Calling Carleton Home for the Winter Break

While a lot of Carls were excited to leave campus, I decided to take spend a big chunk of my break on campus.

For me, I have been traveling since I was 15 years old, when I came out of Cambodia to pursue a better education, and have always been whisked away in the hectic life. I rarely have moments where I can slow down the pace, so I decided for the winter break, I would carve out time for myself by staying at Carleton.

What did I wish to achieve?

I wanted time to reflect on my fall term and familiarize myself with the place and people here, because it is going to be my home for the the next 4 years of my life in the US.

I also wanted to catch up on doing a few personal things such as blogging, writing and reading, doing proposals for the Carleton business competition and Davis Peace Project, and getting a bit of gym time, and horse riding time.

Did I achieve it?

I was surprised, really. As I went through my photos and videos to look back on my five weeks on campus, I realized I achieved that and much more without knowing! I got to know a few new people on a deeper level, I really enjoyed the company of the admissions staff (they feel familial to me now), and getting to know prospective students was just exciting!

Did I mentioned I learned how to cook home food, immerse myself in countless experimental films that Carl, my CAMS professor, generously recommended, and that I got to make food for Steven, our president, with my friends?

Well I think that was a fun night. My friend, Adela from Slovakia, decided to email Steven to invite him to Cassat, one of our winter break student dorms, to have a dorm-cooked dinner. Guess what? He agreed! So with that, the bunch of us decided to cook many of our favorite dishes — we made Korean grilled pork, miso soup, Chinese special-seasoned eggs, Tikka Masala chicken, some sparking apple juice, and Steven even chipped in a huge chocolate cake!

We talked about our freshman fall term experience and what we hope to find at Carleton, and Steven talked about his experience and what he’s trying to achieve as Carleton’s president. It was honestly inspiring, and after the time I spent with him I truly understand why he is the president — he’s so determined to make Carleton a place of growth and home for all of us. With that, I felt re-energized and also determined to make my time here wholesome and filled with beautiful and fun memories that I can look back on and enjoy!

I was able to post a blog, wrote poems and made amazing progress with the proposals. Aside from that, I truly improved with horse riding and also my fitness as well. I just want to take the time to shout out to my friends Emmett and Izzy for driving me to the stables, to places I need to be, and just opening their homes for me. I truly enjoyed getting to know their family and them! I feel a lot of warmth and I am excited to see how the friendships will grow.

Furthermore, I also got to have many nice meals with various faculty who opened their home to me and the many Carls who decided to stay on campus. I’ve had many deep and fun conversations with the faculty over amazing home-cooked meal. Truly, I think the more I get to know them, the more I feel they believe that they have the power to make a difference in the students’ lives and they truly enjoy helping us get to where we want to be. That knowledge itself was just very reassuring and I appreciate the support I have here!

Of course, at times, I felt shut out from the rest of the world, given the occasional snow storms and a lack of 90% of the student body on campus. However, there was more to gain from my experience in calling Carleton home, and it overpowered the odds.

Well, that’s pretty much the gist of winter break. Winter term here I come!

Lita

Lita hails all the way from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When not riding horses, petting them, or sketching a picture of them, she blogs her philosophical brain dumps on Medium. Other than that, Lita is passionate about social impact startups and edu-tech. She plans on majoring in Computer Science, but who knows, she could simply switch to Studio Art and spend her days drawing horses. Hey, that’s why we’re at Carleton, am I right? Meet the other bloggers!