Student Blogger: Melis Tavmergen

Now that it’s coming to an end, it’s time to have a recap on this year which is ending nearly in the same place it started, yet it feels like it was more than just 365 days filled with quarantines, and fear, and happiness and fun at the same time.

What makes a stage production successful is how it adapts a movie, takes its story, and recreates it in a way that preserves the essence while showing some other aspects that were not highlighted in the movie version. It needs to show something new while preserving the basics and the familiarity of the story.

The midterm season is that time of the year for me. The season of what-ifs. What’s different than my yearly mid-term crisis is that this year I actually need to make some decisions for next year, and for the first time in my life, the sense of uncertainty makes me nervous rather than excited.

Yes, I learn many new things in school, but coming to college taught me a lot more than just what I learn inside the classroom. Just as an example, before this week, I have never dismantled a big piece of furniture or used an electric screwdriver, and even if these don’t seem like big achievements to some, knowing that I am able to do these things when I need to give me a self-confidence I wouldn’t otherwise have. 

Now that it's time to start my last year in college as a senior, I had a little time to think about what I would say to my high school self, who was eager to apply to colleges and change her life. It may be too early to call it a letter to my younger self, but that's what it is: a couple of things I learned in my last four years.

After a year and a half of living in my hometown, it’s nearly time to go back to New York. I moved to New York in 2018, and I lived there until the first months of the pandemic. So, the question is, why do I feel more nervous about going back than I felt when I first left my hometown?

That’s what family means to me: just being yourself and having a bond that is beyond words and actions. I don’t have to prove myself to my family; I don’t have to do things to make them like me. I just have to be myself. I am lucky since I also have this kind of a bond with my parents, but having a family in addition to my real family is one of the best things in life. 

Why it’s bizarre to show my happiness, or why is it brave? Why did we normalize living a rushed life full of sullen faces, and why showing your happiness is either a show of weakness or craziness?

I was a “theatre person”, which was the only thing I was certain about in life. Of course, this came to an end the last March with the start of quarantine. I still am a theatre person, but suddenly everything around me that felt comfortable was taken away. How could I be a theatre person when there is no theatre?