Dance Concert embodies the Milton experience for me.  At many schools, it is rare that the plays and concerts have audience numbers equal to or surpassing football and soccer games. For the Milton Academy Dance Concert, tickets sell out within minutes of going on sale. People line up hours ahead of the doors opening for good seats, and students and faculty bring flowers and make signs for students. Dance Concert is a pride-filled part of Milton Academy, from the faculty members in charge, to student choreographers and dancers, to the students who manage to find seats for all three nights–support is found in surplus here.

Snow days connect the Milton Boarding community like no other day on the calendar, bringing us closer through snow shenanigans outside and watching movies inside. Snow days are some of my most fond memories of Milton.

The class places a heavy emphasis on current events. Throughout the year, students keep a journal where we write summaries of current events and relate them to economics. I enjoy this assignment because it helps me understand the day-to-day implications of subjects I am studying. After our teacher collects them, he shares some of the best entries and I get to hear my friends’ takes on lots of crazy issues. At Milton, it is not unusual for debates to spill out of the classroom and into our free time. I have enjoyed many exciting and respectful debates about current events and their implications as a result of this project.

I also enjoy the class because it arms me with knowledge that helps me put lots of issues in perspective, especially ones that are constantly in the news. For example, after learning in depth about GDP, unemployment, and inflation (don’t worry if you don’t know what these mean, you can always take this class!) I feel more comfortable when reading or talking about them. I am excited for the rest of the semester!

Tis caroling season! Everyone is bloated after the annual boarder dinner. This year there was roast beef accompanied by various a cappella groups singing everything from archaic hymns to Lady Gaga. The mood is always festive, the food is always good, and the boarder unity is unparalleled.

Afterward, the girls get ready for a show of their lives and the boys get ready to impress. Every boys’ dorm wants to be the best at caroling. Each dorm’s list of songs is a classified secret until the big night, where 160 boys in 40-man prides roam across the snow-covered campus, performing for the four girls dorms as well as for our headmaster Mr Bland.

The boys sing loud and with passion. They are not necessarily the next American Idols, but the togetherness and joy are palpable. Each dorm performs four or five different songs every year, as well as some traditional house songs. For my dorm, Wolcott House, we do “Wolcott House is Coming to Town,” a parody of the much loved Christmas tune, and “Happy Birthday Jesus” with a dorm mate dressed in a white toga.

Caroling is always a time to look forward to; I certainly do. As a senior, I just caroled at Milton for the last time and these memories will stay with me forever. Caroling is the epitome of boarder life–the affection and passion with each other and for each other.

The rules of Gotcha are a bit complicated, but basically to “get” his or her target, the student must tag them, say “gotcha” and ask for the target of the person he or she has just tagged. This person will become the tagger’s next target. There is no tagging is classrooms, dining halls, computer labs, the library, on Centre Street, the admissions hallway, or when a student is giving a tour.

I pride myself in having survived the first four days of Gotcha this year, especially because I made it through three different taggers and escaping them involved taking alternate classroom exits and staircases. Also, I tagged two people out in comparison to the zero tags I had last year (still nothing compared to the taggers who are still in the game with around 18 tags!). In the end, getting tagged was unavoidable as the sister of my tagger was in one of my classes and told him when we had class. I left my third period micro class on Friday only to be greeted by, “Sorry Kate… Gotcha!” On the bright side, now that I’m out and no longer paranoid, I can walk to my classes at a regular pace and can relive my Gotcha experience vicariously through my friends by helping them get their targets. Overall, my Gotcha experience this year has been quite a success and it is now one of my favorite Milton traditions!

But what I want to talk to you about is Boarder dinner, which is the biggest event for the boarding community as a whole. All of the boarders walk over to the Robert Saltonstall Gym (RSG) the night before winter break for a themed dinner. For example, last year it was a Harry Potter theme, with our version of butter beer, and each brother-sister dorm represented one of the Harry Potter houses. The event is formal, so we wear chapel dress. The food is always superb as well, with a juicy tenderloin or steak, glazed vegetables, a pasta dish, and a specialty salad. After dinner, we go back to our respective dorm, to start caroling to other dorms (more on caroling will come later). After caroling, we return to our original dorms for Secret Santa presents. In Goodwin, our student-elected dorm monitor dresses up in the dorm’s Santa suit, and one by one, passes out the Secret Santa presents. We choose names out of a hat, and buy or make presents for that person, staying under the $20 limit we set. Once everyone receives their presents, we all go to sleep.

The idea of being disconnected from constantly texting, calling and checking Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is daunting, but proved to be surprisingly easy and refreshing. I left my phone in my room in the morning and left for classes as usual. Although I felt myself subconsciously reaching for my phone throughout the day, I realized that there was nothing of utter importance that I needed to check. I only wanted to hold my iPhone in my hand because of some strange dependence I had developed for it. The Milton campus felt more vibrant and connected; everyone was greeting friends and strangers in the hallways and students were loudly conversing in the student center, laughing at real jokes instead of a funny video or a Tweet. People were living in the moment and realizing that they did not need their phones to have a conversation with friends or find someone to eat with in the dining hall. The “TextLess” days are forcing students to think before reaching for their phones and are creating a safer, more connected environment.

Milton cross-country is not just about winning. Our team is successful because of the team chemistry and our fun traditions. One of our favorite traditions is Ruby Tuesday. All team members, even the coaches, are expected to wear something pink or red to practice. If someone does not wear pink, she has to wear either a sumo wrestling or a bacon suit for the warm-up loop. A couple weeks ago, our coach forgot to wear pink, so he had to run in the bacon suit, which was hilarious. The two coaches complete our team dynamic. They are so knowledgeable about the sport; yet, they know how to make practice fun. For one practice, we ran to the Ice Cream Smith and everyone on the team got ice cream. Cross-country has been such a big part of my life, and it is going to be sad in the fall months next year when I am not wearing pink every Tuesday.