Reading Harry Potter, don't worry no spoilers

I'm not ashamed to admit it, but I was at the bookstore in town this past Friday at midnight, waiting in line (though not dressed up) for the final copy of Harry Potter. I probably walked out of the store at 12:45am and proceeded to immediately begin reading.

For those night-owl hours, I was flipping through the pages in various chairs and rooms in our new dorm cluster, the McLaughlin Cluster. Completed last fall, they are absolutely amazing. I'm a nomadic reader and studier; I can't stay put in one spot for that often, so I was pleased with all the various study rooms, lounges and kitchen spaces in the new dorm cluster for me to read in. Moving around every so often keeps my attention span and breaks up those reading/studying blocks. But once daylight finally broke, I knew that the rest of the book would be read outside.

There's just something about being in Hanover for the summer that makes you want to be outside, probably to make up for the winter. And that's the best thing about Dartmouth, there's so much nature and outdoors around, it's pretty effortless to experience it. It's not in our backyard, it is our yard. Every hour I'd move to a new spot, reading on the Green, reading by the River, reading by the Robert Frost statue . . . and it took me no time to move from place to place.

My close friend back up to Dartmouth visiting from New York City that weekend, also reading HP, mentioned how she missed being so close to trees and the outside, as she needed to make a concerted effort to head over to Central Park for nature. You don't need to make that concerted effort at Dartmouth, it's all around. And to varying degrees. Yes, you can go on sunrise hikes and summit a mountain, yes you can join our "Bait and Bullet" club (hunting and fishing), but you don't have to if you don't want to. It's great that we here have the choice and environment to support that, but for me, sitting on a bench outside reading a book is all the outdoors that I need.