Being a sophomore is great. Seriously, it’s the best. The excitement of being new hasn’t worn off yet, but I know where everything (well, most things) is and I’m nearly fluent in Thacher-speak. When someone tells me they came back from their EDT early to take the ACT before heading off to rehearsal at the PAC, I can follow. If someone asked me to meet them on the kidney for a munch-out at check-in, I’d be on time and prepared. Get my camping comments into Whipple Hill? Well that’s just too boring to describe in a blog.

This is all to say that so far, the second time around is a charm. Now when I stand at assembly and think “geez, this place keeps getting better” it’s purely a warm feeling, tinged with excitement, not a warm, somewhat confused feeling tinged with anxiety. This fall I’ve found myself breathing when before I was quite literally holding my breath – all the time. Even when things went well last year the weight of the unknown cast a shadow that I couldn’t shake, and honestly didn’t really know was there until I began to perceive it’s absence this fall. I wonder if this is something like how our actual sophomores feel when they wake up sometime in mid-September and realize with glee that it’s not a fluke – someone else is feeding those horses now!

It’s a little bittersweet to think that my freshman year is over, and there are times when I look at all the new kids on campus and feel a little jealous of all that awaits them as they begin their Thacher odyssey. But as year two settles in around me, I couldn’t be happier to be where I am right now. Waiting for an EAC meeting on the Pergola with Uncle Jack…