There are many ways to pass your Fall Break. Last year, I opted for the lounge-in-a-home-with-extended-family route. This meant I slept (late), watched TV (Korean dramas—too much), and harassed my young cousin (often). This Fall Break has been different, notable not only for having one cancelled international trip but also for my service-learning trip to West Virginia.
Self-proclaimed as “Wild and Wonderful,” West Virginia was a state I had heard/known little about. Now, I’d say I have a better understanding of it as a place. The Weather: English—lots of mist and rain but with random bouts of sunshine. The landscape: like a Thomas Kinkade painting. The people: Southern, in all the best ways. Alabama is called Alabama the Beautiful but…we seem to be outclassed by WV. It’s a lot like something that’d appear on one of the “valley”s—Nature or Hidden (that is). 
Or it could just be that I’ve become desensitized to Alabamian beauty.
I got onto the service-learning trip in the wake of the cancellation of my other trip. It’s a partnership between Haverford (and Bryn Mawr) and High Rocks Educational Corporation. High Rocks is a (mostly) girls camp and academic-year program which aims to foster motivation, leadership, and connection by hosting group meetings and the intense summer camp. Haverford (and Bryn Mawr) are here to help build/fix things on the main camp site, participate in the monthly overnight, and just generally learn about High Rocks’ mission and place in WV. We’ll be here until Saturday and through my birthday (the 17th). I’ve decided to keep that last fact on the down-low as I don’t really want it to be a thing. Nineteen is not one of the “Big” blah-blah ages.
Anywho, it has been pretty nice. The mist on the mountains has been somewhat constant but has left by midday almost every day we’ve been here (I like to think it’s because of us). In WV I can see some of Alabama, even as the ruggedness of the terrain tells me otherwise. The Misty Mountains song (though I have no pictures of the actual mist) seems quite appropriate considering I watched a wooden shed burn today. “The trees like torches” can thus be changed to “the sheds like torches in the (day).”
