Senior Reflection: Ellie Wang
The biggest lesson I learned at Exeter is that if I feel like I’m forgetting something, I probably am. I should probably double-check one or more of the following: backpack, Canvas, Calendar, Outlook, other Outlook, Gmail, or other Gmail.
My biggest regrets are the Grill points I didn’t spend. (Can I redeem them somehow? just kidding).
My proudest moment was during Peer Tutoring, when I could barely recall prep physics but helped someone with a standing wave problem. (If you’re reading this, I hope you aced your test.)
My happiest moment was purchasing pickled peppers (say that three times fast) for my dad at the Thursday farmer’s market.
But all those failures, frustrations, and feelings of pride and happiness have been exceedingly fleeting compared to the feelings of gratitude that I have grappled with throughout my time at Exeterhere. Many people think of gratitude as a stabilizing sense of peace, something to fall back on when things get tough. But throughout my four years, my gratitude swelled and crashed in time with the “Exeter wave.”
Some weeks I excelled and I rode that high. Other weeks I was down in the dumps, wading through garbage. Garbage feelings, garbage tests, garbage papers, garbage weather. It was especially at those times that I struggled in my heart to be grateful for the experience, even though I knew in my mind that I was exceptionally privileged and fortunate.
I kept steamrolling ahead hoping for the light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes along the way, tunnel vision blurred my perspective of what really mattered to me, like my health and my family. Now, reaching the end of the tunnel, I’m squinting my eyes into the sun.
Looking back at how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown., I feel the same sense of awe as I did watching the leaves change color the first month I was on campus three years ago. Zooming out really puts things into perspective; (how fitting, that I began my high school experience Zooming into online classes).
After all that time I spent agonizing over the smallestlittlest details, the failures, frustrations, and every piece of garbage I stomped through, I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing is really that deep. The long elusive sense of gratitude I chased after is now settling into me.
