was very refreshing. It was nice to come back to campus, I'd actually missed it. And there are so many more trails and places to visit around campus than I'd originally expected. This week was very special to me because I had a lot of time to think about my four years at Proctor and what they meant to me, and also about what I am going to take away with me next year, how I've grown and how I still want to keep going. The day we spent at the cabin is one of my favorite ones so far, for I finally had the chance to mentally disconnect from the frantic schedule I always seem to follow (although doing this was hard at the beginning) and really spend some time jolting down ideas about how I have changed and how I want to change in the future.
It was also really nice to be around campus and see everyone again. The day we spent with Mel's Intro to Lit classes were actually very productive because we had to really explain what we were doing, and this reminded me of my goals for these three weeks. It was also very inspiring to see that the freshmen class seems to be so interested about the woods, and I really tried to emphasize that they should spend some time getting to know all the cool places around Proctor because this is some advice I wish I'd gotten when I was a freshman. Still, I was happy to hear that so many students want their senior projects to involve some kind of hiking/outdoors activity.
We have done so many things this week, and they have all been so different. I have really enjoyed everything we have done and I feel like I am never bored and always doing something, which is a great feeling.