Winter Is Here!

As a Los Angeles native here on Groton's campus in December, I stepped into a whole new world. It is generally assumed that any hockey player, no matter their hometown, should be acclimated to this icy season, but this could not be further from the truth. Massachusetts winters are still a novelty to me, a season that, at Groton, brings a cornucopia of tricks and treats along with it. One of these seasonal gifts is the cold, with whom I have a bit of a love-hate relationship. Whether it be the piercing morning winds that provide a secondary alarm clock as I walk to the Schoolhouse, the festive trees and lights adorning the Dining Hall, or the brisk air that cements every hair out of place on my head, I have come to appreciate the newness of every microscopic detail of this new world. 

In the classroom, I have also embarked on several new journeys at the beginning of the winter term. The most exciting of these endeavors is writing my world history research paper, the first of two that I will be creating this year, a unique facet of Groton’s “World and the West” course. Each step of this process was and continues to be an intriguing yet challenging task, expanding both my academic resources and capabilities to unimaginable heights. For example, I was formally introduced to the ins and outs of Groton’s expansive library collection, full of profound primary and secondary sources on seemingly every historical and modern event and philosophy. I could envision the newly unlocked paths of discovery that lay before me as I walked up and down the endless rows of books. I just began piecing together the strings of arguments and evidence that will form the foundation of my paper, and I could not help but feel eager to realize my full academic potential with near endless information at my disposal.

We truly started this term off with a bang inside and outside of the classroom, but the festivities appear to be only intensifying as we dive deeper and deeper into the heart of winter.