Emma Loved Coursework Abroad

Although a lot of what students talk about when studying abroad is the ability to travel a lot, especially when studying in Europe, but Emma truly loved her course work.  She was studying Child Development, and part of that class involved working part time for practicum in a Danish kindergarten to get a better feel for their overall educational system.  Here is how she described their system. 

 




"The central theme of their early education is free play/nature play, which often includes risk and always includes creativity. As you can see, the outdoor playground materials are very ambiguous to foster creativity (the children always wear full snow suits so they can get as muddy as they please) :). One of the kindergartens has a wood shop where they actually learn how to use saws, axes and other seemingly dangerous tools as early as age 4!"






















Emma said that although her time there was cut short, she was "super grateful" of for the time she spent in Copenhagen.  She was able to travel some while there, and one of those weekend trips was to Amsterdam to the Van Gogh Museum. 







Additionally, she was able to spend time with teammate Shea, who was in the same program as she was and lived in a separate apartment with a different group of students, but in the same apartment complex.

Another one of her trips was to Switzerland to visit teammate El, where they went skydiving!  Emma and Shea started their program earlier than both El and Jaime and were gone from MIDD after the Christmas Break, while both El and Jaime were on campus for J-Term before starting their respective Programs in Prague and New Zealand.  In that sense, both Emma and Shea had a slightly longer time abroad due to when their program started, in addition to when they were sent home due to the global pandemic.

I'm so happy that all four of our juniors were able to have some sort of abroad experience, even if it was cut short.  Now we just have to find a time for Jack to get his abroad experience in.  Jack was due to travel to Japan in mid March, so not only did he not get his abroad experience, he was left without a semester since it was too far into Middlebury's semester to join late, and because his program never started, it was just cancelled rather than moved on-line.  We'll hope to get an update from him sometime in the future when we know more about the status of future abroad trips, and when that sort of travel might again be permitted and deemed safe.

El Cherished Her Time in Prague

Here's our second installment of our Juniors Abroad!  El studied in Prague, Czech Republic for the semester.  She notes that while she enjoyed the several MIDD KIDS in her program, she also "had the opportunity to make the most incredible, lifelong group of friends, many of whom were from other NESCAC schools."  One of those friends was actually also a volleyball player, and although a purple cow, they became tight nonetheless!

One of the other many benefits of study abroad is typically the ability to travel and see a lot of different places while studying in your specific program.  As a side note, most Midd students report that study abroad is easier academically than Middlebury courses on campus.  Her travels included visiting Amsterdam, different cities in Switzerland and several other towns in The Czech Republic, and some of those excursions were to visit other MIDD friends studying abroad in Europe, including teammate Emma Walsh, who was studying in Copenhagen! On one excursion, they met up in Switzerland and even went skydiving together!

Although traveling was exciting and fun, El fell in love with the city of Prague and everything it offered.  She cited the experience of being able to "live in a culture that differs so greatly from home was incredibly unique and valuable."  El, as so many Midd students, feels that the study abroad experience was integral to her college experience, and although her time abroad was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic, she was extremely grateful for the opportunity!

Shea Grateful for Abroad Experience

Junior year abroad is a very common and popular experience for many college students, and certainly a large percentage of MIDD students take advantage of this wonderful opportunity--roughly 60% of the student body studies abroad at Middlebury.  This year, all four of my juniors were studying abroad, and our student-assistant, Jack, was about to leave for his program in Japan right when the world-wide shut down was happening.  The other four were already settled in their programs and had to return home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  We're not going to focus on their trials of getting back home, even though some had extreme difficulties and were somewhat harrowing, they all returned home safely, so that's the main thing.  Despite the total disruption of the semester, our juniors still had memorable and profound experiences in their respective countries.

Both Shea and Emma were in Copenhagen, and had apartments across the hall from each other in the same apartment complex.  During her time there, Shea mentioned being lucky to have traveled a lot with her roommates and close friends from MIDD. They visited Belgium and Scotland, as well as different cities in Switzerland, France, and Germany.






Shea described it as, "the most incredible experience that I will cherish forever."  She also mentioned, "the thing I miss the most about Copenhagen is the city's biking culture. There's nothing like biking on a sunny day along the water to class, my apartment, or to a fabulous brunch place.  I am very grateful for my time there and being home has made me even more grateful..."

Coronavirus Sends Everyone Home

This social distancing picture of Gigi and Corley was a chance encounter at the beach after returning home to San Francisco and getting outside for fresh air and to walk the dogs.  You have to love that--and even though these teammates shared hugs, high fives, and huddles  all season, now they're keeping their social distance!

This post is now a good three weeks into our new reality of remote learning for the Spring Semester 2020.  On March 12, 2020 it was announced that everyone would be asked to leave the campus at the end of that week.  The students were asked to take everything home if they could, or box up their rooms and leave everything well marked and identified in their rooms and leave.  There was a week of extra spring break before our regularly scheduled break for everyone to deal with this reality as the news and the stay-at-home orders were changing and growing daily.  This is an unprecedented time of uncertainty and chaos in most of our lives, and unfortunately, the news just keeps getting worse.

Video Link--click here.

Now that break has ended and MIDD students have just completed their first week of remote learning, I thought it was a good time for a Blog post.  I have updates from most of our coaching staff, and will compile updates from the players moving forward, but wanted to share this fun video as well.  (I've been having some technical difficulties, so if it doesn't play, it was posted on Instagram (@middvb a couple weeks ago.)

Now, for the coaches updates.

First, we'll start with our Faculty Affiliate, who gave us some great Mindfulness information, as always!  She wrote:

"I also wanted to remind everyone that the Koru Mindfulness website is a nice resource that offers free guided meditations and videos that demonstrate helpful ways to use your breath for calming and renewal: https://student.korumindfulness.org/resources.html.  During this very stressful time, these practices can be enormously grounding.  Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions regarding ways to use these practices to ease anxiety and regain focus. "  THANK YOU, MELISSA!!

Here's what Brian sent me:  

First, a link on why hand-washing works with soap and water, if you do it correctly!

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/11/21173187/coronavirus-covid-19-hand-washing-sanitizer-compared-soap-is-dope

 
...and then a fun art project from his daughter, where Brian wrote to us:

 "On one rainy day last week, my older girl Shea found white rocks in the nearby stream and decided to build a tower.  It's about 4 feet tall and visible from our road, so people are stopping to look and take pictures.  Spontaneous outdoor sculpture!  Be well, Brian


Here's what Jill had to say about her life now: 

What's going on with me? My sons are home from high school and college and we are all making new adjustments living in close quarters.

We made a sign for Zach to put on his bedroom door that says "College. Do not disturb". (poor guy) My husband, sister and I are starting to pull away from the screens more and play interactive games. In fact, I just cancelled TV for 6 months. Rain or shine, every day I go out for a solo road walk or hike in the woods to remind myself how lucky I am to live in Vermont and to count my blessings of family, friends and good health.

 

And, here's my home office setup (my back misses my standing desk already!), as well as some pictures of my daughter's 20th birthday "party" with her grandparents sitting in the car to maintain distance.  I also included our chickens, which are thankfully starting to lay eggs with some regularity again thanks to the longer daylight hours of Springtime!  Sadly we don't have Annie anymore, but the chickens are happy to be "free ranging" again since Annie would have chased and possibly eaten them?!

 We've been trying not to go into stores, so thankfully our small local grocery store offers curb side pickup after ordering on-line and our local Shaws store will actually deliver your groceries to your house, so here's a look at our grocery delivery.  It's amazing how much food a family of 5 can go through in a week when you eat every meal at home.  Especially when your "kids" are 15-20 year old adults now!

Off-Season Community Service Fun

Community Service is something that most students at Middlebury get involved with, and it's a great way to bond with friends while helping those in need in our community.  One popular even that student-athletes often do is the Community Supper.  Every Friday night, all year long, different groups volunteer to cook dinner for roughly 200-250 community members who are in need of a hot, healthy dinner free of charge.  Over 100 of those dinners get delivered to those in the community that aren't able to get there themselves.



It's an amazing feeling to feed that many people and engage with our community.  Many sports teams do this because it takes quite a few people to prepare a meal that large, as well as serve it to that many people.  The Congregational Church hosts the dinners every week, but it's organized by an outside group, and they coordinate the volunteers, but we did the shopping, and all of the meal preparation/serving/cleaning. 

We did our night on Valentine's Day this year, so it was an extra special evening! We wanted to make lasagna, so we actually prepped most of the dinner on Thursday afternoon. Corley and Lucy were on dessert duty, making three HUGE pans of brownies.


Ali cooked and seasoned the meat while Maggie, Jane and I assembled the lasagna.  (No Boil noodles made this task much simpler, and just as tasty!)

The day of we prepared huge bowls of salad by cutting up cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots to add to the greens.  All agreed it was a fun event and would love to do it again! 



The finished product looked great, and we got rave reviews about how good it all tasted, as well as how nice the team was to engage with the community members by not only helping them get served dinner, but also just chatting with them during dinner.  I think we made 11 double pans of lasagna, which is a ton of lasagna!

AND, of course, we had to clean up afterward!  Good job, TEAM!!  The saying, "It takes a Village" is ever so true, and especially in small communities like Middlebury.  This is a win-win for our team since it's a huge help to the community, and rewarding for us to contribute and work together on a project about more than personal betterment.