Middlebury
View from my room
June-August, 2001
I made an oath that I would only speak Russian for the duration of my stay at Middlebury:
ten weeks. That includes time in the classroom, in the student union, on campus,
in the dorms, and even if we leave campus entirely. This single rule is what makes
the program so successful, so it is taken seriously, so seriously that if you speak
any other language and get caught three times you will be expelled. Of course you
can talk to family and friends on the phone in English, however even that is strongly
discouraged as is all communication via e-mail.
Everyone must live in the dorms and each school (Russian, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese,
French, Spanish, German, and Italian) gets a dorm for themselves; we were in Gifford,
which sits atop a hill next to Mead Memorial Chapel. The professors also live in
the dorms, so cheating on your oath becomes more impossible.
At lunch we all eat together in the dining area, each school get the hall at a certain
point. Students in our school serve us, all food is listed only in Russian and our
professors help the student staff communicate with the cooks by acting as translators.
Courses are intense; each class only consists of about 6-8 students and we have
courses from 9:00am until noon, at which time we eat, then spend at least 5-6 hours
studying and doing our homework for the next day.
Middlebury College Campus
The program works due to Middlebury's isolation. This isolation adds to the
beauty of the campus, but also become a mental challenge, not easily overcome. The
town of Middlebury has little to offer, so most of my time was spent at the union
or at the track and student exercise facilities.
The union made fantastic smoothies and had incredible sweet potato fries. It didn't
take long before this became my new home as my classmates and I would study, play
pool, and relax.
I got most of my frustration out by running; shorter runs on the track, then a workout
in the nearby weight room and at other times just running as far away from town
as I could manage, before I was threatening myself with getting lost so turned around
and headed back
The area is gorgeous; on one run I found a couple wooden bridges crossing the river
much like a New England painting would portray. The mountains are covered with evergreens
and look like giant rolling green hills, hence the name Vermont (green mountains).
Mead Memorial Chapel
One of the requirements of the program is that we all must participate in an extracurricular
activity ranging from sowing, drama, cooking, to my choice soccer. Each weekend
our team would play another school in soccer; our only chance to interact with the
other students at the college. However, we still couldn't communicate with them.
Much like the real world, the French school, Italian school, and Spanish schools
dominated in soccer and our team was a sad group, however our school is much smaller
and more nerd-filled. Like, pee-wee soccer, we rotated giving everyone playing time
so whether you start or not depends on the week's rotation and either way, you'll
probably play the same amount as everyone else. That helped the good players from
not putting too much stock in winning and the poor players motivation to play hard.
While winning, or soccer for that matter, wasn't our strength, we seemed to
get along well and every person in the school who was even half athletic (there's
about 20 of us) played soccer, so after each loss, we just sort of hung out and
moved on. Its just wasn't worth being competitive since there's no talent
and no motivation... it was a school requirement for some and something to do for
others, but still one of my highlights.
Mead Memorial Chapel
At times, each day seemed to drag into the next at Middlebury, however at other
times it became apparent that I wasn't alone and friendships grew quickly and
the bonds we formed seemed contradictory: we always had this experience, however
didn't want to talk about it once it was done.
While I made some great friends at Middlebury, there were a great number of people
that were there for the prestige that comes with attendance at the college's
language school. Prestige seems like too much work to me and I'm not good at
name dropping, however some of the Ivy league students dwelled on it and how good
it would look on their resume; it was them that made the experience even more difficult.
Despite the good and bad people, we had people from everywhere. The Russian school
only had about 100 people in it, but had students from Malaysia, Tanzania, Korea,
the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Columbia, Israel, France, and Norway. One of my favorites
was a friend named Tom France, who was actually from France. I didn't believe
that was his last name so demanded to see his passport, sure enough.
My dorm's hall consisted of people from Oxford, Columbia (the country), Brown,
Yale, Trinity, plus a professor and me... by academic-reputation, entrance requirements,
and standing comparison, I was an unintelligent buffoon, but it mattered not.
Campus and the Town of Middlebury
When I enrolled here, my professor told me that you know you are near fluency when
you start thinking and dreaming in the language you're studying and it was at
Middlebury where he had his first dream in Russian. I think here everyone dreamt
in Russian and we all thought in Russian; it was nearly impossible to not think
and dream in Russian. The language consumed us and like infants learning to speak
we had to find a way to communicate, so quickly learned what we had to.
When I left this program I think my Russian language skills were at their peak and
will never reach that point again.
Oh, and the sunsets from my dorm room were unreal...
Sunset #1
Sunset #2
Sunset #3
Sunset #3 zoomed in