What CA Means to Me
Louisa
Boarder
Medfield, MA
How has boarding affected your CA experience?
I love boarding at CA. It’s like a sleepover 24/7 with all my best friends. I’ve gotten to know myself better because I’ve become more aware of my habits as a roommate, and I’ve also become more efficient with my time. As a boarder, I have also gotten to know my friends a lot better. Living with someone can teach you things that it takes years to learn otherwise. Living with thirty-two other girls has taught me to listen better. Boarding also provides an automatic support system. My heads of house have helped me get through many a crunch week. There is always someone—whether it be a house parent, head of house, or a friend—who is willing to help. Another advantage to boarding is house parents. My house parents have become my best friends. They’re easy to get along with, as long as you follow the rules. I talk to them about everything under the sun, including boys, school, and that one teacher who gets on everybody’s nerves. It’s like having two or three other sets of parents.
You live fairly close to CA. Why did you decide to board?
I wanted to try a more independent experience at high school. If anything, my home’s proximity helped my decision to come to CA as a boarder. My older brother went to boarding school in Rhode Island, and my parents wanted me to be a little bit closer. The distance is perfect because I don’t have my parents breathing down my neck, enabling them to be my friends rather than my superiors. Still, my house is close enough to CA that if I am sick I can go home for a couple days, and my parents can realistically make a lot of my sports games. There’s also a lot that goes on at my house, and between the commute to CA, my older sister’s commute to her high school, and the various barn chores that need to be done throughout the day, there would have been little time left for homework or hanging out. Boarding seemed to be a better choice logistically, and it has kept me sane.
Who or what at CA has most inspired you intellectually?
Liz Bedell. I had her for the first semester of Freshman English. The only book on our syllabus that semester was The Odyssey. It would seem that spending a whole semester on one book would become tedious, but Liz was able to stimulate my love for English throughout the semester. My ability to analyze text improved significantly, and my writing improved drastically as well. Liz brought so much enthusiasm to the classroom; that mixed with her sarcasm and dry humor made me look forward to A block every week.
You took accelerated trigonometry in tenth grade. How has CA nurtured you as a math student?
As a freshman, I took geometry and I loved it. I’ve always liked math, and I decided to take the accelerated course schedule rather than the regular classes. All the teachers in the Math Department, and at CA for that matter, love the subjects they teach and submerge themselves fully into their classes. I had two wonderful and devoted math teachers my first two years at CA. Both breathed life into the subjects they taught. What I love about math at CA is that it isn’t just about memorizing formulas or repeating the same kinds of problems over and over. I have spent many a math class helping to derive equations and formulas, and many a night of homework struggling to understand the theory behind the math I am doing. I feel most like a mathematician when I am able to understand and truly master whatever I have been taught not because I memorized something, but because I know where the formula came from. I would have been lost on a lot of my tests this year if the course was merely rote memorization, but since I was taught where and how the mathematical expressions were derived, I was able to come up with them on the spot.
What has been your most interesting assignment?
An oral history paper in U.S. History, which consisted of interviewing someone about a historical event between 1945 and 1975, then writing a paper based on the interview. I interviewed the father of one of my house parents about his naval service in the Vietnam War. Rather than a thesis-driven paper, the oral history paper is a three- to four-page story that has been told to you. It was a great way to finish up a hard year of U.S. History.
What do you do to let loose on the weekend?
Weekends are my time to unwind. I spread my homework out over the three days, from Friday night to Sunday. I spend the rest of my time walking around Concord with friends. Whether we’re walking aimlessly or with a destination, Concord is a beautiful little town, and there is a lot to explore! I also watch a lot of movies with my friends. When it’s nice outside I walk to Walden Pond to swim or just to enjoy the sun, and when it’s cold I often go sledding on Nashawtuc Hill. I have also taken the train into Boston, and that’s a lot of fun. There’s good shopping, good food, and lots to explore.
Which athletic experience have you liked most at CA?
My favorite team experience so far has been varsity field hockey. Not to put basketball, tennis, and Ultimate Frisbee to shame, but the girls I played with were awesome. Everyone was so enthusiastic about the sport and the team dynamic was great. We were often chided for talking too much about the latest Gossip Girl episode and not focusing on the task at hand. However, we were also able to pull out a great season with only a few losses, and we only narrowly lost the tournament in triple overtime.
Please describe one of your coaches and the impact he or she had on you.
Pretty much all the relationships I hold with coaches and teachers at CA are friendships, and that’s why I love CA so much. I’ve had a lot of great coaches at CA. However, my field hockey coaches stand out. The head coach brought so much to our team; I really felt like she was coaching each of us individually. She improved not only our skills, but our spirit. I always liked playing in games because of the competition, but I never really understood the merits of practice until this year. Thanks to my coaches, I looked forward to practice as a time to hang out with my friends, not as a grueling training session.
Please tell us what the school-sponsored New Orleans trip and any other service activities meant to you.
The New Orleans trip really opened my eyes to how privileged we are. Yes, there are kids at CA on financial aid scholarship and different demographics are represented, but in New Orleans there weren’t any prep schools. There were a bunch of broken-down buildings, and that really made me think. The most amazing thing to me was some people’s ability to hope. Katrina took many people’s lives and homes with her, and there were those who let that despair show in their faces. However, there were also the men and women and children who were still able to smile, to come and greet us, and to make the best of their situation. I came across a quote graffiti-ed on a wall somewhere in Mississippi that I think really said it all: “It is when you lose everything that you are able to do anything.”
How do you juggle all your activities and CA’s rigorous academic workload?
I wish the answer were that I have a time-turner like Hermione’s that I can use to turn back time so I can fit everything into my day. Alas, CA is not a school of witchcraft and wizardry, and I do not have magic on my side. Some days it feels like I’ll never have a free moment, and some days I just can’t seem to pass the hours. I guess the hardest part about balancing my workload at CA is knowing when to stop. There are so many great things to get involved with: interesting electives, art classes, sports, theatre, clubs, and leadership positions. I’ve had trouble narrowing down my activities, so sometimes I overfill my plate. I guess my secret is increments. I do everything I need to do in increments. It’s rare I’ll finish an assignment in one sitting; it’s fifteen minutes of reading here and twenty minutes working on problems there. I also wake up really early, and I’ve been doing so since I’ve been a kid. I work really well in the morning, so if I’m extremely pressed for time I’ll just get up early to finish an assignment. There’s such an advantage to waking up early—I always have a head start on the day, and it’s quite refreshing for me. Another key to my “success” is the CA planner. That little green book is my life. I have homework, games, practices, tests, papers, meetings, birthdays, to-do lists, and everything else under the sun written in there. If I lose track of my planner, I’m lost. It helps me keep track of my life, and somehow I make it through.
How has the value CA places on a sense of humor affected your time here?
I like to think of myself as a moderately funny person, or maybe people laugh at me because they pity me. Anyway, there’s always an opportunity to laugh at CA, whether it be at myself, a friend, or even a teacher. It’s great that humor lightens the atmosphere because sometimes I forget to not take myself so seriously. CA is a fun place to be, no questions asked. I look forward to announcements twice a week because there is always the promise of a house parent dressed as Little Orphan Annie or maybe a freestyle rap from a junior begging for class rings. Most of the teachers at CA have a great sense of humor, too. My chem teacher is full of those jokes that are only funny because they’re horrible puns. His favorite is, “Data? I don’t even know her!” Humor has made life that much less stressful.
What did CA’s environment allow you to do that you might not have done at another school?
Common trust is an integral part of the community, and CA would be a different place without it. However, I think it’s really the people at CA who put so much into making common trust work who give CA its special qualities. The environment at CA has allowed me to feel like an equal to the adults around me, while maintaining my respect for them. Completely unrelated to common trust, CA has allowed me to explore so many things. For each failed attempt at a new thing, there have been jewels. I tried painting freshman year and failed miserably, but the next semester I found ceramics, something that has grown to be one of my favorite pastimes. I played on the tennis team freshman year and realized I didn’t like it as much in a competitive setting, but this year I joined the Ultimate Frisbee team. If you haven’t ever played Ultimate Frisbee, I suggest you start now. It’s a laidback game, easy to learn, and so much fun. I’ve broadened my horizons at CA, found my likes and dislikes, my shortcomings and my talents.
Interests and activities:
Field hockey, basketball, Ultimate Frisbee, tennis, ceramics, photography, reading, movies, sailing, acting
