A Different Kind of Birthday

Crown from Izabel

I woke up at 6:00 AM feeling so anxious to start the day. Every year on my birthday, I usually get my hopes up for nothing so I tried not to think much of my seventeenth birthday. For a change, I actually did something different for my birthday this year. Who else gets to go on college tours in the East Coast for their birthday WEEK?

NEMOW and I ate breakfast and Jenny drove all nine of us to Dartmouth with a huge car that she rented. The still surprising to me that you can go out of a state and come back within a day here. In California, it's rare and takes more time to leave the state since California is so huge. The road trip to Dartmouth was a three hour car ride. It was very nerve wrecking to be in the car for a total of six hours because it was Jenny's first time driving a car with ten girls in it. I heard cars honking and felt the car turning and going on a bump in the freeway. But I have to say, it was the funnest car I've ever been in.

Group photo with Dartmouth students 

Birthday Desert at Lunch

One we got to Dartmouth,  we had to go to a lunch with current students at Dartmouth. They were picked by the dean of the school to come to this lunch and talk about their experience and advice about college life. I had a surprise candle on my desert and everyone sang happy birthday to me. Afterwards I said," How did the waiter know it's my birthday." Everyone laughed because I had a crown on that said happy birthday on it, OBVIOUSLY. Thank you Izabel for the cute crown.  After lunch, we had a tour of the whole school, which is not small at all. 

Car rides are fun.

There are so many things I learned about this school today. Before getting there, I didn't even know there was a school called Dartmouth in the East Coast. Dartmouth is located in the middle of nowhere, so it's not easy to go to the city from there. Five minutes from Dartmouth is the Connecticut River and surrounding the school are lots of trees.The green is known for affecting things students both physically and emotionally. Physically, it's in the center of the school so people pass it when they are going to class. Emotionally, it's where activities take place like homecoming or the winter carnival. During homecoming, it's not about football season, but about Freshmen continuing the tradition of running laps around a building. The school participates in a lot more activities like ice fishing in the winter or skiing near the school.  As we were going around the campus, the tour guide took us to the library where they have a special exhibit for Dr.Seuss who attended Dartmouth many years ago. I also learned that the school goes on a quarter system and there is no core curriculum so you can jump into whatever you need. However, they have a distributive system instead in which you have to fullfill one category like art. There are some requirements in order for you to graduate from the school, such as taking three PE classes and a language. However, it's easy to fulfill them with classes that interests you. Studying aboard fulfills two classes of language and exercising your mind is a class too! I liked how their average class size is 16-24 students and less than 10 classes will have more than 50 students. The smaller the class, the more the teacher will pay attention to the students. 

Country's oldest school newspaper

After our tour of Dartmouth, we had an information session on financial aid. Right before we went there, I grabbed the school's newspaper because the tour guide said that it was the oldest school newspaper in the country. That's impressive to me. I thought that it was extremely helpful and interesting because the school helps everyone, whether they are international students, poor, or rich. All my high school life, I thought that I don't qualify for financial aid, but this school gave me hope that I can afford college. If my family earns less than 100,000 dollars a year, I automatically qualify for financial aid. How great is that?

My birthday dinner

When we got back to Providence, Rhode Island, we had Korean food because it's my birthday. I introduced NEMOW to a lot of new things that they haven't seen before. Everyone enjoyed the food, although it was their first time. Towards the end, everything started to seem fishy to me. I knew something was up because Jenny said to save our tummies for later. As I was recording Magaly talk like a man, the waitress at the restaurant came with a birthday cake for me. It turns out that Jenny went to buy a cake last night after dinner. Thanks so much Jenny! This was truly a birthday to remember.