longday@dartmouth

The wallpaper in the Poetry Room fascinated me -- I searched for its pattern, the point of its repetition, but could find none; only an endless, four-cornered scene of an Italian harbor. My books were open on my lap, but my eyes wandered the room, hoping for some order in the infinitude of detail surrounding me. Someone walking by in the hall caught my glance. He stopped; we smiled; he walked in and sat down, one leg slung over the other.

"How's it going?" I was glad to see him.
I paused, weighing how I wanted to steer the conversation. "This week has been absolutely awful," I gave in.
He looked genuinely concerned. "Why? What happened?"

I began to tell him about dropping out of a play, about my friends, about school -- I never had to try before, I said, and now all of a sudden being smart isn't enough.

"Of course," he said, "but it's still hard, I mean, to think that people who work hard can do better than you even if you're smarter. But there are some people, man... okay, so I'm writing this article on this conspiracy theory on who shot JFK..."

He launched into a description of his article -- he was working on it with a friend -- and how they were going to contact the New York Times, the Huffington Post, anyone who would pick up their piece, because it was this amazing breakthrough that only they had thought of... we talked until we both had to go; before we did, he assured me that my week wouldn't get better, but that I would. I was still fascinated by the wallpaper, but I was more content to be surrounded by its disorder.

It's possible to have terrible days at Dartmouth -- they'll happen wherever you go -- and it's not a reflection on the place, but on those arbitrary and unfortunate circumstances that seem to crop up every once in a while. But here, there's a safeguard against bad days: good people. Running into someone in the dining hall or the library and taking the time to stay and talk for a while can make all the difference, because people here genuinely care about each other, and that sincerity is enough to shine a bright spot onto a dark day. The generosity and care that people show -- from best friends to strangers -- is something I haven't seen anywhere else; something that truly gives me a reason to be proud of my college.