David Abel '09
Pied Piper of Fun
The education gods demand sacrifices. To get an education, students have to give time and attention, sometimes even give up sleep as they pore over pages of notes in preparation for a test. When the semester is over, one last sacrifice remains. Shadowy figures surround a bonfire, and with accompanying incantations throw their notes and tests into the flames. All those scribbled thoughts become smoke rising toward the stars.
“It’s a really good way of having closure on the year,” said Dave Abel, who has invited his classmates to come to bonfires at his house sometimes after the pressure of final exams is over. When Upper School students elected him as student body president, he wanted to make sure it would be an entertaining year, but having a good time hasn’t always been as easy as striking a match.
“Planning and organizing and facilitating so you can have a fun event requires hard work,” he said. “Kids on student council are very vocal and opinionated and have lots of ideas, so sometimes we have conflict. At the beginning of the year it was definitely a learning experience, but after figuring out the group dynamic it’s been smooth sailing.”
Although he loves fun, Dave is quite capable of serious work, which includes the work he must will himself to do—tasks involving rote memorization, for instance—as well as the work he loves to do, reading and discussing philosophy. One of his favorite classes was Terry Hansen’s Philosophy of Religion.
“We send articles back and forth talking about things we find, and then we get to come to school and discuss it,” he said. He enjoys finding connections between philosophy and his other main interests, computer science and physics. “Those are all interrelated in some way. I am fascinated by how the world works.”
One collection of notes that is not going on the bonfire is Dave’s journal in which he keeps notes about his thoughts and the ideas that interest him. He has a scheme to turn the material into a novel that uses metaphors and allegory to tell a greater truth about the world. “But I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it,” he adds.
Next year he will attend Carleton College, where he will continue his intellectual pursuits, play Ultimate Frisbee, and throw himself into “Broomball,” a game that involves flooding the quad on a cold winter day, putting on tennis shoes, and playing hockey with brooms. If it’s as fun as it sounds, expect to find Dave in the middle of it.
