The Clay that Welcomes the Potter During my first semester at Notre Dame, I have encountered the potential to build. To build not just on things like relationships and memories, but also on myself and the community. I intend to continue to embrace these opportunities whenever possible because they are incredibly rewarding for me and those around me. When I first arrived on campus this fall, I was somewhat worried I didn’t belong. The picture of college life I had painted over the years was a bit far from reality. The ideal world with unlimited freedom, parties, and excitement was actually a relatively small part of my life at ND. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and little time to do it. Additionally, it was hard to adjust from straight As in my high school to now getting some Bs and even the occasional C. For a brief period, I was suffering from a bit of imposter syndrome because many of my friends here seemed like they were going out more than me and having more fun than me, all while still having less work than me. Thankfully, however, when I started to talk about these things with the other freshmen in my dorm, they explained that they all felt similarly to me even though I had thought otherwise. Much like Elizabeth Cox explains in her TED Talk, finding out that other people were also having feelings of imposter syndrome did a lot to help me validate myself. I was able to open myself up more to the community because now I truly did feel like I belonged to it (“What Is Imposter Syndrome and How can You Combat It?” by Elizabeth Cox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo – Moreau FYE Week 9). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQUxL4Jm1Lo I started to open myself up to the community when I really saw how many opportunities exist to build it and myself up. Of course, I would first have to become a part of this community to make use of this potential, and in his article “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community,” Parker J. Palmer describes exactly the best ways to do that. He explains that community is a gift to be received, which requires people to have a capacity to connect with others rather than a network built through forced interaction. I have personally found this to be the case as I’ve already forgotten many of the people I met during welcome week activities, and instead, my closest friends are the people in my dorm who I interact with naturally on a daily basis. As I shared more with the people in my dorm, they also shared more with me. One of my close friends was visibly upset about something, so the rest of us decided to ask him if everything was ok. He told us that his cousin had passed away in a drunk driving accident that morning, and he was absolutely devastated by it. We decided the best route to helping him would be to have him tell us stories of all the good times they had together. Once he was feeling better, he made us all agree never to drive drunk. We went one step further and set up a system for sharing rides to parties to completely avoid that risk all together. This process of healing reminds me a lot of the Kintsugi technique from the workshop in the Grotto video. Just like the broken pieces of pottery are stuck back together with gold to rebuild the pot that represented trauma as a symbol of overcoming it, our friend was able to grieve and heal by telling us the best stories about his cousin to build a perfect memory of her to overcome his sadness and bring members of our community together in solidarity with him (Women Find Healing Through Kintsugi Workshop by Grotto https://grottonetwork.com/make-an- impact/heal/find-healing-through-kintsugi-art/ - Moreau FYE Week 10). The more people I connected with in this manner, the more I saw that the community had so many opportunities available to build it up further and sculpt it into something even more beautiful like a potter making a pot from clay. For example, as I became close with the people around me, I learned more about their parts of the community and the ways that I could help them out. Not only did I see that these opportunities existed all around me, but I also saw that every opportunity was exciting and enticing because of the great relationships I was creating. Each of these opportunities led to many more. The most important common thread between all these opportunities to build community was hope. In nearly every scenario, the end goal was to give someone else hope, whether it be hope that their situation will improve, hope that they can achieve goals, or hope that they can overcome a crisis. When we can inspire hope in others in our community, they can then spread that hope even further to others. Additionally, individuals who get hope from others in the community will likely be able to return the favor. Much like C.S. Lewis describes in the Screwtape Letters, hope comes in cycles with peaks and troughs (The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/23665/files/190625/download?download_frd=1 – Moreau FYE Week 10). We as a community can help individual members get through their troughs and into their peaks and many times they will do the same for us when we need https://grottonetwork.com/make-an-impact/heal/find-healing-through-kintsugi-art/ https://grottonetwork.com/make-an-impact/heal/find-healing-through-kintsugi-art/ https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/23665/files/190625/download?download_frd=1 it. This was the case for me during a week where I had an exam I was really worried about. One of my friends to whom I had recently given food while he was sick saw that I was concerned and asked how he could help. Thankfully, he was in that class as well, so we agreed to study together even though he was already fully prepared for the test. I greatly appreciated his time and efforts because I needed that help. Throughout my first semester at Notre Dame, I have encountered an incredibly welcoming community that presents a bounty of opportunities to improve it and myself on a daily basis. Whether it is through small acts of compassion, a show of friendship, or just being open to new experiences, I intend to take advantage of as many of these opportunities as possible during my time here because I have already seen the potential they have to make the community around me a better place for everyone even if it’s just a bit at a time.