Tufts in 17

Welcome baby Jumbos! Today, emails go out to the brand new Class of 2017, and those emails come with two crucial implications for someone like me. First, it means new students will be swarming campus with their parents (as though they haven't been already!) - which means I'll get to listen in on all sorts of hilarious tour-guide stories, drop subtle hints that the 2017'ers should join Tufts Mock Trial, and take in my first impressions of the (potential) new classmates. But perhaps more importantly, 2017 decisions mean I'm getting old. This is my third year, 6th semester, and 231st blog post. So the environment seems ripe for a brief retrospective. Presenting: Tufts University, in 17 photographs.

Need more photos? See everything at Peacelight Mosaic.

 

#1. September 2010: Tufts Free Compliments. One of my first impressions of Tufts was this guy, standing outside of the library, shouting out "You have a nice smile!" or "I like your shoes!"

#2. October 2010: Tufts Quidditch. The first Quidditch game I saw was on campus; the Tufflepuffs were playing in the rain, but we sat through it, just to see how college Quidditch worked.

#3. October 2010: Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear). It's only a 9-hour bus ride down to D.C. (each way!), so someone organized a Tufts trip to the Stewart/Colbert rally. Sounded like a good use of the weekend.

#4. November 2010: Pretzel Night. My first show at Tufts was an all-freshmen production, a student-written and student-directed comedy. I didn't end up being best friends with any of the actors, but we still all know each other, and we did organize a reunion dinner.

#5. December 2010: Hannukah. Teaching dreidel to my non-Jewish friends has become a yearly tradition; it started with spinning for gelt and candy canes freshman year.

#6. February 2011: Snow Storm. Winters have been more reasonably recently, but the first time around, I was convinced that Boston was all-snow, all the time.

#7. February 2011: First AMTA Mock Trial Tournament. Taking third place at my first regulation mock trial tournament was thrilling, and Tufts Mock Trial only got better from there. I still compete with most of the people pictured above.

#8. April 2011: Holi. Upper-classmen tipped me off that Holi was one of the most fun spring events on campus. Ever since, I've been begging every freshman I meet to try it. Worst realization of the week: this year, I won't be on campus for it!

#9. April 2011: 3rd Place at Nationals. In a shocking victory (and we, too, were surprised), Tufts placed third in the nation for mock trial my freshman year. Plus, who wouldn't be excited for their first trip to Iowa?

#10. April 2011: Passover at Dewick. Eating in the dining halls? No problem. I soon learned that unlimited meals meant kosher-for-Passover food all week long. It's like they've thought of everything.

#11.September 2011: Death Penalty OpEd. By no means my first OpEd, my article in the Tufts Daily protesting executions was my first piece to spark a response (for a death penalty advocate; apparently they exist). And then, to my surprise, a student took up my position in a counter-counter-opinion.

#12. December 2011: Giant Crossword Puzzle. As a Resident Assistant for an all-freshmen hall, I awoke one morning to find one of my bulletin boards had been destroyed overnight, undoubtedly thanks to the influence of certain suspicious beverages. So I held a contest for the most creative replacement idea, and I selected this: A giant crossword puzzle for the residents to solve. The same night I put it up, they figured it all out.

#13.February 2012: Assassins. The most fun the RAs - and perhaps the residents - had all year could easily have been our dorm-wide games of Assassins, which featured phenomenal promotional material (if I do say so myself) and a pretty sweet online kill-reporting leaderboard.

#14. March 2012: Spring Break in Montreal. When my friends suggested driving up to Canada from spring break, I was suspicious. But it all worked out; we planned out a vacation, found reasonably-priced accommodation, and made it across the border... both ways!

#15. May 2012: Paint the Cannon. I first painted the cannon as a freshman, but sophomore year, I organized the event with TMT. The next day's rain rendered the artwork all but illegible, but we had fun anyway.

#16. May 2012: Learn Magic the Gathering. I first learned how to play Magic (the card game) on campus, and a friend gave me cards to use (and keep!). I'm still terrible, relative to anyone who plays regularly, but I was able to drop in on a Magic event earlier this year, just to go a few rounds with the pros.

#17. October 2012: Study Abroad in Scotland. It might not be Tufts, but it's part of my college experience: Junior fall at the University of Edinburgh. There's too much to say in a caption, but check out my old posts and you can read all about it.

There you have it, class of 2017; 17 images from Tufts, so far. But hey, I'm nowhere near done yet. I've still got Nationals, finals, and a nice long senior year. So you can expect a whole lot more pictures, and many more posts, in the weeks and months to come. The baby Jumbos may be coming, but the university isn't asking us older elephants to pack up our trunks just yet.