Apr
23
Final Thoughts From the Home Stretch
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By Sara Aboulafia ’09
My final semester’s classes are having an ill effect on me. Those who come within a few feet of me know it’s an outcome of my beloved language acquisition class, taught by psycholinguist Jill de Villiers. I have been expressing strange tics since taking this course. Like my penchant, for instance, to analyze the different meanings conveyed by friends’ expressions of regret, such as “Uh oh!” and “Oops!” (One expresses responsibility, one conveys an accident–mull over it for a moment). I consider such a side effect a sign that I’m learning. Everything is open to examination. (Be forewarned, prospective students: college can have this effect, for good and bad.)
But despite all the charming after-effects of my classes, I am increasingly drawn to the interesting work being done at Smith and in nearby communities. A recent trip to The Sophia Smith Collection—to document work done by the student group SACA (Smith Association of Class Activists)—had me reeling with curiosity in and fascination for the collection’s work (you mean, I can read local abolitionist papers here on my own, for no reason but just to take a gander and learn?) that will last well after I step off the graduation podium. (Any alum can visit and research to her heart’s and mind’s content.)
Living in an area with so much opportunity has allowed me to attend two inspiring conferences here in my last weeks. The Civil Liberties and Public Policy program at neighboring Hampshire College is a reproductive rights organization that recently held a gathering attended by hundreds of women and men. Sitting with friends and listening to other women speak about critical reproductive rights issues reminded me of why I first decided to attend a women’s institution. It also enlivened in me a sense of passion and commitment to the AmeriCorps work I’ll be doing this fall with the organization Girls Inc. I also recently attended the Second Annual Northeast Class Issues Conference, coordinated at Smith by students from Smith Association for Class Activists and from the Vassar Association of Class Activists. The conference, which included panels of faculty and students, spoke to the challenges members of this community must face when dealing with issues concerning socioeconomic status. They were conversations that I found enlightening, difficult and necessary, and that I hope increase and continue in the coming years.
In my final semester, the mental map I carry with me that defines what has been significant at Smith has extended beyond my classes and the striking 19th-century architecture on campus. The image of the Grécourt Gates, a symbol that often represents the school, is meaningful—but it is the students, staff and faculty who give meaning to this place. Though the buildings are beautiful, substantial and dignified in their oldness—and I know they will become fixed in my memory like the difference between “Uh Oh!” and “Oops!”—I’ve also realized that the space of Smith College is elastic, open to endless exploration and examination by faculty, staff and students. As someone who plans to be an engaged alumna in the coming years, it’s a realization that makes me excited for the possibilities in the school’s future. I hope that students take advantage of the infinite opportunities to participate so that no one will ever have to leave college with an “oops!” on their lips.
Nov
3
Back To Class
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By Sara Aboulafia ’09
One of my recurring and most frightening dreams is a classic. In it, I am back in high-school, lost in its countless hallways and unable to find the right classroom. When I finally arrive at class — a room, lodged, of course, in some dark and unseemly corner of the building — I realize that it’s the last day of a class I’ve never attended. The final test is passed out, and I stare bug-eyed and helpless at its indecipherable math problems. I look up at the teacher for some help, but his face is completely unfamiliar to me. I flee.
Recently, I went back to school — middle school, perhaps even more terrifying than high school ever was. I’m involved with a program originally begun by Lamont House residents to help out JFK middle school students with their work, and spent my first day helping a group of sixth-graders during their Language Arts period.
It was one of those nauseatingly idyllic, beautiful New England fall mornings, and I would have appreciated it more had I not underestimated the amount of time it would take me to get to the school. I had borrowed a friend’s too-small bike (a word to the wise: our school is a safe space for students, perhaps, but not necessarily for our belongings – find a U-lock and use it!) and pedaled awkwardly along the bumpy bike path. Still sweating, I walked into JFK middle school’s double-doors and was promptly taken through the narrow hallways, past rows of lockers (now shorter than me, I noted), to Ms. Allen’s sixth grade classroom.
I had never met Ms. Allen. Neither had I ever met the 23 small faces that turned from their parallel desks to look at me as I walked into the middle of the room during the lesson I interrupted. “Introduce yourself,” the teacher said, smiling. “Hi class,” I said, surprised at my own formal utterance and consciously becoming more casual. I must have mumbled through my introduction because one boy shot up his hand right after I was done. “What’s your name?”
“Sa-ra,” I repeated, smiling nervously. I spent the next few minutes crouched into a tiny desk-seat in the back, listening to a string of 11-year-old amateur authors go up to the front of the class and read about the peculiar habits of their cats and dogs. For a few moments, it seemed like the nightmare I had always had — late to class, unfamiliar classroom, strange faces. But these kids, thankfully, made it a little easier on me.
The kids in Ms. Allen’s class appeared to be more well-adjusted than I remember ever being. They were respectful of one another, not too unruly, except when the bell rang for lunch (I stayed back in the classroom by myself, perusing the various junior-high embellishments on the wall — the ancestral “where are you from?” map, the slogans encouraging tolerance), and then again when the bell rang for an assembly. They were also open, funny, and relentless chatterboxes.
I quickly had the opportunity to sit down with four students, all girls, and brainstorm ideas for non-fiction pieces they were writing. They spent most of the time bouncing ideas off each other, nodding in approval (“I love that story!”) or encouraging each other (“What about when you won that soccer game? You should write about that!”). I had to reel them in with promises to read a story about a chicken (their suggestion, not mine) that I’d write as they did their own writing — an incentive that worked. One story about a chicken, two about monkeys, and two exotic vacations later, I was beaming.
I’m looking forward to spending two days a week with the kids at JFK. This time, I won’t have to run away, and thankfully I’ll never have to bring a calculator.
Sep
19
By Sara Aboulafia
Sara Aboulafia ’09 hits her senior year anticipating feelings of nostalgia after she leaves, but also looking forward to life after Smith. This is her first Weblog on life as a Smith student.
Here’s a thought: The next time, after this year, that I am referred to as a “senior” will be when I get a discount at the movie theater for being over the age of 55. I am simultaneously flattered and terrified at this designation. After two years at Smith (I transferred here my sophomore year), I’m really only beginning to get the hang of it. And it seems unfair, in a way, that I’ve got so little time left here.
“Okay, okay,” I tell myself, “live the moment, be present every day,” all that jazz – but at Convocation, standing in a sea of jubilant women in barely-there outfits shouting indiscriminately, I thought, “No! Don’t let this be the last time I get to perform this incredible act of permitted indecency (that is, within limits, of course), and celebrate with my kin!”
As yelps and chants rose and fell, and the Glee Club performed a song, and the faculty shifted awkwardly or proudly (depending on the faculty member) in their seats, I considered my history class with Professor Jennifer Guglielmo last year. The most powerful nationalisms, I remembered, have arisen at times of exile or emigration from people’s country of origin. Yes, this is my own little nationalism, I thought, caught at the last minute like a fever. And yet, like the memories of immigrants who think most of their shtetl (I’m thinking of my own ancestors here), their own small village or town, when they are reminded of their home countries, it’s my house at Smith that makes this place for me.
I moved into Hopkins House last spring, after most of my friends at Wilson House in the Quad left to go abroad. Hopkins is one of two “co-ops” on campus (the other being Tenney House), which means we do our own cooking and chores – a huge difference from the dining culture in the regular houses at Smith. I immediately loved the community at Hopkins, the people drifting in and out of the kitchen to smell what’s cooking, the gatherings for meals, the way the privilege of food and being together to enjoy it cannot be taken for granted. It’s the kind of place that Smith students are eager to get into – the waiting list for two small cooperative houses is tremendous, and many Smithies have to live without knowing the satisfaction of late-night music-making, of farm-fresh vegetables and freshly-baked brownies (which taste better because your best friend just made them), of a home that you form with your peers from the bottom-up.
I imagine that, the day after graduation, I will be effortlessly nostalgic for this place. For now – when I’m not working on that harrowing thesis or paper-writing – I’ll attempt to zen-out. I will concentrate on my yoga class, which at two hours every Thursday is not enough. I will say some kind of secular grace before my meals. And I will write it all down – not with desperation, but just enough to appreciate the best bits, what I’ll take with me to wherever the heck I’m going while I’m doing whatever it is I’m doing when I graduate.
Aug
14
Hello Smith!
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