As someone who has never experienced Fall before, I was willing to go the distance to witness the beauty of the fall foliage. And by going the distance, I literally mean going on a road trip across two states, New Hampshire and Vermont, this week!
As much as I loved the scenic beauty of the breathtaking White Mountain National Forest, what really warmed my heart was the slow materialization of Boston’s skyline on the way back to Massachusetts. The boundless comfort of the gloomy overcast sky and the crisp wintery air reminded me of one word: home.
I marvel at how Tufts has become my home in just a month’s time. This place that challenges me at many levels of my being. My first accomplishment of the month was learning to clean a bathroom for the very first time. The bathroom next to the room I share with my roommate is inarguably the cleanest and most pleasant smelling one on the floor. Or alteast it was until every living soul on the floor started to use it.
This Wednesday, I woke up for an 8:30am Spanish class and walked into a clogged toilet (not an ideal sight by any means!) To make matters worse, I stepped into a sea of paper towels and hair, when I went to shower there later that evening. I decided to take matters into my own hands and spend the bulk of my shower time cleaning the bathroom. Why didn’t I just use another bathroom? Because I wanted to make sure that the shower stall where I contemplated my life and planned my naps was clean and that everyone’s “favorite bathroom” didn’t cease to live up to its hype.
Tufts never fails to present me with new experiences. I never took Spanish before coming to Tufts and I remember internally screaming when I was asked to construct a coherent sentence. That experience set up the perfect contrast to the one I had earlier this week, when I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had scored a 14/15 on the essay I wrote on my very first Spanish exam!
The fact that my professor believed in me when I had every reason to doubt myself and my transition from learning alphabets to writing an essay in just a month’s time made me realize how wonderful Tufts is at embracing the little things with great love.
Earlier this week, I remember hurriedly walking up the hill to attend a class, barely conscious of the people and the campus buildings that surrounded me when something out of the corner of my eyes made me stop in my tracks. Just like being aroused from a deep sleep, I suddenly realized how utterly breathtaking Tufts could look during autumn. The nibble of Fall on the crunchy leaved trees in the Presidential Lawn looked beautiful and in that moment, Tufts felt like the magical place it had first seemed when I arrived.