AESOP: the best four days of my life and also the smelliest four days of my life? On my AESOP orientation trip I met some of the kindest people and, now, about two months later, whenever I pass by any of them on campus they always give me either a smile or an enthusiastic, “Hey!” Although I may not be immediate friends with my trip members or even see them on a regular basis, I can always count on a friendly conversation in commons or out on the quad. And, most importantly, I don’t think my AESOP group would have this community and the relationship we do if it wasn’t for our leaders.
I went on Wool and Waves and Lucy Whitelam ‘26 and Matt Riseman ‘26 as my leaders. All I can say everytime I think of the trip is, “Wow.” Over the course of our few day trip, Lucy and Matt had so much to handle and they never let their stress show. They were so patient with all of us, especially when we were learning to knit, because let’s just recognize that it is not the easiest arts and crafts activity to do. But honestly, the trip was such a vibe. We all had our own wool and yarn while sitting on the beach with our toes in the sand, simply just trying to figure out how to knit. I am so glad that my AESOP included knitting because I had never tried it before: AESOP was the perfect opportunity to try something new, especially with a new group of people.
As far as waves go, we did the best we could with what we had. The beach was super rough, and there wasn’t anything to surf. We tried going out with our surfboards but it was no use, all the waves were just white waters that were barely rideable. Nevertheless, we body surfed. We also swam out to a really cool sandbar on Popham Beach State Park (would recommend).
All in all, the experience was so relaxing, as we laid on the sand and talked to each other. It was very comforting to hear about Lucy and Matt’s experience at Bates thus far. They talked about a lot of things that I knew I wanted to get involved in, such as the dance department. They were almost like big siblings, advising me on what classes to take, what to do on the weekends, and the best commons meals.
My fellow AESOPers were super fun to be around and everyone had a story to tell, whether that be gossip or just an unusual hidden talent. Not a day went by during AESOP where I wasn’t dying laughing about one of AESOPers ability to imitate Shrek perfectly or their insane crochet obsession during Covid. But out of all of the laughs on the trip, the highlight for me was our extra AESOP member, the skunk.
The skunk paid us a visit the last two nights of AESOP when we were all gathered around the fire making smores. We were around the fire sharing crazy camping stories, weird memories about certain places in Maine, and using our phones to take detailed photos of the stars in the sky. The smoke was crackling and the smell of the campfire was surrounding us all, finally getting the no shower smell to go away. Mid conversation about a crazy Acadia camping trip, the skunk arrived. We heard rattling under the picnic table where all of our s’mores supplies were. Lucy flashed her flashlight and that’s when we spotted the fluffy white and black tail fluttering under the table. During the encounter with the skunk, we all grabbed on tightly to each other and said, “If this is what is going to send us home a day earlier at least it’s going to be a good story to tell when we get back,” “after our tomato juice bath in the Page Hall fourth floor bathroom, of course.” But, to our surprise (and luck) we never got sprayed. The skunk just wanted some of our hershey’s chocolate bar, and he lived in the sewage pipe where we were parked, so it just made sense for him to come out and greet us. And since he paid us a visit we couldn’t stop reminiscing about it on the bus ride home. We all pondered what would have happened if he sprayed us that night? Would we have learned how to do a slip knot? But in the long run, the skunk spraying us would’ve been the way out of all of our smelly existence on AESOP. Now, upon some reflection about those four days, the smelly part I mentioned in the beginning wasn’t because of the skunk, there just weren’t any showers for us to use.
