At first, when I returned to school after the summer, I felt like no time had passed. I reunited with my friends and greeted my former teachers as they strolled around the Circle. I started to fall into my old habits, swinging the rope on the Chapel fence as I passed. Before I could even finish unpacking my boxes, Fourth Form crashed over me like a wave. Groton began to seem different. Although it was the same place that I had begun to call a second home, Upper School life led me to discover the less-traveled corners of the Groton experience.
There is a certain brand of euphoria that accompanies a trip to the Dining Hall in total darkness. After study hall, Fourth Formers are allowed to leave the dorm and go anywhere on campus for fifteen minutes, before returning to the common room for check-in. During the first “fifteen,” my friends and I ran to the Dining Hall. Racing up the spiral staircase and into the darkened room, the chairs in the senior section were barely visible to our adjusting eyes. As we walked back to the dorm with peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches in hand, I felt at home. Fourth Form life was already different than Third Form; that night I knew I would enjoy it.