The Buzz

As usual the blur of noise, that is otherwise known as people speaking fluent Spanish, surrounded me. I looked around at my family trying to capture the few words that I knew as they flew out of their mouths and across the table rapidly. Once again I decided that there was no hope for this night and my understanding of their complex foreign conversation, so I turned my head back down to my tortilla and ketchup. Ketchup, I thought to myself. Last night we had tortilla and tomato sauce, so this is a nice change. I drifted into deep thoughts on ketchup vs tomato sauce, and, just as my mind was beginning to make a complete exit, I noticed the noise around me had stopped. Uh oh. Somebody had just asked me a question and I didn't know what it was, and now they are all waiting for an answer. I was sure of it. It is a regular occurrence.

For the past fifteen years, Proctor’s Mountain Bike team has been at the center of the sport’s boom at the high school level in New England (read more about the rise of mountain biking in New England here). Now with nearly thirty teams from Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts competing weekly, the Northern New England Mountain Bike league has become a mecca for high school cyclists in the Northeast with more than 400 riders competing each week. At Saturday’s league championships hosted by Gould Academy, Proctor earned second place overall as a team and garnered a number of first place individual honors.

Friday night’s tech free camping excursion to Elbow Pond, organized by Assistant School Leader Sarah Ferdinand ‘18, foreshadowed a massive power outage throughout the morning on Monday. A powerful Nor’Easter hit New England overnight Sunday into Monday, knocking out power to more than half the state of New Hampshire.

Here’s the thing: at some point we all need to tie into something that is a little bigger than we are, a little scary, something evolutionary in nature with a significant time commitment. There are lessons to be learned in these long haul endeavors, lessons that have transferable properties that show up in other areas of life: friendships, marriages, communities, faith, and athletics. The long haul teaches resiliency in a time when so many are conditioned to expect ease of operation, instantaneous answers to online queries, overnight shipping from Amazon, and flawless lives lived seamlessly on social media. One of the constant adolescent illusions we battle today is that something can come from nothing, or in alchemistic fashion lead will turn to gold with the right, easy incantation. And that’s why we need these projects.

Proctor Academy's Ocean Classroom program left the calm waters of Savannah Harbor to head north to Charleston, South Carolina for a few days of learning and sail training before preparing for the long passage to the blue waters of the Caribbean. Enjoy the brief window into daily life aboard Roseway from the perspective of the student crew. 

The nearly 72 hours of relative quiet that the past long-weekend provides is cherished by both students and adults in the Proctor community. The brief respite following Fall Family Weekend in the midst of an otherwise chaotic fall affords an opportunity to catch up on sleep, laundry, or that long-overdue run in the lingering foliage of late October. Each October, we hunger for this intentional time for reflection prior to the final stretch of the Fall Term. 

Proctor Academy's Ocean Classroom program has arrived in Savannah, Georgia after a long passage from an extended stop in Norfolk, Virginia due to inclement weather off the coast. The crew continues to live, learn, and work aboard the 135 foot schooner as they travel south. Ocean Classroom director, Dave Pilla, will be joining the crew for the next several days in Savannah. Below find student and crew reflections from the past week aboard the World Ocean School's Roseway!  

In the evening of a Thursday, the group steps off the train to be blindsided by a wave of heat and humidity. We should have expected this as we knew we were going to the southern part of the peninsula and the historically rich city of Sevilla. But nothing could have prepared us for Sevilla, especially the sight of palm trees all over the place; this definitely put some puzzled looks on group members’ faces. Shortly after our arrival in Sevilla, we went for a stroll on the boardwalk that runs along the riverside. We quickly spotted the unmistakable and legendary Torre de oro or “Tower of gold.” The tower is not actually made of gold and there isn't any gold inside. However, when the sun rises or sets the tower gets its golden yellow shine.