The Dartmouth Mirror 04/24/15

MIRROR 04. 24.2015

Private?

Not for me|2

Fame in a small town|3

Medical leave|4-5

TTLG: Nicholas thyr ’17|8 Shuoqi Chen/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2// MIRROR

EDITOR’S NOTE The first week of a partnership is delicate. Our working relationship was almost shot when Maddie proposed running an entire article on Taylor Swift. Charlie disagreed so vehemently that for once in his life, he was incapable of emitting a single sound.

Later in the week, Charlie insisted that he would play “good cop” despite his deep-seated mean-spiritedness and general embrace of everything “bad.” Maddie, upon being asked to play “bad cop,” blitzed out during the weekly staff meeting “get here @now or we hate you!!!!” and promptly lost all credibility with Mirror writers and members of The Dartmouth senior staff. Her subsequent nervous giggles throughout the staff meeting could either have been interpreted as an attempt to redeem herself or the ravings of a lunatic.

Things smoothed over by mid-week. Maddie learned that if she doesn’t respond to Charlie’s texts and blitzes, he will continue to send texts and blitzes.

For his part, Charlie learned that he can too expect frequent over-communication. A choice example: Maddie responded to a blitz Charlie sent with, “Thanks for blitZing [sic]. I plan at being at ROBO [sic] from after 10As until we publish.”

She responded to her own blitz, “Are you there now?”

(Perhaps now would be a good time to note that it was 11:59 p.m. on a Wednesday.)

She re-replied, “///we good co editors” The final blitz: a kissy emoji.

(Within minutes, she replied to a different email with: “Ugh Charlie you are the besttt [sic].”)

Yet things weren’t always so calm. The two narrowly avoided tragedy once it was revealed that Charlie had triple clicked Maddie on Friendsy with no response.

Maddie said she doesn’t use the app, but that did little to ease Charlie’s niggling and persistent fear that he will die alone.

Perhaps these details are too private — but that is exactly the sort of question this issue of The Mirror raises. Here, Mirror writers take on the campus graveyard, students who lose privacy because they arrive in Hanover already famous and secret campus nooks. We also publish a deep investigation of medical and personal leave that shares the stories of students who took time away to heal.

Take a peek!

follow @thedmirror

MIRROR R MIRROR EDITORS MADDIE BROWN CHARLIE RAFKIN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF KATIE McKAY

PUBLISHER JUSTIN LEVINE

EXECUTIVE EDITORS LUKE McCANN JESSICA AVITABILE

I have a lot of opinions but want to keep my name private. What should I do?

Private? Not for me.

SPOTLIGHT

B y Lindsay keare

As someone who’s in her third year at the College, I like to think I know my way around the various buildings on campus pretty well.

The views from the top of Fairchild Hall are incredible. Thayer Dining Hall is beautiful and has the most delicious frozen yogurt on campus. The patio at the Top of the Hop is the underrated second cousin of the Collis porch.

The basement of the Fayerweather Halls is the best dorm basement unless you’re a freshman obsessed with The Cellar. The most wonderful thing about all these spaces is that they’re open to everyone. This week, though, in the interest of writing a story on privacy, I decided to get into some of the most guarded spaces on campus — the more intimidating the sign on the door, the better.

I started with some low-hanging fruit — the door marked “Private” in a pretty font on the second floor of the periodicals room. The door was unlocked and opening it only confirmed what I already knew — it’s a bathroom. The L-shaped room boasts high ceilings, a single toilet and its very own issue of LAV Notes.

According to numerous sources, the secondfloor periodicals bathroom offers one of the most ideal spots if you are looking for a little privacy.

With the first door opened and its secrets revealed, I expected that my challenge of gaining entry into private rooms would get progressively harder moving forward. The opposite, however, proved to be true, and it proved to be quite simple to gain access. I sauntered into the math student and faculty lounge on the top floor of Kemeny Hall like I owned the place, slightly disappointed by how easy it was to go unnoticed and wishing I’d brought my backpack with me so I could stay there longer and study.

From there, my success at gaining entry into off-limit locations took a downward turn. The top floor of Steele Hall has always intrigued me from the outside — it looks like there could be a cool glass room up there — but alas my trek to the top was futile as both doors were locked and the elevator required a key. I heard some loud noises coming from the other side of the door. If this were Hogwarts, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a three-headed dog back there. I incurred some sketchy looks from what appeared to be a TA — it must be that obvious that the hard sciences and I are not the best of friends. What I did find, however, were some cute post-it notes of people bonding over their shared love of the unreal view of the sunset from that spot.

Even after trolling the hallways and accosting all that passed by, I was unable to find anyone who was able to give me access to this elevator.

Perhaps if you continue reading The Mirror, you may someday read about my successful quest to reach the top floor of Steele. It’s of-

How can I obtain private information?

ficially on my bucket list to get up there.

After some independent sleuthing, I decided to call in the big guns and start going into spaces that I’d have to assemble an Ocean’s Thirteenesque scheme to enter on my own. My first stop was the Rauner Special Collections Library. I’d been tipped off by a friend that Rauner Annex connects to Baker-Berry Library — who knew? I followed special collections librarian Jay Satterfield down several flights of stairs and through multiple ID- and passcode-protected doors into the depths of the stacks, which house thousands of books. We walked through a few more passages — and voilà! We found ourselves in the Orozco mural room. I kept musing to Satterfield that it is “sooo cool” that there is a tunnel that connects Rauner to Baker-Berry. This would definitely be my new favorite warmcut if it didn’t require passcodes and didn’t take about five times as long as simply walking outside would.

Still, I don’t discriminate warmcuts. Despite my enthusiasm, Satterfield insisted that I do not sensationalize the tunnel as it is merely a storage space.

And thieves beware: the collection is randomized on the shelves, so “if you did have ill intent, you’d never be able to find the thing you wanted,” Satterfield said.

Next I wandered to through the Hopkins Center, where I found perhaps the most intimidating sign yet. The sign on the door of Moore Theater read, “Stage Right — Open Slowly — Restricted Area: Authorized Employees Only.” Yikes. Being the fearless investigative journalist that I am, however, I was not discouraged and soon convinced someone to let me in, finding myself backstage of Moore Theater. I was amazed by the immense size of the stage and how little of it is actually seen by the audience when productions take place.

There, I bumped into director of this spring’s production of “Merrily We Roll Along” (1981) Max Gottschall ’15, who acknowledged that productions tend to use very little of the stage.

“What you want to create is the illusion of privacy because you’re looking through the fourth wall into someone’s private life,” Gottschall said in reference to the more intimate environment this creates. If the stage is too big, it’s hard for the audience to connect. He also described the private world that exists backstage during a production.

“I once had to bite a blood capsule and then run offstage,” Gotsschall said. “This poor girl, her job was to be my spit catcher.”

Satisfied with this trip, I headed to the last stop on my journey — the still life library in the Black Family Visual Arts Center. A friend of mine who often spent much of her time at the VAC once told me about their locked still-life closets, which are filled with all the stuff you paint or draw, like fruit, books and, of course, dead animals. I found the two doors to the still life library on the third floor. The first closet was reminiscent of a small boutique, full of color-coded objects — your typical still life fanfare. The second, in contrast, was mostly white objects and housed a few surprising guests, like little boxes of preserved beetles and dusty white books.

“We have a lot of skeletons in our closet,” studio art intern Julian MacMillan ’14 said in reference to the fake corpses that are available to paint or draw. I wouldn’t want to get stuck in there playing hide-and-seek.

Although we at The Mirror don’t condone breaking and entering, it can at times lead to seeing the College in a whole new light. You never know what could be behind that random door you’ve always wondered about. I’d say take a peek, maybe you’ll find a bathroom, a new study spot or even a three-headed dog.

Daniel Berthe/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Lindsay Keare ’16 discovered a hidden passage between Rauner and Baker-Berry Libraries.

What should I keep private during introductions?

This is easy-peasy to do at Dartmouth.

Figure out if they are an athlete or not. If so, Nice to meet you. Tell me your name, roster stalk and then read their personal your hometown, your favorite color and Fortunately (or unfortunately) it is very bio. If not, you must dig deeper. Try to your social security number. Just kidding. easy to remain anonymous at Dartmouth. overhear their name. Search it up on Please don’t tell anyone your social security Hit up Bored at Baker or Yik Yak and spill DND. Facebook stalk their friends number. Other information you should your heart out. Troll The Dartmouth’s if you happen to recognize any of probably keep private: your DA$H number, your website and comment on all of the articles. them. Ask around. Find out their SAT scores, your blood type — you never know I suggest you give your cyberself a secret major or campus involvements who might kidnap you to harvest your organs — or identity. Once upon a time Dr. Seuss was and look them up on Friendsy. the fact that you yourself are an organ thief.

Theodore Geisel.

Happy lurking, y’all.

Fame in a Small Town SPOTLIGHT

B y Maggie baird

On a Friday night in the fall of 2012, many of the incoming freshmen were taking their first stroll down Webster Avenue, taking their turns checking out the Greek houses during their introduction to campus. For some, it was an exhilarating time — maybe a little scary.

Yet the first few weeks of college are a time for reinvention, and it’s no secret that many students enjoy the opportunity to create new identities for themselves after stepping off the coach.

Daniela Pelaez ’16 had no such option.

Pelaez, an undocumented immigrant, made national news as a high school student when her school held protests for immigration rights after she was served with a deportation order. After becoming more active in the protests and eventually lobbying U.S. senators and meeting with several legislators, Pelaez said she became “the poster child of the DREAM Act.” Before she had arrived on campus, The Dartmouth ran articles covering the path she had taken to come to the College and several national media outlets followed suit.

By the time she began attending classes her freshman fall, many students already knew her name and story.

Although she calls her stor y “good conversation filler,” her acclaim around campus blocked her from enjoying the freedom of anonymity that most students enjoy upon setting foot in Hanover. When drunk students approached on the weekends and already knew who she was, Pelaez said she began to doubt whether she should participate in mainstream campus social life.

Sociology professor Janice McCabe, whose research addresses college friendships, distinguished “visibility” — what Pelaez experienced — and “popularity,” and said that being well-known does not mean you are inherently well liked.

She said that greater recognition often comes with preconceptions of how you should behave and appear.

For her part, Pelaez felt that

pressure — and she noted that many of her peers frequently locked her into an activist persona. Particularly during the most turbulent days of the DREAM act, acquaintances, she said, would frequently approach her to ask her opinion on the latest nuance in immigration law.

“You have no privacy,” Pelaez said. “Anyone can Google you.”

While she said she has not let it shape her identity, Pelaez said she doesn’t always enjoy the immediate connection her name brings to mind.

“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t tied to it,” she said.

Pelaez, however, is not alone in ar riving on campus with a somewhat public persona, and I contacted a number of students who struggled with anonymity upon arriving. Students already cast in the public eye, however, are reticent to speak with a newspaper, perhaps understandably so. After all, to some extent newspapers require people to sacrifice privacy to print each day.

Emily Choate ’18 is a distant niece of Rufus Choate — yes, the Choate after whom the residential cluster and street were named. Her name follows her around campus, and it lends her a certain sense of pride — she is one of the first members in her family to attend since Rufus, she said.

Still, the family name carries a certain weight on campus. Most people around her do not know the connection, and she tries to keep it that way.

“I don’t let it define me,” Choate said, echoing Pelaez.

Although she does not consider her family to have ties to the College — Rufus Choate died more than 155 years ago — people have made assumptions about what the name implies about her character.

One student openly asserted that her link to Rufus Choate aided her application prospects.

“It did undermine all the hard work I did to get here,” she said.

McCabe noted that visible students might be easier to target.

More visible people’s “behaviors

MIRROR //3

THE D RUNS THE

NUMBERS 14

Cherry Huang/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The number of private colleges in New Hampshire

Daniela Pelaez ’16 was a prominent immigration advocate before matriculating. and motivations are criticized in ways that others’ aren’t,” she said.

Speaking of Choates (that’s a hard “c”), Marcus Reid ’18 — you may know him by his rap name Ill Fayze — has dealt with his fair share of negativity. Before he matriculated, he published a video on Youtube of him rapping about the McLaughlin Residential Cluster that circulated around campus before he arrived. He had to fend off a great deal of negativity in online comments. When he arrived on campus for trips, he lip-synced his rap with H-Croo on Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trips.

For many of us, freshman fall is a difficult enough time without having your reputation set. What is remarkable about these three students is they grew from the negativity.

Pelaez read hurtful comments on newspaper articles, including some on The Dartmouth’s website, where she said commenters wrote that she took a spot from a family member.

Pelaez, however, said she has grown from this negativity. Although she originally intended only to take science classes and complete pre-medical requirements, her situation inspired her to study anthropology.

Pelaez has also made friendships in places she did not expect, and she has enjoyed conversations with people, including more conservative people with different opinions than her own, that she did not expect.

Reid was not so lucky. The new

friends he made were not always so genuine.

“They didn’t look to explore beyond Ill Fayze,” he said.

Although he is happy with his decisions and music career, he believes he might have found an easier time building strong connections with other students without his persona. Although he did not cite a specific negative incident, he said that the small campus made it easy to learn about people’s negative comments.

Reid is now more cautious about what he posts online, but he stays true to himself.

“They’re going to be looking to criticize you in anyway possible...

I’m not going to hold back my beliefs,” he said.

McCabe stressed that being well-known brings both benefits and advantages.

“It could have both benefits in that it could make it easier to reach out…it could also pose a lot of challenges because people may think they know who you are ahead of time and not get to know you as a person,” she said.

Choate, Reid and Pelaez were all aware of the mixed bag that their campus acclaim presented.

Most of us enjoy at least some privacy at the College. We are not tied to a name, a past or a YouTube video. Others don’t have that freedom. It is difficult to have privacy when people associate ideas with your name.

As Pelaez puts it, there’s a “third eye gazing at you constantly wherever you go.”

$121,893 The median base salar y of Tuck Business School graduates who pursue private equity and venture capital

1,367

The number of people buried in the Dartmouth College Cemetery

18 The number of holes at the semi-private Hanover Country Club

$100 million

The largest anonymous donation in College history

Daniel Berthe/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Marcus Reid ’18 encountered negativity after releasing a rap video.

Cherry Huang/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Emily Choate ’18 has a last name that recalls one of the most illustrious figures in College history.

MIRROR //5

4// MIRROR

“Graduating in Your Class Is Overrated.”

Some students grappling with health issues choose to take medical or personal leave.

SPOTLIGHT

B y Kalie Marsicano

It could take 10 weeks, six months, maybe two years. That’s the thing with mental health — you can never predict with certainty when, how or even if healing will take place. Becoming mentally well does not follow a schedule or a routine, and it certainly does not abide by the D-Plan. So when students are dealing with mental health issues so critical that their academic, professional or social lives become compromised, they are sometimes faced with a choice: stay on campus or leave.

That decision, however, is not so simple. A woman in the Class of 2015 described it like this: when you’re running the mile, sometimes it’s easier to sprint through to the end and collapse than it is to stop and start up again. That’s how she explained her decision to push through her time at the College without pause, despite feeling, at two distinct points during her undergraduate experience, as if taking some time away from campus and classes would have seriously benefitted her personal health, as well as that of her family. She chose to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of the topic.

The first time the student contemplated taking medical leave, it was to deal with severe anxiety and depression in the wake of coming out to her parents, who consequently cut off communication with her and stopped paying her tuition. In this situation, a combination of financial and logistical hurdles prohibited her from taking time away.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” she said. “This was the only place I could stay for a long period of time, and it didn’t cost me money to live here because I could take out loans.”

Instead, she elected to take a two-course term and attend regular counseling. The solution was not a permanent one, and the student again considered taking time away from campus this past fall due to medical complications. This time, though, the medical issues were not her own.

Rather, her father was diagnosed with cancer in the last week of July and could have benefitted from having her at home as a caregiver. After talking with her dean and evaluating options, the student realized that taking time away might compromise her financial aid award. Moreover, the research funding the College provided her was contingent on her completing her thesis by this spring, which she could not possibly accomplish if she had taken a medical leave.

With a different financial situation, she said, she would have potentially taken a medical leave sophomore year and senior year as well. The reality for her, though, is that most decisions she makes in regard to Dartmouth are driven by the availability of funding, loans or financial aid. Fortunately, this student was able to envision herself pushing through these tougher terms and will ultimately graduate on time.

“I could see myself working through the issues,” she said. “I felt that I had a network to help me make it through.”

While grappling with issues of mental wellbeing may be a common motivator for spending time away from Hanover, medical leaves are not limited to purely psychological causes. What happens, for example, when you absolutely cannot keep sprinting through the end of a term — when you have twisted an ankle or broken a leg and continuing to move forward means putting yourself at increased risk of harm? In circumstances like these, a medical leave might just be the best choice.

Assistant dean and director of case management Kristi Clemens defines medical leave as the

“process by which a student can take a period of time away from their classes, without any negative impact.” Students might take medical leave for either physical or mental health conditions, or a combination of the two. By nature, physical injuries and illnesses are often more visible than those relating to a student’s wellbeing. Societal attitudes and stigmas around admitting to suffering from a mental illness often make these issues difficult or uncomfortable for students to share, further pushing them from the public dialogue. This article, in an attempt to draw out these often over-looked or silenced narratives, will focus on students who chose to leave the College for a short time due to mental health conditions.

A student can elect to go on medical leave at any time during the term, at which point their coursework for that term disappears from their transcript. The leave can be extended indefinitely and has no minimum length requirement, though the College generally recommends at least three terms off for mental health leaves.

The rationale, Clemens said, is to give students a chance to show a “period of stability” and demonstrate their readiness to return to campus.

Moreover, given how short each term is, three terms offers an ideal window for students to settle back at home, seek the treatment they need, establish a routine and prepare for the transition back to Dartmouth, she said.

Counseling and human development director Heather Earle said between 10 and 15 students take medical leaves related to mental illness every term. Students most often do so due to depression and anxiety, but eating disorders as well as alcohol and other drug abuse also occasionally prompt students to take medical leave.

Typically, Earle said, students pursue medical leave because the mental health issues they are experiencing can cripple their ability to perform well academically. In cases like these, students’ grades — not necessarily their mental wellness — drive them to seek support from the College or their deans to reach out to them. Students who take medical leave may first meet with their dean to discuss academic performance then come to identify mental health as their primary hurdle.

That’s how it unfolded for Charli Fool BearVetter ’15, who took a seven-term medical leave beginning in the winter of 2012. Fool Bear-Vetter had struggled with depression and anxiety since middle school, but “never really dealt with it,” she said. Once in college, though, the situation magnified to the point where even basic tasks became impossible.

“It was a huge hurdle in me — getting to class, leaving my room, eating,” Fool Bear-Vetter said. “Eventually, I just didn’t have any credits because I wasn’t passing my classes so my dean suggested that I take medical leave.”

For some students, the process unfolds in the reverse order. They might be working with a therapist at Dick’s House or in the community for mental health concerns already and only connect with their dean when they can no longer keep up with classes.

Sebastian Turner ’18 first checked in at Dick’s House after struggling with motivation issues.

After consulting with both a therapist and his dean, Turner identified depression as the root of the problem and left campus toward the end of the winter term on mental health medical leave with the intention to return in three terms’ time.

As of now, his plan is to hold a job until the fall and then travel, ideally to Europe, he said.

The need for medical leave, however, does not always manifest itself as a downturn in academic performance. Especially at Dartmouth, Earle said, it’s quite possible for students to be coping with severe mental health issues and still perform well on paper. In cases like these, the academic arena may not be the first place in which indicators of a deeper problem crop up.

Instead, Earle said this often comes out in the student’s social life.

No matter what events or changes in a student’s behavior raise concerns, though, what’s most important is each individual’s willingness and readiness to seek help. If a student does not want to get better or recognize the existence of a problem, it does not make sense for them to

last December. It strained my most intimate relationships, harmed my physical health and sent me into spirals of depression and despair.

Sophomore fall, I started seeing a therapist in town and a nutritionist at Dick’s House regularly. Meeting with them helped some, but they ultimately concluded that outpatient treatment was not a sufficient level of care for my condition. Over winter interim, I reluctantly agreed to receive more intensive care at a residential eating disorder treatment center in Miami, my hometown.

The first day I arrived, a fellow patient and college student warned me, within five minutes of our meeting, never to let the College know what I was up to.

came back to campus feeling a great deal better than I had in the fall and more receptive to the support my outpatient team had to offer. Even now, though, I cannot help but wonder how my situation might have changed had I known that options were available to me, and that the choice to leave or stay would have been mine.

All I had to work from was the myth of forced medical leave.

When I spoke to Clemens, she acknowledged that such a narrative persists, but pointed out that in her six years at the College, she cannot recall an instance of involuntary medical withdrawal.

Involuntary withdrawal, Earle added, would only be enacted if a student were engaging in behavior that could be harmful to the community or to that individual.

“I think sometimes students say that to save a little face,” Clemens said. “And maybe they feel like that’s the only option.”

When it comes down to failing a term due to depression hindering a student’s ability to attend or withdrawing from the term on medical leave, it might not feel like they have much of a choice, Clemens explained. Even in these cases,

and his academic performance. Even more than grades and social considerations, what prompted Figgins to take leave was the idea of truly being able to be himself, which he knew would require time away from campus.

“I knew that if I chose to be, I could be an openly gay Christian man and truly embrace that,” Figgins said. “A family environment was the best environment to start the process of healing from the emotional pain and the hurt that I went through as a gay Christian being raised in a traditional Southern Baptist denomination.”

When students leave campus, that conversation with the College doesn’t stop. Even before leaving, they work out a plan with Dick’s House to make the best use of their time away, Earle said.

Dick’s House supports students in finding local therapists and other treatment, navigating their insurance and establishing a healthy routine for their time off campus. Meanwhile, deans keep in touch, remind students of deadlines and facilitate the readmissions process.

With the support of counselors at Dick’s House, Figgins built a personalized plan for his time away from campus. This included working

Ali Dalton/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

take time away to heal, Clemens said. Although the College does have an involuntary medical leave policy, she added, it rarely gets used.

“We rarely, if ever, force students [to take medical leaves],” Clemens said. “When you are talking with someone about getting some help and taking some time to get better, it makes so much more sense for that student to be on board.”

This comment might have more than a few readers raising an eyebrow. After all, it’s not uncommon to hear students who have taken medical leave explain that the College “forced” them to go. In fact, a fear of involuntary medical withdrawal might be exactly what deters students from communicating with the College.

At least for me, this was exactly the case.

I have struggled for most of my life with an eating disorder but was in complete denial until

The College would force me to take a medical leave, she said — she had heard about that happening to other women here.

I was shocked by how abruptly the warning came, but it wasn’t the first I’d heard of forced medical leave. Her confirmation of my fears had me panicked — after all, I had only committed to being in treatment for the winter interim. I figured my only hope was to keep my situation completely private and take a standard leave term if I decided to extend my treatment. I did not disclose to friends, employers or anyone else on campus what was going on at the time — keeping my experience hidden from the College became my first priority.

Ultimately, the pressure I put on myself to follow my original D-Plan led me to return for winter term. Though I did not achieve full recovery during my short stint in treatment, I

however, the decision to take medical leave is always a conversation between students and the College, she said.

“I felt really pressured to take medical leave instead of taking whatever consequence I would have gotten for failing my classes,” Fool BearVetter said. “It felt really encouraged.”

Turner, on the other hand, saw the College’s willingness to facilitate the leave process as evidence of institutional support.

“It was actually really meaningful how the College was super supportive of medical leave,” he said. “It’s really easy, pretty fast to do — almost too easy.”

For Kevin Figgins ’16, a combination of social and academic issues made his need to take a medical leave apparent. Figgins’ anxiety and depression contributed to substance abuse, which ultimately impacted both his social life

for at least 20 hours each week, undergoing a psychiatric evaluation, meeting with a therapist weekly and even occasionally volunteering at a women’s shelter. Throughout all this, Figgins also found plenty of time for self-reflection. This enabled him to not only decide on a major, but also to figure out what he wanted to pursue beyond Dartmouth.

Coming back to campus “has been fabulous,” Figgins said. More self-assured and more confident than ever, he said he now feels able to build solid, authentic friendships.

“I don’t have a sense of hiding myself or any part of my identity,” he said.

Back on campus, Figgins said, he’ll continue to see a therapist, check in with his dean week and practice self-love and self-care.

During her time away, Fool Bear-Vetter took classes at a local community college and

worked at a gas station and as a nanny, on top of receiving occasional counseling and working through problems with her family. Her transition back to Dartmouth, however, didn’t go quite as smoothly as she might have hoped.

“Three weeks before I came back my brother passed away, and so that kind of derailed the progress I had made,” Fool Bear-Vetter said.

But, she said, dealing with the loss was easier after having the time away by preparing her to take care of herself and stay engaged.

The weirdest part about being back, Fool Bear-Vetter said, has been watching all her friends prepare to graduate knowing that she’ll be graduating with another, younger class. If she could do it over, she said, she wouldn’t have been gone for so long — instead, she would have taken only three terms away.

Even so, she said that she stands by her choice to take medical leave.

For the anonymous woman in the Class of 2015, “the idea of being a ’15 who didn’t graduate in 2015” helped deter her from taking a medical leave.

“The prospect of being that person and not being here with my cohort of graduates and just being labeled a ’15 that’s here after that — I just didn’t want that,” she said.

Interim Dean of the College Inge-Lise Ameer said that a unique pressure exists for students to graduate on time given that we identify by our class years. But, she added, students are increasingly taking extra time to graduate for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with medical leave. Because of this, she said, a traditional, four-year trajectory does not really exist anymore in higher education.

Some students, like Figgins, openly embrace changing their class-year identities.

“The fact that I’m a ’17 now is only enriching my time at Dartmouth,” Figgins said. “Don’t be afraid to take some time off and find yourself and figure things out. I think graduating in your class is overrated.”

Fool Bear-Vetter also said that more people could benefit from seeing medical leave as a viable option.

“At Dartmouth, people feel like they’re supposed to be 100 percent all the time,” she said.

She explained that medical leave for mental health is often stigmatized.

But, she added, “even if it is stigmatized for people around me, for me it’s important working at destigmatizing it.”

Still, accepting the reality of a medical leave requires not just flexibility from the College, but also from the student. For me, when it came time to decide whether I would leave treatment or diverge from my original D-Plan, I wasn’t willing to give up one off term — let alone prolong my graduation by an entire year. At the same time, some students like Figgins openly embrace changing their class-year identities.

After seeing mental health “become a bigger campus issue in a positive way,” Earle feels optimistic about changing perceptions toward medical leave and mental health concerns in general.

“I think we’re living in a society, more and more, that’s accepting of mental health issues,” she said.

Administrators, Clemens said, certainly recognize how debilitating mental health issues can be for students.

“If somebody is wanting to take the time off to get themselves in a healthier place, we want to enable and empower students to get better,” Clemens said.

That means discussing options, having open conversations and walking students through whatever steps they decide to take. Sometimes, however, students find that despite mental health issues, the best option for them is actually to take a personal leave.

Unlike a medical leave, which students can take as many times as they need, personal leave

can only be taken once. A personal leave enables students to withdraw from the term without any repercussions on their transcript and can last for as much or as little time as the student needs.

This policy is designed for those who might not feel like they need three full terms away from campus to heal or who are grappling with a medical issue that isn’t their own.

Diana Simpson ’16, for example, elected to take a personal leave this past winter. After falling physically ill multiple times, on top of struggling with her anxiety and depression, Simpson found out that her best friend had been contemplating suicide. At that point, she decided that staying enrolled was simply no longer possible for her.

Instead, she chose to take a personal leave so as to have more time and energy to focus on supporting her friend and promoting her own wellness.

Although Simpson formally withdrew Feb. 18, she began considering the option three weeks earlier.

“The reason I waited so long is that is that it gave me more leeway,” Simpson said. “As soon as you withdraw, you have to be out of your room within 48 hours.”

Delaying the decision enabled Simpson the time to work through the details with professors, explore other options and prepare her belongings for the move.

A female student in the Class of 2016, who chose to remain anonymous due to the personal nature of the topic, also took a personal leave this past winter in order to deal with severe clinical depression in the wake of her term studying abroad.

“I got back to campus and just wasn’t functioning,” she said. “I was super resistant to leaving, but it got to the point where I just couldn’t do the term.”

She considered taking a medical leave, but decided that she did not want to be gone for an entire year. Personal leave, she said, accommodated her need for a short break, but also granted her some flexibility, so that she could extend it if she did not feel ready to return to the College come spring.

Now she’s back, and “it’s awesome,” she said.

“It feels really good to be back in a better place and enjoying it again.”

If there’s anything these students’ experiences reveal, it’s the value of taking time away and working towards a healthier self. For the students I spoke to, that also translated to eventually returning to the College — but that isn’t always the case.

“I feel like movies give off this vibe that you need to drop out of college when you need to take time off, but it’s sometimes just really helpful to put yourself outside of the context of Dartmouth and figure out what part of Dartmouth is worth it to you,” Fool-Bear Vetter said. “Then you can come back. But if not, then you can go on a different road.”

But, Earle noted, a majority of students that take medical leave do return to campus when they’re in a healthy enough place to do so.

“In my experience, with those that don’t return, it’s because they decide that Dartmouth isn’t right for them,” Earle said. “They leave Dartmouth and enroll somewhere else and are successful in another college.”

In any case, the most important aspect of this process is prioritizing the health and wellbeing of the student in question — whether that means a one-term personal leave, an indefinite medical leave or a transfer to another college.

“Because life happens,” Clemens said. “You can’t be expected to push through, and be going to your three really tough classes, while you have some serious things going on that are preventing you from being successful.”

It’s not the choice for everyone. For some, though, taking a break to rest, hydrate and heal in the middle of that run might be just the thing they need in order to cross the finish line.

6// MIRROR

Through the Looking Glass: A Place Where I Can Rage Late Into the Weekend Column

B y NIcholas Thyr

Like many of us here, I rage ever y Saturday. Once 6 p.m. rolls around, I grab dinner with a couple of my friends and then head off for a series of escapades, often stretching into the wee hours of the night. In the interest of transparency, however, I should let you know it is not me, per se, who is raging, but rather my level 12 dwarf-barbarian — he wields a greathammer, name of Einar.

Einar Larssen, to be precise.

Perhaps I should digress a bit to explain, for the benefit of you unlucky souls who have not been inculcated in the mysteries of role-playing tabletop games, of which the ne plus ultra, the nonpareil is, without a doubt, Dungeons and Dragons. “Raging” is one of the core features of the barbarian class, and...

Wait. I’ve lost you, haven’t I? Don’t shake your head. I can see the glazed look in your eyes, even from my picture here, on page six of this magazine.

So why don’t we begin again?

For a long time as a kid, I told myself that I was most certainly not a nerd — this despite my casual usage of “juxtaposition” in normal conversation, my brown laceless leather clogs that I wore ever y day to school and that, when my friends came over, our preferred activity was to read books, silently, sitting next to each other.

The upshot of this was that I refused to touch D&D with a 10-foot pole, certain that its mere presence would tarnish me forever with the black brush of nerdiness.

(I believe the official term for my state in those years is “denial.”)

Fast for ward a couple of years. I am with my same friend (let’s call him “Patrick”), sitting in his same bedroom, reading sideby-side, and I finish my book. It is ninth grade, I do not have my license and the temperature is 28 degrees below zero, so I am there until the indefinite hour when my father finishes putting people to sleep. (He’s an anesthesiologist.) I wander over to his bookshelf, pry out a promising-looking book and start flipping through it. It is interesting — fascinating, in fact, detailing the sundr y adventures of a certain Tanis Half-Elven and his motley and ragtag band of adventurers.

An inveterate, Hoover-like reader of fantasy (cf.: “denial,” above), I instantly fell in love with this world — Krynn, as it is known, with its three moons, its absent gods and the vast, blood-red whirlpool swirling, swirling in the north — and I resolved, then and there, to read ever y single book in the series.

When I asked to bring the book (and the other two on the shelf) home, Patrick looked at me with an odd gleam. “Finally,” he said without elaborating. I shrugged, went home and powered through the entire series over the next week.

When we met again, at the same time to do the same age-old routine, I returned the books, mentioned how much I liked them and Patrick said, “Yeah. So that’s all D&D. Wanna make a character?”

Dear reader, how was I to say no? *** So here I am, deep into a Saturday night, infuriated, berserk and on fire. This, alas, is a common occurrence — in the records of the current campaign, I am in the pole position for “number of times immolated.”

The reason for the current conflagration?

There are a lot of spiders, there are a lot of

Eliza McDonough/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Nicholas Thyr ’17 denied that he was a nerd for years. After discovering Dungeons and Dragons novels, though, he became a proponent of the game. webs and tr ying to set spiders on fire can sometimes involve collateral damage.

At the same time, of course, I am nowhere near a spider as big as a baby elephant (a fact for which I am, and shall ever be, eternally grateful). I am in Collis 211, I am holding a green 20-sided die in my hand and I am looking at a series of lines drawn on a grid, figurines of dwar ves, elves and giant spiders placed on top. I am going about my move (“Attacking — got a 13 — plus 12 — 25. Hit?” “Yes.” “So that’s… 5, 11… 21 damage…”), discussing with the other players possible means of extrication from my spider-beset, flame-engulfed state, commenting on other aspects of the battle (“Hughes took 40 bludgeoning damage — Myles, can you heal him? Paul?”

“I’m unconscious…” “Right.”) and making as many “Monty Python,” “Star Wars” and “Princess Bride” references as is humanly possible. Any gaps in the conversation are filled with commiserations about linear algebra.

Somehow, after many arguments about the proper application of the grapple tables, the correct wording of the witch trial of the Holy Grail and the dispatching of many an eight-eyed arachnid, we all sur vive and come to the conclusion that Math 24 is harder than Math 22 — but more rewarding and just more interesting in general.

In other words, going to D&D is as much about D&D as going to class is about the class. Yeah, you could do it all online and still get what you needed out of it, but when you get down to it, it’s the discussions and the people that matter.

How, though, did the group come about?

I’m not really certain. Most of us were in Physics 15 together, to be sure, and Math 24, but I walked in after overhearing a whispered conversation about Pathfinder (a variant game) and — with all the social graces at my disposal — asked if I could be part of their group, too.

I had been seeking a group for some time — not actively but passively, in an “if-only-there-were...” kind of way. I wanted something — anything — social to do on a weekend night when I wasn’t hiking. So when the opportunity presented itself, I seized upon it with both hands — rather like Einar when he goes for his battleaxe.

I must admit that I am not the most involved member of the group. I tend to appear only on Saturday nights, and I can be a bit flaky. (Make that a lot flaky.) I have a whole host of myriad conflicts, busy-nesses and commitments, as do we all. Saturday nights can be difficult to schedule around. But it gives me great comfort to know that the group is there — to have another community to say hi to as I walk through Baker-Berr y Librar y, to know we have something shared in common.

Of course, we argue — a lot. There are many, many rules, all subject to textual exegesis by us college students. We finesse the rules for flying, argue over the next course of action for 10 minutes when six seconds of “game time” has passed, disagree whether acid would quench fire, especially fire of a magical variety… It can all get rather frustrating. Yet it is the frustration that arises out of actual interactions with actual people about fiction — it passes quickly, like the autumn fog under the sunlight or an April snow (too soon?). It is all part and parcel of creating a world together, through little shards of not-yourself manifested on an imaginar y place.

This, I suppose, is what I view as the essence. The core of D&D is the way it allows you to ‘be yourself’ (those hoariest of hoar y old words) by not being yourself. You can take all the baggage of the ever yday pressure of being and being around people and let it have its release. Watch the luggage keep circling the conveyor belt and don’t pick it up. There are many things that I am, and have the potential to be, but a brawny

exemplar of derring-do is not one of them.

I have trouble splitting wood with an axe, much less skulls.

In our own little fantasy world, though, I can. I can build a whole new persona. I can make him charismatic, brainy, surly, sociopathic, cowardly. I can craft a Jenga tower of a backstor y, or I can outline him in a few deft strokes. I can tr y to convince Ulghar the orc-lord that killing me is not in his best interests (Look! I can juggle!

You can keep me around!), and my success or failure is up to the whims of the many treacherous faces of the die.

It’s almost reassuring to know that whatever happens is so dictated by chance, that how one rolls is just how it is. There’s a special feature, of course, that allows one to reroll, and pick the better of the two — how nice would that be in life?

So it seems that I have finally outed myself as a nerd. Of course, this comes as no surprise to any of you who have actually met me — I enjoy writing papers about Gertrude Stein and my ideal of a sunny afternoon is to sit outside and read a good book — but, in some ways, it comes as a surprise to myself. It feels rather like I’ve dropped a mask, like I’ve stopped declaiming a role, even to an empty theater.

There is, I must admit, something a little silly about D&D — escapist, impractical (“Shouldn’t I be doing x instead?” the little voice in my head says) — but that, of course, is no reason not to do it. A little silliness is a good thing, far better than the dread seriousness of work. To paraphrase deceased Shakespeare scholar Frank Kermode, fictions are the lies we tell ourselves to turn existence into being.

In a way, we’re all role playing. “I’m fine,” we say. We smile. Oh, yes, we’d love to do that, but oh, I just can’t make it that night, sorr y…

Since we have to do it anyway, why not have fun in the bargain?

FRIDAYS WITH MARIAN

MIRROR //7

Boots and RallIES COLUMN

By Aaron Pellowski

COLUMN By Marian Lurio

Netflix is releasing a new show called “Fuller House,” a “Full House” (1987) sequel set to feature the new American family. Whether this will include a same-sex marriage or obese individuals, I do not know. On that note, can we please discuss the California woman who ate a 13-pound steak dinner complete with salad, shrimp cocktail and baked potato? This story certainly invoked sweet memories of the Murphy’s cowboy steak “for two.” Bring it back, Nigel!

According to The Washington Post, the FBI has admitted that “nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.” Apparently of those 268 cases, 32 ended in death-row conviction. Maybe the FBI was wrong about Monica Lewinsky, after all… who do you have to screw to get some semen analysis up in here?

My friends are studying for an Education 1 exam, starting their career off early #seniorspring. They have just learned about proprietary schools and are interested in investing in one of their own. Having now become familiar with the concept of a for-profit school, I didn’t know this was different from Dartmouth College.

It’s been a tragic past few days for Paris Hilton fans everywhere. Hilton’s beloved chihuahua Tinkerbell, who stole the hearts of many on “The Simple Life” (2003) has passed on. R.I.P. Tinky.

Rand Paul’s 22-year-old son, William Hilton Paul, has been cited with a DUI after crashing his car into another parked car. This isn’t William’s first run-in with the law, but let’s hope it’s the last for the sake of Rand and Ron. The Paul family’s not the only fam ashamed by its own flesh and blood.

Ben Affleck’s been in some hot water lately.

Leaked Sony emails revealed that Affleck tried to cover up some of his ancestry while appearing on the PBS show “Finding Your Roots” (2012). Affleck’s great-great-great grandfather, it was revealed, owned 25 slaves. Affleck, naturally embarrassed by this revelation, asked the producers to leave this part out of the show, which they did. Unfortunately for Ben, Sony’s been having some email security issues lately.

Or something along those lines.

Hillary Clinton is coming to New Hampshire. Doesn’t seem like some of our fellow

students are #readyforHillary. You may have seen the Daily Mail article in which, among other salacious tidbits, one of our fellow students said that Hillary has “blood on her hands” from Benghazi.

Wonder what that student thinks of David Brooks as our commencement speaker? The NYT op-ed columnist is this year’s commencement speaker. Perhaps some of the population can enlighten him on the benefits of marijuana since we all know how opposed he is to the dangerous substance. He’s no Shonda Rhimes, but I’ll take it. It will be interesting to see how receptive students are to Brooks. He speaks so well to our vastly liberal student population…

So how did you celebrate 4/20 (which happens to be Phil’s second-favorite holiday after Thanksgiving)? I can’t even remember that whole day — and not because I was high (which I was not). I just really can’t remember what I was up to on Monday besides going to four hours of class.

What I do remember from 4/20 was anything but pleasant. Tragedy has hit home for me this week as Tim Tebow has been signed by the Philadelphia Eagles. It should be noted that Tebow’s contract doesn’t include a signing bonus or any guaranteed money. I’m really excited for him to lead Philadelphia sports fans in prayer. I think that will go over really well.

It wouldn’t be a Friday with me if I didn’t bring up the Church of Scientology and/or beloved actor John Travolta. Travolta has a message for all of us Scientology-haters — read L. Ron Hubbard’s book “Dianetics!” Then you’ll understand the religion. What I want to know, though, is does Travolta even believe what he’s saying or is he just being held captive by the Church? Clearly, the Church has a lot of dirt on Travolta. If the public knows as much as we do about Travolta’s masseuse-man-handling ways, then I think it’s safe to assume that the Church has enough ammo to keep Travolta in the Church for a lifetime.

On that note, I was disgusted to hear about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s remarks on gay marriage.

“I hold the view that has been the consensus in our country for over two centuries: that marriage is between one man and one woman,” he wrote in a NYT opinion piece this week. Is that really the consensus nowadays, Bobby? What an enlightened individual.

I’m on the Dartmouth Coach, headed to Rhode Island to turn up and see Waka Flocka Flame. Just up and to the right of me, a couple of what I can only suppose are West Lebanon highschoolers sit together, canoodling with tremendous intensity.

This would not perturb me in normal circumstances, great lover of love that I am, except that the only love I love is love exercised in good taste.

This activity, which has persisted uninterrupted through the 10 minutes I have spent flipping between writing this paragraph and looking up synonyms for revolting, has nothing lovely to it at all. I cannot see the girl involved, but the angle at which she has positioned herself leaves the neon pink soles of her sneakers pointed straight up at the ceiling. The laces of her shoes are immaculate white and tied in perfect symmetry. They look like they just came out of the box. Either they did, or she is one of the people who puts a lot of effort into keeping her punk-style shoes in a state of extreme cleanliness, a habit I regard with extreme suspicion. The boy involved, whose bowl cut is perhaps even cleaner than his partner’s shoestrings, is wearing a large shirt with the words “TO BE CONTINUED” printed on the back. I am having difficulty discerning what that phrase could signify in the context of clothing.

After a two-minute lapse in the venereal ongoings, the engines have restarted and, throbbing in my peripheral vision, I notice that the boy has been wearing earphones the entire time. Does this bother you? It bothers me! What need could he possibly have for those right now? Is he listening to music? Does he need a constant stream of Enya in order to sustain his carnal inclinations?

Or is he just in the middle of a really engaging chapter of “The Tipping Point” audiobook by Malcolm Gladwell? Perhaps the fellow is listening to an instructional tape, prompting him to breathe between every three or four smooches, or else quietly through his nose. To be fair, I cannot actually see any of the kisses being planted (still going on, by the way), and it is possible that he is only whispering centimeters from the girl’s face his very serious opinion of the cinematographic virtues of “Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” (2009), which has been playing across eight Coach screens for the duration of their ghastly lovemaking. This interpretation of the observable phenomena, I’m afraid, is quite implausible.

I am no enemy of public displays of affection, but there is an art to it. As with all art, much of what constitutes judgment is more or less a matter of personal opinion. Yet I think we can all agree that people ought to be forbidden to express romantic feelings for one another, translated into jolty groping and unpleasant contortion, if they offer nothing of value to the voyeurs — or worse, offend us. Very attractive people, especially very attractive French people, can pretty much do whatever they want, short of full-on fornication.

Otherwise, such expressions should be kept sweet, brief and of mild passion. You may not kiss anyone in public if you are wearing a sweater tied

around your waist­­­­­­— this ruling is absolute.

We have our own campus institutions governing PDA and other forms of love. A friend of mine recently told me that he has made out with more people on dancefloors than he has in private spaces. This shocked me only a little. A kiss delivered in the dark between the booms of synthetic beats is, after all, a kiss given in innocence and without meaning — no one could or should scrutinize it. Some nights, after many hours filled with a frenzy of “Friends” (1994) and Franzia, I flip open my Friendsy app and scroll through all my classmates searching for connection like a ship lost at sea, flaring distress signals through the black of night. When we all want the same thing, how could we look down upon one another for getting it?

Of particular curiosity to me are the Dartmouth Seven. For the sake of “Boots and Rallies” — a column that has always boasted a checkered relationship with reality — I shall define this tradition as seven places across campus where one hugs one’s partner from behind and, holding onto both of his or her hands, whispers into his or her right ear, “Gosh, you’re really swell.” No one knows when the tradition of the Seven got started, but by the end of freshman fall, everyone has at least heard of it. Come senior spring, a frequent question resounding the ear of J. Deirdre Horowitz, your intrepid author and opinionator, is “How many of the Seven have you done?” I’m not going to share my answer within these pages, in part because of personal standards and in part because my mother reads this column and knows what I’m talking about despite my best efforts to shroud my ideas in elusive, haphazard metaphors or tricksy language.

I would rather announce a new institution, herald a superior set of boxes to check when it comes to sharing feelings of mutual affection.

These are the ideals towards which I have striven — and on occasion achieved — throughout the past four years. Supplanting the Dartmouth Seven, the “AP Fifteen” as I call them, are less about location than manner: 1. If you wish to show someone how much you care, try it once with complete honesty. 2. Try it in the middle of a conversation about their favorite book. 3.

Try with a friend and stay just friends after. 4.

Try it after pulling two successive all-nighters.

5. Carry on a conversation at the same time. 6.

Try not blinking. 7. Try actually holding hands.

8. Do it somehow without touching at all. 9. Do it with words alone (possible to fulfill No. 8 at the same time). 10. Roleplay the high-school versions of yourselves and think about whether they’d be proud or ashamed of what you’re doing.

11. Imagine how the smallest thing might come to define your life. 12. Imagine how the largest thing might mean nothing at all. 13. Have, for the duration, nothing but the other person in mind.

14. Describe your emotions without adverbs.

And finally, the Fifteenth of the AP Fifteen: Be an “ogre-achiever” and incorporate Shrek somehow.

You’ll be surprised at the results.

8// MIRROR

The Graveyard Shift Two students breach the most private spot of all — the Dartmouth College Cemetery SPOTLIGHT

B y Mary Liza Hartong AND Andrew Kingsley

’Twas the very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes contagion into the world. No, we are not Prince Hamlet, but his words (and some gentle nudging from our editors) drove us into the Dartmouth College Cemetery like Young Goodman Browns to witness the debauchery of students in this labyrinth of death.

We expected — nay, hoped for — bands of squirrels and chipmunks circled around an open fire, performing ritual dances to pay tribute to the blue corn moon. We crossed our fingers for drunk philosophers leaning against crumbling headstones. We even wished for loud, libidinous residents of the River Cluster. Alas, what we found was starlight, the scent of pine trees and white noise. This place was more lifeless than Alpha Delta fraternity’s basement.

Too soon? Oh cruel respect, why must you bar our ragamuffins from this hallowed earth, sending nary a “Thriller” extra nor vampire enthusiast our way? All we ask is for just a fraction of the fun our Ouija board predicted for us earlier at Late Night Collis.

Come on, just a small satanic cult?

The lack of any of the aforementioned delights led to quite the pity party. It was a grand soiree indeed, complete with a pity pinata, gloom goodie bags and pinthe-tail-on-the-despair. The confetti was our tears. To lighten the mood, we began a few spirited renditions of songs from “Phantom of the Opera,” “Les Misérables” and “Cats.” We apologize to anyone who might have caught wind of us belting the lines “Memory! All alone in the moonlight!” with voices that sounded like actual cats.

We give particular condolences to any corpses who dislike Broadway numbers

— although, if you do, you’re better off underground, you soul-sucking zombie. Fearing the wrath of angry wolves and wily partygoers, we brought it down a notch and began reciting our favorite poems. Nothing brings out the poetry memorized in high school like a bit of crisp wind and the latent fear that a teacher — or spirit, what’s the difference — could show up at any moment.

Andrew showered the tombstones with the world’s longest rendition of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” complete with dramatic pauses and scampers, and Mary Liza treated them to the funny but biting, “It’s Raining In Love.” Andrew countered with “Jabberwocky,” and Mary Liza responded with “The Bagel.”

We decided to stop when we realized we were basically reenacting scenes from “Dead Poets Society” (1989) minus Robin Williams. No captain, my captain, we said to ourselves, and tried to think up a new pastime.

The quickest round of ghost stories showed we had not been paying enough attention at summer camp.

“So then the ghost says, ‘Where’s my golden arm?’” I, Mary Liza, said.

“Then what?”

“She, uh, I think she grabs him?”

I remembered at that point I was supposed to grab Andrew’s arm and say “Boo!” “Ok, I got one.” I, Andrew, retorted.

“Shoot.”

“A man and woman get married. It’s called commitment. AHHH!” A terrifying tale indeed. We agreed to table this round of fright and vowed to watch a scary flick later — “Mamma Mia” (2008) perhaps. I mean, have you heard Meryl sing? The horror!

After minutes of aimless chatter, a lone backpacker came whiffling through the tulgey wood, whistling a simple tune just as “The King

and I” had taught her. Bored, we decided to frighten this little Red Riding Hood. In our worst ghoulish voices, we cried, “Christine, this is your grandfather. Get me some cream of wheat.”

Startled at first, then annoyed, the student cast us off with a quick “f--k off.”

“Christine, that is no way to speak to your grandfather. But I understand, you’re still going through puberty.”

She didn’t look back. Christine is so temperamental. Youth these days…

After another half hour of waiting, hoping Christine would come back with our cream of wheat or at least an ounce of respect for her elders, a pair of bulky men stomped through. What shall we do with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, we pondered. We decided to have a classic Kingsley-Hartong argument about our imaginary child. As they got within earshot, we began, loudly: “Karen, I’m pregnant.”

“Stan, we’ve been over this, you can’t get pregnant.”

“Not with that attitude I won’t. Pregnant with self-loathing! Why don’t you support me?”

“Because you’re not the raccoon I married.”

The two fellows, likely wearing headphones, did not bat an eyelash at our lover’s spat. Maybe they, too, were pregnant raccoon lovers.

Feeling deserted, we decided to drown our sorrows in Indian food. Nothing takes the pain away like the new pain of digesting tikka masala and garlic naan. Turns out Jewel of India is neither open in the middle of the night nor willing to deliver to the crypt. Oh well, we thought, we might as well forgo the battle of colon versus saag paneer. Two farts crying out alone in the wilderness and all that jazz.

We remembered that, as Gertrude Stein says, “moving is existing,” so we got off our stuffy rumps and began to explore the nooks and crannies of the graveyard.

Shining a flashlight, we caught a glimpse of what we can only describe as a skunk, a bobcat or a werewolf. Perhaps a skunkcat?

Or werebob? Or Christine in fur? Christine looks wonderful in fur. Or perhaps a local ne’er-do-well, newly escaped from the 1902 room and looking for trouble?

Just as we were about to head back to Collis for some macaroni bites — the holy trinity in cheese form — we heard a sound.

Hark! A quartet of younglings, shuffling nervously through the graves. We rubbed our greasy paws in anticipatory rapture.

“Do we marry, f--k or kill them?”

“No, Andrew, that’s just a game for sleepovers. This requires something worse.”

“Something worse than marriage?!” quoth Andrew, “Kale? Country music?”

“Three words. Andrew Lloyd...”

“No Mary Liza, they’re too young!”

“WEBBERRRRRRRRR!” Thus began the long awaited, off offBroadway rendition of the iconic, haunting, downright orgasmic “Phantom of the Opera” (1986). We sprang from the trees, ambushing the neophytes with, “The phaaaaaaaaaaaantom of the opera is there INSIDE YOUR MIND!” Horrified, or perhaps aroused, they fled.

The sun began to rise and our skin shriveled and burned like Christine’s will in old age, that crazy old bag. We crawled back into our respective beds — cave in Andrew’s case — and hummed Broadway staples until the slithy toves gyred and gimbled themselves to sleep.

Kathleen Rao/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF