So maybe I’ve had a bit of a non-traditional perspective on what college is supposed to mean. But is it a crime to say that I didn’t set aside four years of my life to sit in poorly-ventilated lecture halls and write papers? I’m restless, albeit a little shy and independent (maybe a downfall of those who choose my field of study), and I’d much rather spend the day digging for grubs in a turf field. I’ve been up and about this semester, both in class and out, throwing ropes in trees and hiking in the pouring rain looking for mushrooms, diving into cold rivers and dragging my friends to concerts and markets and one time that hotpot place in Springfield. I saw several square miles of the world below me from the candle-stick of a bucket truck, vertigo and awe swimming in my stomach. I can safely say that overcoming a fear of heights was my biggest challenge in that particular class. In my plant pathology lab, I saw tiny clouds of bacteria bleed from infected plant tissue under a microscope, watched zoospores and nematodes swim around in all their pathogenic fervor. That’s what college should be, for me, and what it largely has been. I see a little more of this beautiful and precarious world every day. It’s my last year at UMass Amherst, and I’m going to make the most of it. Next semester, I will be a lab assistant for the professor who took us out grub-hunting, a TA for my plant pathology professor, and I am enrolled in a class to learn chainsaw techniques. After I graduate, I wish to continue to see the world, to learn with my hands, and most importantly, to have fun. Peace and love, and as always, thank you MVYouth.
Madeleine Chronister - University of Massachusetts, Stockbridge
Every year is different - like a changing shoreline, the tides ebb and flow, and with every passing day the sands move. They say you never stand in the same river twice, but it’s these ever-shifting places that through millennia shape the land. And as they etch themselves windingly along the surface of the earth, every day carves into me. Spring meltwater and slow summers alike. I waded through the brooks and lake-shores of western Massachusetts this fall, where the rainbow trout and blacknose dace live, as the world spun hazardously around me, in and out of my head. A long summer seeded a long fall, and though the winters become warmer each year, the days are still short and blinding, and they remind me to look back (there is a species of herring that can only be distinguished from another by the color of its guts- some things you can only see after they are gone). I too am marked by this fall, by the things that hurt and the things that didn’t. Marked by mistakes- regret and guilt- but also by love. By the stars and the moon and by long walks to the convenience store. These beautiful things, however big or small, that lay beside me in the grass. We remind each other- there is a future, always. Sometimes, the river will be hard to navigate, cold and rocky. Sometimes your waders will have a hole in them. And you might not even catch any lamprey. But it will not be this way forever - you have to keep pushing, even as the waters move under you, because every direction you move in is forward. Thank you to MVYouth, and to all of those who helped me continue onward this fall - I will remember you.
Maddie Chronister - University of Massachusetts, Stockbridge
This summer I had a working class tour of the Island in a Toyota Tacoma with broken AC. I spent a late night on the beach learning the Portuguese words for the moon and stars. In the morning, someone makes an incredibly obvious observation: “The sun is rising. I can see it,”. Words aren’t poetic just because they sound like surface level ancient proverbs. They are poetic because of their meaning- the retrospect of laughter every time I see the sun rise. I watched the blood moon at 5:30 am on November 8th; soon after it came the sun. And so the quote crossed my mind. I can see it. Stories aren’t meaningful just because they tell you something. They make you feel something. In holometabolous larvae, the imaginal disc is a structure that will become part of the adult- a limb, an organ, so forth. On the third floor of Fernald hall (est. 1911) there is a set of rules written in chalk. You would have to see it yourself to understand.
I learned this fall some things that can’t be put into words and plenty of things that can. Of the null hypothesis and of the corpus cardiacum and Keynesian macroeconomics and Haudenosaunee Nationals Lacrosse and this thing called Elysium. This November I also wrote over twenty-thousand words of a novel in an attempt to do what writers do - make people understand things that are impossible to put into words. All the same, I don’t have enough words to explain just how MVYouth represents the things that are important to me, the things I try to write about. The work, the academics, the friends. Thank you again for the connections and opportunities for which I owe these words. I can’t wait to see what next semester will hold.
Maddie Chronister - University of Massachusetts, Stockbridge
I spent much of my senior year of high school doing remote learning - I didn't leave my house very often and seldom had chances to meet up with my friends. But since moving to UMass Amherst this fall, that reality was turned upside down. Despite the inevitable adjustment period, I believe the drastic change has been for the good, academically and socially. Growing up on the Vineyard, whose year round population is less than the total enrollment at UMass, moving away for school was a big change. With that change comes a slew of new opportunities. I’ve been really enjoying my classes so far, and as a horticulture science major in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, getting to work in the greenhouses and doing hands-on labs has been great. Meeting people with the same interests in horticulture, botany, and agriculture, has been one of the benefits of attending a (comparatively) large school. I’ve also been able to expand my interests beyond what I’m used to. I’ve joined several clubs, from beekeeping to archery to film production. I’ve also been getting to meet tons of new people from all over the country and the around the world, and I’m grateful to be able to make so many friends from different backgrounds. Needless to say, the pandemic has certainly thrown a wrench in people’s daily lives, and has presented plenty of challenges for a fully in-person experience. Despite that, we’ve managed to stay healthy and have been able to have in-person classes for the fall semester. I’m excited to go back again for the spring, but being back on the Vineyard for winter break also reminds me of the values of our community and inspires me to use my education to better the place I call home. I’m very grateful to MVYouth for helping me get to experience all of this - only one semester in, but it’s truly been life changing! Thank you very much!