All that we did not do during Winter Term

Author: Pat Abatiell

All productive people are alike; all unproductive people are unproductive in their own way.

That's a clever reference to Anna Karenina, the book I didn't read this J-Term. I intended to, though. I talked about it a lot over Christmas break - "my J-Term project," I called it, and every time I was in a Barnes and Noble I would pick up the book and flip through it. I figured, with a schedule that consists of one class that meets for approximately six hours a week, I'd have plenty of time to finish a 900 page novel, and I was excited. My blockmate planned to read it with me, and we talked about having our own private book club where every few days we would make tea and discuss Anna's measured progress toward the train station platform.

Charming plan, I think. The problem is, it never happened. I don't even own a copy of the book. I just never got around to buying it. And now, with only a few days of J-Term left before real life starts devouring us once again, I realize that over the past month, I haven't really gotten around to doing anything.

I had such straightforward and noble intentions: read a great work of literature, snowboard a lot, spend time outdoors, try to curb winter weight-gain, establish a healthy and loving relationship that would last for the rest of my life. But in the end, I came nowhere close to accomplishing these goals, and what I did instead is not entirely clear.

I think it consisted largely of splaying. I spent a lot of time this J-Term prostrate, and not in the way that suggests activity, as in being prostrate beneath someone else, but in the sense of just laying there, limbs abandoned, eyes closed, wondering how long I had until Proctor opened.

I am consoled, however, by the knowledge that I am not alone in experiencing this feeling of wallowing in my own uselessness. It seems that the paralyzing torpor of J-Term is something most Middlebury students can relate to. The majority of people I talked to looked slightly panicked when I asked the question "What do you think you accomplished this term?" There were a lot of blank stares, a lot of lip biting, but not much in the way of success stories. The answers I got were more like the meager scrapings of actual achievement, and I found myself having to give a lot of fake smiles, like the ones I got at the end of every Little League season when the coach handed me the "Best Attendance" award.

"We went to a yoga class once," said sophomores Chris Heinrich and Carol Wilson. When asked why they did not go back, the pair agreed that they "just never quite made it." Eli Berman '07.5 proudly reported that he had "gained a little weight." He even gave his stomach a few satisfied pats, which, now that I think about it, makes me a little jealous. At least he has something to show for a month worth of effort.

Abby Friedman '07 believes that the phenomenon of inactivity during J-Term is the result of the relative chaos of students' normal lives. She had intended to use this month to look for a summer internship and to build up her resumé, but for Friedman, that just wasn't in the cards. "In the fall and spring there's work," she said. "Work and clubs and jobs and exams and everything. Then you go home for break, but there are all these other obligations - family, holidays, old friends. J-Term just gives you the chance to turn your brain off for a while." She later said that she plans to look for that internship over Feb Break, the same week my blockmate and I agreed we would "definitely start Anna Karenina."

J-Term, however, was not a total loss for everyone. I asked one student in Proctor what she had gotten out of this month, and after a solid minute of contemplation, she responded, "I don't know." A while later, however, she amended that answer. "I've got one," she said. "This morning at breakfast, a boy touched me."

I asked Student Government Association Senator Isabel Yordan '07 her thoughts on that response. "Hell," she said, "That's not bad. I haven't even started the book I wanted to read last J-Term."