Penultimate Monday
In this Issue:
- Share your local recommendations
- This Is Water by David Foster Wallace
This is the 2nd to last Monday – the penultimate Monday! – of the regular semester. Being an English major nerd, I will embrace every opportunity to use the word ‘penultimate’ just because it is such a funny word.
Today is gorgeous – sunny and low 80s with a nice breeze. We have a chance of rain for the next several days, so I hope your Deacs will spend as much time outdoors as they can today.
Today I have two topics: one is an ask (help us with your local recommendations for our P’29 families), and one is a gift: my all-time favorite Commencement speech, if you care to listen.
Share your local recommendations
We are hard at work on the New Students website for the incoming Class of 2029 and their families; it will go live on May 1. As part of that, we want to pick the brains of our currently-enrolled families around some of the questions new families often have: Where are good places to eat? What hotels do other families like? and What local attractions should we know about?
Please take a few short minutes and give us your answers here. This is an anonymous form; it will not collect your name or email.
Thank you in advance for helping guide our P’29s to your tried and true favorite spots!
This Is Water by David Foster Wallace
Every spring as the end of the semester nears, I find myself coming back to David Foster Wallace’s 2005 Commencement speech “This Is Water.” The last days before finals are a time when students typically feel a lot of stress, and they might need a little grounding and recentering.
This Is Water is 22 minutes, but in my mind its the best 22 minutes you will spend in a long time. You can listen here to Foster Wallace’s message.
His main idea is that education gives you the capacity to choose what to think about. And we can choose to see things only through our own default filter, where we cling to things we are automatically sure of, without necessarily examining those beliefs or considering that we are not the center of the universe.
On the other hand, we can can choose to think about things in other ways by adjusting our default filter. In so doing, we can see the world, and see other people, with greater empathy, compassion, and understanding.
At a time in the semester when students might be microfocusing on tasks, This Is Water could offer a 22 minute study break where students focus on the macro: what education gives each of us in terms of broad understanding of the world, and of how to think.
I am a big fan of the HBO show True Detective’s first series. This Is Water often makes me think of Rust Cohle’s statement about ‘mainlining the secret truth of the universe.’
As we close today’s blog thinking about words of wisdom, begin thinking about any special things you might say/text/write to your student as finals approach (e.g., “I love you!” “You got this!” etc.). Please do share any messages of affirmation with your student. Your words can be their own source of magic.