NOTES FROM THE DESK

Author: KATIE FLAGG '08

I have to admit that, when it came time to choose a college, Middlebury was impressive. I found myself fond of the picturesque campus. I was won over by the facilities, by the professors in tweedy jackets and by students in performance fleece. I decided that I simply had no choice but to whisk myself away to rural Vermont.

But the truth isn't quite so simple. The real reason I chose to enroll at Middlebury was because, secretly, I believed I was matriculating at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Laugh all you like, but it's true. Ever since I was 12 I've harbored delusions of brandishing a wand. Slightly far-fetched? Of course, but everyone knows that life as a Muggle just doesn't cut it.

At long last, that dream of traipsing off to Hogwarts has come true. I harbored suspicions for the better part of last year. One look at the so-called "Commons System" and I was convinced I'd been sorted into Gryffindor and that the table of Ross students across the dining hall was really a gaggle of Slytherins. Everything pointed to Middlebury-as-Hogwarts: the spiral staircase in Freeman, the way the wind across Battell Beach evokes Peeves the Poltergeist, the way "House Elves" magically cleaned my bathroom and cooked my dinner.

My inkling was confirmed last month when I watched daring "ickle firsties" gallop around on - you guessed it - magical brooms. I cheered my heart out as the Snitch sprinted from Ross to Bicentennial Hall. I clapped with all my might when a plucky Seeker clenched a match for his team. Most of all, I plotted to somehow find my way onto a Middlebury Quidditch team.

Admit it - we go to Hogwarts

And if we don't, well, we all wish we did. After all, it is that time of year when, rather than languish away inside the library or lock myself in Bicentennial Hall, I am ready to put aside my schoolbooks and simply believe that somehow my work will get done. How? It's magic