The first step I took onto campus after months of online schooling set my heart racing. We were already a few months into the school year, but I didn’t know a single person. I was studying at Milton Academy, a private boarding school in Boston, eight thousand miles away from my home in Hong Kong, and for the first time ever I was heading into Norris House, a place I would call home for the next four years. Creaking up the wooden staircase, I felt beads of sweat form on my forehead and my pulse pump in my wrists. Older students passed, greeting me with a quick “Hey, how are you!”; I responded with an almost inaudible “excited to be here.” As the number of my dorm room got closer and closer, my legs shook enough that I couldn’t stand properly.

When I opened my door for the first time, I saw my new roommate sitting on his bed, seemingly without a care in the world. He smelled like fresh-cut grass and a terrible cologne. With a wide smile, he jumped up to help me with my luggage. He said his name was Melvin. Tall and quite muscular, he told me he came from India.

After I finished unpacking, he brought me to meet the other freshmen on our floor. I was tall too, for a freshman that is, so seeing other kids tower over me was intimidating. We sat in a loose circle, but still feeling uncertain, I kept my chair a couple of feet back from the others at first. We went around the circle, saying our names and where we were from. There was Sam from Jersey, with long red hair; he became one of my best friends later on. Next, a kid named Jonah introduced himself. He was a D1 prospect in hockey from the West Coast. Melvin introduced me to Charlie, a six-foot beast with short curly hair. Charlie had grown up in Newport, Rhode Island, and his family was very well-off. He wore neatly creased burgundy chinos and boat shoes as if he’d just stepped off the family yacht. A kid from Dubai called Navid introduced himself to me. Navid had well-styled hair and occasionally lived in America. Last came Liam. Liam had long hair and turned out to be an amazing gamer, almost a professional. He was a relatively quiet kid but everyone loved him.

With the introductions finished, the group grew quiet and just sitting there started to feel kind of awkward. Melvin suggested we step out on the quad to do something, and there were nods and grunts of agreement. The quad is a huge patch of grass in the center of Milton. Faculty members take their dogs on walks there and squirrels and birds call it home; the quad is always full of life. As we stepped outside our dorm together, the quad seemed almost like a secret forest, with huge trees and the red-brick dormitories surrounding like symmetrical castles. Although I was new, I could already tell that the quad was someplace special for Milton. I was excited too, at the prospect of playing sports that is, since it would be a great way to bond. However, when I stepped onto the grass prepared to do just about any activity, someone shouted “heads up!” and I saw a football flying my way.

The first time I played an actual game of football, I made some predictable rookie mistakes. As my teammate rushed the football for a big gain, I ran free in the wide green ahead of him and kept yelling for him to pass to me. I had no idea you couldn’t pass the ball forward beyond the line of scrimmage. I was more familiar with the continuous laterals of rugby, and I mistakenly thought passing in football would be just as fluid. Despite the embarrassing mistake, towards the end of the game I scored a touchdown. I tried running a fade at first but the route completely failed, so I changed and started running a post. With a fast shift and a drop of the shoulder, I gained a split second to catch the ball. Luckily the quarterback spotted me at the perfect time. The ball came in fast and the spiral wasn’t perfect, so I let it curl into my chest and cradled it tightly like a newfound treasure. Feeling the football in my arms and chest and seeing that I was in the endzone reminded me of the rush I felt reeling in a massive tuna when I was about eleven. My team rushed towards me and when I spiked the ball we all screamed. To be honest, I don’t remember whether we won the game or not, but I do remember that touchdown.

The next few games were terrible. I had multiple drops, and ran horrible routes. I was always jammed up and sometimes even pushed to the ground. I had no sense of awareness when the quarterback would throw the ball. When I finally got open, which in itself was rare, I couldn’t catch the ball. I began to feel that that first touchdown had just been beginner’s luck. I felt that I was kind of over the sport now and we all played a lot less football for a month.

Football frenzy returned to the school during Super Bowl Sunday. I still didn’t know enough about the sport to entirely understand the game, but I was excited anyway. Since no takeout was allowed this year due to Covid, students rarely got outside food. But the Super Bowl was a special occasion for everyone, and our teachers ordered so much takeout that even the 300-pound D1 football prospects couldn’t finish it all. We would normally have quiet hours for study on Sunday night, but this was canceled for the Super Bowl. We didn’t even have a bedtime! Most of my teachers didn’t assign homework either.

During the game, I kept asking the dumbest questions: How is that not a foul? Why do they have so many downs? How many points is a touchdown? Everyone was annoyed but in a friendly way. The seniors teased me and called me uncultured, but it was all for a good laugh. We’d placed bets before kickoff, and as the game went on, fun arguments broke out. Everyone bonded – a rarity across grade boundaries. During halftime, everyone was jamming to the Weekend’s show and throwing food everywhere – this actually got us into a lot of trouble later since cleaning pizza sauce off of ceiling tiles isn’t easy. Nevertheless, the vibe was electric. I was interested in football again.

Learning to love a new sport was only a small aspect of the Milton Academy experience. Meeting classmates I had only ever seen through a computer screen and hanging out on the quad made me look forward to going to school every day. The biggest benefit of living on campus was the opportunity to hang out with my friends. Racing to ice cream trucks and pouring Mountain Dew on sleeping roommates; receiving painful slaps from one another’s slippers and blasting soccer balls back and forth inside the dorms — these activities helped us bond. Looking back, it amazes me that through just a few months of living together we could become so close.

I couldn’t blame them, dorm rivalry was a big thing. A few weeks ago we’d barely lost to them in basketball, and we’d completely annihilated them in table tennis. We accepted Wolcott’s challenge, and a date and time were set for the game. Because my teammates and I all knew Wolcott was better than us, we trained hard. Every day after dinner when we had a little time before study hours, we went out to practice. We did one-on-one drills, ran routes, and learned new defensive plays. Our quarterback wrote ten attacking plays we could use during the game, and everyone actually memorized them.

It was a non-stop celebration in the dorms that night. Even our advisor knew about the win and ordered takeout. That win showed me how special dorm spirit was. My dormmates were much more than that now; they were teammates and good friends as well. Not all of my closest friends are boarding students, but the thing about dorm life is that it’s something that you can never experience elsewhere.

The past few months at Milton Academy might just have been the best few months of my life. Now that summer is over in Hong Kong, I am more than ready to go back to Norris House and start another year of competition and fun. High school and dorm living only lasts four years, but the memories you gain can stay with you forever.