SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 2017
THE DARTMOUTH COMMENCEMENT & REUNION
PAGE 15
THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR Staff ANNIE MA ’17
THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR Staff PRIYA RAMAIAH ’17
A Sense of Place
self™
The details are what make a place memorable.
Whatever that means to you.
I’ve only abused my press credentials of people who spend time making statistics once to get into an event. The night before memes instead of doing their statistics the 2016 election, then-President Barack problem sets, who sometimes sleep through Obama was stumping for Hillary Clinton at lunch plans and who often make mistakes. the University of New Hampshire. After a We’re told from matriculation that we’re the lost ZipCard, a 3 a.m. Enterprise car rental, best and the brightest, the future leaders, a 7 a.m. wakeup and a two-hour drive, and when we screw up, hey, at least we’re Priya and I made it to the press line — two at Dartmouth. But I bristle at the idea senior editors downgraded to reporter and that just being here makes us better than photographer for the day. everyone who is not. Some of us have I hadn’t taken news photos in over a year, done exceptional things, but I haven’t been and never for an event of this scale. Too many constantly impressed by the 20-somethings variables have to align for a good photo — trying to make it from day to day — myself lighting, timing, angle, shutter speed — and included. in that crowded stadium I felt so small. The Too often, I think we treat being here as a first black president campaigning for the first golden ticket without questioning where it’s woman to be nominated by a major party, the meant to take us. And ultimately, I think that first woman who might be president — how reverence obscures the fact that Dartmouth could I possibly fit that narrative into a 4 by can be a place that grinds you down. For 6 frame? all that I’ve loved about Dartmouth, there My photo editor at the Pittsburgh Post- are times where I’ve been made to feel like Gazette called that elusive ideal a “sense I’ll never quite be welcome here. It’s where of place.” It means someone told me getting there early there were too many “To be critical of an institution and staying late to Asians in their Greek capture the people doesn’t mean I love it any less— house, or called me and their relationship it means that I hope that it a racial slur at Pine. to the place they where, as an chooses to grow out of its flaws, It’s are in. The best editor of this paper, photos tell a story just like I’ve had to in my time I’ve had to draw the without words, and here.” line on free speech that means looking versus hate speech beyond the spectacle and saw the cruelty to show how we arrived here in the first place. members of this community only exhibit In photography, an eye for that complexity behind online anonymity. To be critical of becomes second nature with practice. At the an institution doesn’t mean I love it any Clinton rally, I found it in the women who less — it means that I hope that it chooses brought their sons as well as their campaign to grow out of its flaws, just like I’ve had to signs, the teenagers that whipped out their in my time here. smartphones once Obama took the stage, Recently, my friend Rachel asked me if I the section so carefully set aside with a sign ever regretted coming here. I don’t. On par, language interpreter to make the event as I’ve had a wonderful time with wonderful inclusive as possible. “Stronger together,” people. Besides, in broad strokes, my growing captured in visuals. up to 22 and finishing college would have I’ve found myself thinking about my been the same in any place. editor’s advice more often as four years at “Right,” she said. “But in any other place, Dartmouth begin to wind down. Here, I find you wouldn’t have met me.” it hard to grasp my own sense of place — how In the moment, I laughed and said I would did I end up here, and who have I become? have met someone else who would have been I’ve smiled and nodded and laughed through like her, but different. A sense of place has so many alumni telling me how Dartmouth taught me, above all, that Dartmouth is just will shape me, but even now, days before a place. Commencement, I’m still not sure what that But the thing is, I wouldn’t trade my Rachel means. for anyone else. And there’s something Undeniably, this about the specificity, is an exceptional “Maybe I would have ended up the ups and downs place. It’s where I that are unique to learned to ask big the same person in any other the details of being questions and to be place, but I’m glad I did it here. I here. Long nights in critical of answers wouldn’t trade the details here Robinson Hall for that come too easily. the paper, lazy days It’s where I’ve found a for anything else.” by the Connecticut love for telling stories River, unplanned — through photos, chats with professors through data, through the classic archetype in Silsby Hall — this may all just be a place, of being the annoying reporter. Here, I’ve but it’s where this all happened to me. Maybe met people who’ve changed the way I think, I would have ended up the same person in who’ve let me cry through some of my worst any other place, but I’m glad I did it here. moments, and who have been forgiving as I grew through my flaws. Annie Ma ’17 is a former executive editor of This is also an ordinary place. It’s full The Dartmouth.
On a grim morning at Starbucks, I what I saw as a gross misperception, but she became suddenly and profoundly conscious didn’t know me—she was seeing my self™. that I may never again be surrounded by This varnish buffed away my encyclopedic as many talented recall of uncool people I am here at “If our personalities are who Pokémon trivia and Dartmouth. Where my unease at parties we are when we are with else, I wondered as along with my acne I looked around at other people, then this self™ is scars. It can make my c o m p a n i o n s, much more a reflection of our you just palatable will I be sitting enough, a filtering w i t h a s p i r i n g audience—of college—than of that lubricates p l a y w r i g h t s , us.” social interactions political theorists as effortlessly as it and geoscientists all settles upon you like at the same time? a mask in a way you Almost as soon as this thought crossed can never admit. How wild it is to realize my mind, I clicked out of the paper I was that everybody around you might also be working on and added a sandalwood candle wearing one. emblazoned with an Edgar Allen Poe quote If our personalities are who we are when to my Amazon Prime cart. Bittersweet we are with other people, then this self™ is rumination: successfully dodged. All we much more a reflection of our audience—of ever see or seem is but a dream within a college—than of us. Now that this audience dream—at least, that’s what my new candle of talented peers is disbanding, we are left says. to wonder who we are without the people Online shopping habits notwithstanding, we have surrounded ourselves with who in four years I’ve come to realize that, in propped us up. Without an audience, for our ceaseless quest for achievement, we whom are we doing what we’re doing? The deliberately avoid looking inward. It is far problem is that introspection —what have easier to click “add to cart,” walk a little I done? who have I become? am I happy? faster or generally move forward on some —is excruciating, and these questions don’t scale of progress lend themselves to than it is to reflect. clever solutions or “As we check items off to-do “I hate it when technical mastery. my Apple Watch lists and draft cover letters on When it comes to tells me to breathe the path to accomplishment, it looking inward, deeply for one you can’t test your minute when I’m becomes easier and easier to data for statistical in the middle of put off any meaningful personal significance and call something,” a friend inquiry.” it meaningful. once complained to Questioning me here. “I don’t the self™ means have time for that!” troubling illusions. As we check items It means poking at off to-do lists and pixels and hitting draft cover letters n e r v e s . We ’ r e on the path to accomplishment, it becomes leaving now, and the progress checkpoints easier and easier to put off any meaningful that drove us to and through here have personal inquiry. Instead of self-reflection, in many ways stopped making sense. we craft our self™—a curated medley of Understanding ourselves as bundles of Instagram posts, demographic banalities, complexities is a lifelong project, and major and minor though this might c o m b i n a t i o n s , “We hug each other in keep you awake at all reeled off night, it might also our matching robes at with practiced keep you alive— Commencement, but our names and I don’t mean a nonchalance. Two terms ago are read one by one. There is no ventilated sack of and two terms into high-salaried flesh my editorship at shortage of challenges to face bu t re a l l y, t r u l y The D, I struck up after graduation; maybe the first alive, whatever that a conversation with one should be our selves.” means to you. a fellow editor in the We hug office for the first each other in our time. We worked matching robes at different sections commencement, and passed each other frequently, and after but our names are read one by one. There talking for nearly an hour during a lull in is no shortage of challenges to face after production activity, we both wondered graduation; maybe the first one should be aloud why we hadn’t hit it off sooner. I had our selves. always found her intimidating, I confessed. She had thought I was too put-together to Priya Ramaiah ’17 is a former managing editor be approachable. I couldn’t stop laughing at of The Dartmouth.