I have never actually been to the bottom of Lake Champlain, but I know it intimately. I have seen it through the lens of a remotely operated vehicle, on the subsurface images created by seismic data, and in data point by data point as I corrected and verified more than 700,000 depth readings generated over 10 years of intense sampling. I can tell you where every rise, ridge, deep, island, bay, bridge, wreck, and lake monster resides and I can tell you the way the currents flow and the winds blow and the waves break. But there is plenty left to learn.

My acceptance to Middlebury was like finding a golden ticket and, while I was a little disappointed that there was no chocolate river or never-ending gobstoppers, there were plenty of chocolate fondue fountains.

At Middlebury I found a place where I could settle into my own shoes and seek out those things that inspired me intellectually as well as outside of class. For me this journey began in theatre, then Spanish, then biology, then environmental studies, and finally in the geology department. I have always been fascinated with processes that form and have formed our earth. In geology, I found a faculty that shared my sense of wonder and gave me the tools to explore and satisfy my intrinsic curiosity.

Outside of class there was improv comedy, intramural soccer, skiing, kayaking, and Ben & Jerry's at the dining hall. There were summers spent researching in Alaska and California, winters in Hawaii, Costa Rica, and Europe, and eight months in South America. I worked with damselflies, salmon, falcons, monkeys, AIDS groups, polluted rivers, Nicaraguan deep-sea sedimentary basins, and traveled all over to improv festivals. 

I have always been an optimist and while I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, things just worked themselves out at Middlebury. Friends were made, majors declared, theses completed, maps published, and so on and so on. So while I've never been to the bottom of Lake Champlain, it seems that, just like Charlie Bucket, my golden ticket has turned into a glass elevator ride with limitless possibilities.