“We finish our labors to start them anew.” This Peddie School motto is well represented throughout all three major terms of Peddie. We are given a lot of responsibilities as students, but we always finish them at the end, growing both academically and personally. The merit that we obtain through this process is that we can make the most out of whatever time and environment we are given: even with the short three-week interwinter period, Peddie students thrive in countless ways as they prepare for the end of the year.
Since students go through rigorous academic and extracurricular activities during the school year, interwinter is a more unwinding time where students can make memories with their friends and wrap up their year. “Interwinter was kind of short, and school wasn’t really that hard,” Anna Oushalkas ’28 said, “I felt like as a freshman class, we all got closer together during interwinter. It snowed right before we left, so I got to have a snowball fight with my friends. Since I’m from Texas, being able to experience the snow right before leaving was a really good treat. During interwinter, we had swim meets and basketball games as well.”
Interwinter, for other students, was also a time when they could look back to their fall term and forward to their winter term. “I am looking forward to the ISO trip during the actual winter term,” Yurika Wu ‘28 said, “But interwinter itself was fun as well. It was nice because we had a lot of activities. Sometimes I did feel that it was tiring because I was so excited for winter break, but it was a really good experience on the whole.” Likewise, students were able to engage in more community activities outside of regular schoolwork. Dr. Shah’s humanities class, for example, had a block dedicated to some pizza and Snoopy films!
Interwinter’s ultimate purpose, however, is to serve as a time that fills between fall term and the rest of winter term, smoothly connecting students to the winter break but still giving them an opportunity to wrap up their year. “During interwinter, I felt at first as if there was too much happening all at once,” Kimberly Juarez Escamilla ‘28 said, “However, as the days passed by, I started to really enjoy my time, letting myself be free and spending time with friends. Not only that, I saw an increase in my abilities and noticed myself being happier to see my family, as well as being around my friends both here and outside of school. I truly loved this year’s interwinter!”
As you can see, interwinter was a fruitful time for the Peddie school community, especially for the freshmen, to reflect on their lives as Peddie students and prepare themselves for the next two terms. Now that all of us have had nice breaks over the winter, and are now in the middle of winter term, let us continue to make the most of our remaining time at Peddie.