A photo of me (in the middle in black) with the studio members of Tokinoha

My name is Lingwen Zhang and I am a Putney international student from Chongqing, China. Thinking about the time I spent at Putney, three years went past so quickly, and I’m now already a senior. I wish I could use this blog as an opportunity to preserve some of my experiences and memories at Putney.

Ever since I started my high school life at Putney, I started constantly asking myself if I regretted my decision of choosing Putney, but the answer was always “I am so glad that I get to be here”– and I became more and more determined every time I answered. I can still recall my anxiety and curiosity prior to arriving at school. As a person who grew up in a city, I could never imagine my life in the countryside and taking care of animals. After my arrival, I realized my anxiety was needless as I saw the friendly people and the beautiful campus.

One interesting story from my early time at Putney was about my courses. I originally intended to do a lot of carpentry; however, I discovered that carpentry was only an activity rather than a course for freshmen, and this activity was always the top pick for juniors and seniors, which meant I was less likely to be selected. In the meantime, I was supposed to be in Algebra 2 in the fall, but my math class was moved from the fall trimester to the winter trimester due to a large number of students in the fall class. With a free block in my schedule, I wanted to fill this block with a course so I could have a full start in my high school life. The only option left for me was ceramics, so I thought why not give it a shot. I gradually fell in love working with clay and ended up doing tons of pottery instead of carpentry.

In the end, choosing ceramics really became a surprise to me since I never thought I could be invested in any form of art. Three years have passed since that very first trimester, and I now have done uncountable projects about ceramics, including a three-week internship in a pottery studio called Tokinoha in Kyoto, Japan.