All Good Things Must Come To An End

Thursday was essentially the busiest day of the program, but at the same time it wasn't busy at all. It's a strange dichotomy, I know, but it makes sense to me at least. Our final few hours of class were devoted to two things, going in depth with Monte's research, and continuing our discussion of body image. The second is a lot easier to explain than the first was, since she went into such great detail. It gave me a lot of insight into the world of an anthropologist, which I think I might start considering as a possible career choice (at least a minor in anthropology?) She explored the relationship between the economy of Brazil, and the education of the children that live there, as harvesting Acai makes it very different for children to attend school. There are child labor laws prohibiting them from working, but when the welfare of the family depends on the children working, many families have no choice. In the final few minutes of class we watched a speech that Angel had presented to her school district a few years ago about body image. It showed some deeply personal parts of her life, and I was so glad that she shared that with all of us.

We wrapped up by writing evaluations of Zach and Monte. Afterwards, Monte took me aside and told me to keep in touch, since she "expects to hear great things" from me, and wants me to keep her updated. The final ceremonies were to be held in Wyatt, which was convenient, as MHS is held on the second floor of Wyatt. After saying my final goodbyes to Monte and Zach, I trekked up a few flights of stairs and walked into the rotunda. During the ceremonies, Rosie, Rachel and Dr. Dunn all made speeches to VSA as a whole, and the heads of houses made speeches to their respective house. I know that I may sound biased when I say this, but I do believe that Victoria's speech was the best. Something she said really stuck with me. She told us to "Choose people! If you are stuck between getting to know your roommate a little better or an extra hour of sleep, choose your roommate." As well as a few other situations in that vein. I hope that I managed to choose people as often as I could during my time at VSA. 

We were dismissed to clean up our rooms, so that we would not have to during our evening activities. Sofi and I discussed how strange it was to be stripping the room of everything that made it ours, and I felt this more profoundly, as Sofi has already unpacked by the time I had arrived at VSA that first afternoon. Seeing it look so bare was a bit of a shock. The masquerade came upon us quickly, and Gwennie and I both had our hair intricately braided by Victoria (sadly, I did not take a picture. Just imagine the prettiest braid that you have ever seen on someone, and this one was a hundred times better!) As the night came to a close, I reflected on all the wonderful people I had met and managed to say my goodbyes to them in case I did not see them the following day. 

I am glad that I did that. The next morning, our friends from Philadelphia left before anyone told me their departure time. One of the bright sides is that I mentioned Speech, which I am the team captain of at my school, and found out that Taylor, one of my proctor group members, would be visiting a tournament in Berkeley during the school year!  I found as many people as I could to wish them a wonderful year, and Jenny practically had to drag the cohort out of Hank so that we could arrive to the airport in a timely manner. I don't really know if it has hit me yet that I probably won't see most of the people I met at VSA any time soon since we all grew so close, but I am glad for every moment of this experience.

I know that everyone else used this picture, but I love it!
When you have spent an average of 15 hours with someone every day for three weeks, it is hard to say goodbye.