Degrees of Awesomeness
“You are a thousand kinds of extraordinary,” I said to Melyn Heckelman ’08, hugging her after she’d just graduated. “I’m gonna miss you.”
She is. A thousand kinds of extraordinary. Mel wrote two 100-page honors theses—one for each of her majors, government and anthropology—and the topics weren’t even a little bit related (presidential campaign finance and sex education in schools, respectively). She also sings, and plays rugby, and speaks French and some Arabic and a smattering of Mandarin.
The weird thing was that, as Mel and I exchanged farewells, this goddess seemed to think I was going places, too.
At least, it seemed weird until I remembered that I feel the same way about a lot of underclassmen. My initial assumption that higher class year meant higher degree of awesomeness has given way to a fascination with, and vague pride in, the rising stars that are Colby’s younger students. When I was a first-year, upperclassmen often struck me as more than merely human. Now that my class is finally sitting on top, though, I see with great clarity that people don’t have to be upperclassmen to be looked up to.
The younger students here impress me just as much as my predecessors used to. At news staff meetings for the Echo, we choose students to profile. We sometimes end up with astonishing people who aren’t seniors, like Kathleen Fallon ’10, the jazz band’s vocalist and next year’s president of the campus radio station, WMHB. In 2007, after Kathleen (then a sophomore) had just performed “The Nearness of You,” band director Eric Thomas said, “That’s a song that makes everyone want to be a singer, isn’t it?” He mused that some might be tempted to think, “I could sing that!” Then he gloated: “And you’re wrong.”
A lesson starts to take shape here. As a philosophy major, I might be able to talk circles around Kathleen in a conversation about ethics. I probably also know more about the inner workings of Colby because of my work with administrators, and I like to imagine that I’m a better writer. But none of that matters when she sings. I haven’t had to sing since my last general music class in fifth grade. That’s her thing, and I’ve loved watching her do it over the past two and a half years.
Take Aaron Kaye ’11, a second-degree black belt in the Korean martial art Tang Soo Do (it’s what Chuck Norris does), who single-handedly resurrected Colby’s martial arts club as a first-year. You have got to see Aaron move. Some of my club-mates have, under his teaching, dominated at regional tournaments. Where Kathleen melts hearts, Aaron empowers them.
Half the lesson is that age and experience at Colby have almost nothing to do with interests and goals, which are what largely determine what people notice you for. My classmates and I have done some great things, and in so doing we’ve carved out stages for ourselves. Kath and Aaron on their personal stages shine in ways impossible for the rest of us.
That’s the other half of the lesson: awe and inspiration don’t lie in seniority, but in distinction, which is just as much about being different and new as it is about being impressive.
None of this diminishes us seniors and the hard work we’ve done to get where we are. Indeed, it can help a power-hungry control freak like myself rest assured that as I and other seniors who have shaped Colby leave this place behind, it will remain in good hands.
Note: In his time at Colby, Miranda has been opinion editor of The Colby Echo, written a play about superheroes, been an admissions tour guide, completed a thesis, and much, much more.
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