NiRey
That isn't to say that there weren't a few items that I needed to get used to when I got here. There was the sleeping issue and the fact that, in the town of Putney and in nearby Brattleboro, everyone seemed to move in a friendly, slow motion that didn't quite match my New York style. Whoa! Wake up! But now I love it that, on this beautiful wooded hill, I can turn off the world and focus on my studies and, of course, because I'm a teenager, on making friends.
This semester I'm taking Chemistry, Precalculus, U.S. History, Spanish 3, and U.S. English. If I seem a little bleary-eyed it's because I've been writing a big history paper. Oh, yes, and I'm the dorm head, I'm running for Admissions Committee, I give prospective families tours of The Putney School's campus, and I'm making an all-out SAT/ACT preparation push. (Believe me, it helps; I raised my Critical Reading PSAT score by almost 40% with independent studying.) I do get some exercise nearly every day, though. And then, on Wednesdays, I get to play with little kids at the on-campus day care. What a relief they are! (And I get 2 credits for community service, to boot.)
Next semester my official afternoon activity will be Theater Tech, which I also did last spring. It will be good to be back "home" in the theater. We construct the sets for the school plays and then run the shows. There's a whackier mix of kids in that activity than in any other I've taken. We get treated very well by our teacher, who takes us out for ice cream and is generally one of the funniest people around. And the sets we build are impressive. I mean, I've been in shows and all, but I much prefer to make my contribution backstage.
Hey, did you see those striped lines painted on the door? I did that! And the actual door knob and hinges? Those were by my best friends! Don't even ask about the revolving floor and the trap door. Now, how many people can brag that way?"
(NiRey graduated in June 2011 and is currently a freshman at Loyola Unitersity of New Orleans, majoring in Communications.)
