Admission & Financial Aid Jake Montes-Adams '21

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Hello! My name is Jake Montes-Adams and I am a rising sophomore at Amherst College. I am a political science major from San Diego county, California. On campus, I am a member of the Indigenous & Native Citizens Association and La Causa as well as an intramural soccer player. During this past school year, I worked as a program coordinator at the Queer Resource Center and I am happy to be spending the summer in Massachusetts as an intern with the admissions office.

Whilst I am a declared political science major here, I have had the opportunity to take classes in diverse areas of interest from architectural studies to sexuality, women's, and gender studies. I also took a geography class at UMass last semester, which was a fantastic way to spend a bit of time off campus and to explore in a classroom setting a niche interest of mine that I'd previously never had the opportunity to formally study. After I graduate, I hope to work abroad as a policy researcher and advocate for human rights and/or labour rights, but I am also interested in investigative journalism.

When I'm not studying or at work, I like to listen to selections from my record collection, watch YouTube videos, and listen to podcasts. I love to travel (I've been to 26 states plus DC!), I'm a huge baseball fan, and I visit every art museum I can find. Next year I'll be living in Marsh Arts Haus and hope to develop my prose writing and photography skills while continuing to explore across the curriculum and around the Five Colleges.

This blog post isn't going to be that deep. In fact, I've basically already said all I have to say in the title, so if I'm being honest there's probably not much value in reading further. If you'd like to indulge me, though, I'm going to continue using my blogging platform to complain. I'll try to at least make it entertaining.

Shortly put, I am very tired of having this orthopedic boot on my leg. I got it from a very kind physician's assistant at the Keefe Health Centre on campus, who did his best to find a way to reduce the pain in my ankle and upper left foot. Said pain was caused by a round of pick-up soccer on the field below the Greenways, when I spent two hours on a Friday evening doing my best impression of a competent centre-back. There was no specific event of injury, but after the game ended I was aware that my foot was in much more pain than standard post-match soreness would normally cause. Figuring it would go away after a reasonable night's sleep, I hobbled back to my dorm and thought little of it.

My assumption was incorrect. When I awoke the next morning, my foot was still angrily protesting at every step I forced it to take. Over the course of the weekend the pain gradually lessened, but I was still limping around town and campus gingerly. By Tuesday, I thought it had gotten sufficiently better to justify going on the Student Activities trip to a Red Sox game against the Angels at Fenway Park. I was wrong again. To avoid getting lost in a sea of jostling Bostonians, I had to lock elbows with my companions and fight through the pain to speed walk through the labyrinthine walkways surrounding the stadium. The resultant wear and tear on my ankle made the pain worse by next morning, and I had no choice but to call the Health Centre.

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                                                                                             The offending article

This led to the aforementioned physician's assistant prodding concernedly at my left ankle, then deciding it required stabilization and compression. To accomplish this I was given a bulky orthopedic boot to hobble around on and crutches to take the pressure off of the afflicted limb, along with an ice pack and instructions to keep my foot elevated whenever possible. Of course, I am grateful for the medical attention, and I do not bemoan the ability of modern medicine to fix my ankle in a relatively quick manner. Goodness knows what kind of permanent damage my ankle might have sustained if I didn't have easy access to medical services. It is, however, very annoying to be wearing a heavy, black, not at all breathable boot on my foot in 96 degree Fahrenheit weather. For international students, that's a very unpleasant 36 Celsius. Even worse are the days when we get the seemingly random New England summer downpours, which easily soak the anything-but-waterproof boot and leave my foot wet for an entire workday.

Then there's the somewhat performative displays of sympathy from everyone around campus, which range from genuinely sweet concern to contrived ceremonial politeness that exudes inescapable awkwardness. Having a big medical device strapped to your foot at all times, plus the spectacle of crutches, makes it impossible to not be looked at. Can't I just quietly go about my day without being stared at by everyone in Val and on the B43 to Northampton? Apparently not. Eventually my foot will heal, and all this will be forgotten. But for now, my life is being dictated by an orthopedic boot, and personally, I hate it.

To me, music is a lot of things. Music is comfort, familiarity, joy, solace, and catharsis. Different bands and songs have meant different things to me at various points in my life. I began my love of music at a very young age; there is an embarrassing home video somewhere of a toddler Jake dancing wildly to Back in Black by AC/DC. I grew up listening to bootleg CDs of live performances by U2 in my dad's truck, which he collected avidly. To this day, hearing the sweeping, all-encompassing grandiosity of The Edge's guitar work fills me with a nostalgia-tinged sense of awe.

My deep affection for music is what inspires me to keep hard copies of my favourite albums. Whilst I consider my Spotify Premium subscription an investment about as valuable as my campus meal plan, there is nothing like having a physical, tangible object that you can hold and admire. Vinyl allows a wonderfully analogue music experience, requiring one to carefully place a record on a turntable and gently apply the needle to begin play. Records and their sleeves are also aesthetically pleasing items, making them good for collecting. There is something satisfyingly intentional about picking one record out of a stack to listen to in that moment rather than passively hitting the shuffle button on a digital player.

Missing my vinyl collection while at school, I decided when I visited home in May that I would pack up my turntable and records and ship them out to Massachusetts, where they arrived a few days after I did. I was delighted to have my albums, but over the past year I had accrued a long list of new ones to add to the collection. It was time to go vinyl hunting.

Below are four places to dig through stacks in the Five College area that are easily accessible via public transportation. I write this guide so that aspiring Amherst audiophiles might be inspired to do some digging themselves, and perhaps uncover a new favourite in the process.

Mystery Train Records - Amherst, MA

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                                                                     Source: Amherst Business Improvement District

The first of two traditional record stores I've found in the valley, Mystery Train is the most convenient establishment in this list. It's located in the town centre, only a few minutes by foot from campus. It's hard to spot, hidden at the end of an alleyway not immediately visible from the street. The building is an old house of traditional New England style that has been converted into a music shop. It's not particularly big, and the fact that every corner is stuffed with records, CDs, and books gives the place a disorganized crowdedness that feels like it's from another era. Mystery Train looks like it would've looked in 1987, and shopping there makes you feel like everyone else in the place has more legit music cred than you do from spending years involved in the local underground music scene. They carry plenty of 45s and specialize in older records, with only a handful of new albums available. There is also a robust selection of genres other than rock and pop, particularly jazz, Latin, and international music. I particularly like Mystery Train because it feels properly authentic, a labour of love by its owner without pretense or frill.

Recommended if: you want a classic rock album or something from a less widespread genre.

My purchase: "Go Your Own Way/Silver Springs" (1976) by Fleetwood Mac

Turn It Up - Northampton, MA

The other traditional record store I've found is Turn It Up in Northampton, a few blocks from the Smith College campus. Located in the basement of a large commercial structure, the shop has a sidewalk entrance that sits at the bottom of an unassuming staircase. Turn It Up has a similar general collection as Mystery Train, specializing in older records from the 1980s and earlier. A surprising amount of shelf real estate is given to other merchandise in addition to vinyl, particularly CDs and DVDs. They also, interestingly, carry a selection of old video games that would appeal to the gaming nostaligiac. An original PlayStation sits behind the counter for sale. Turn It Up stocks more new vinyl than Mystery Train and reserves space for records by local artists.

Recommended if: you have multimedia purchasing interests or if you want a more comprehensive discography of your favourite 70s rock band.

My purchase: "The Unforgettable Fire" (1984) by U2

Newbury Comics - Northampton, MA

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                                                                             Source: Newbury Comics

Down the block from Turn it Up is Newbury Comics, a New England/New York based chain of pop-culture stores. Walking into a Newbury Comics, the vibe is roughly comic book shop meets Hot Topic meets record store. There is plenty to see, from rainbow flag pride socks to politically charged bumper stickers to Pusheen graphic tees. It's a cute store for the pop-culture savvy Gen Z, staffed by friendly twenty-somethings and serving a sassy brand of cool designed to appeal to a young crowd. As part of that appeal, Newbury is riding the wave of the vinyl revival, stocking plenty of the contemporary indie and R&B albums that their demographic is after. Whether I like it or not, I am most definitely part of that target demographic, and I love Newbury's vinyl offerings; I had to restrain myself from spending my entire paycheque on records. The major difference in terms of selection is Newbury's focus on new releases, with a regular repertoire of your favourite indie band's most recent works. This also means that most of their stock is still in its plastic wrap and therefore more expensive than the primarily used record selection at the previous two establishments. Newbury does, however, have a section of used vinyl and respectable offerings of classic artists that have experienced cultural longevity.

Recommended if: you think the other stores only stock albums your dad would listen to.

My purchase: The Head and the Heart self-titled debut (2011) limited edition orange vinyl

Barnes & Noble - Hadley, MA

Everyone's favourite big-box bookstore has, in its continuing effort to avoid going the way of Borders, branched out in recent years to sell merchandise outside of its traditional specialty. This includes a selection of vinyl in most B&N media sections. If I'm around the Hampshire Mall and I need to wait for the bus, I often will head across the street to get a cup of coffee at the in-store cafe. Now that I have my turntable, sifting through the shelves of records has become a pleasant part of that post-Target run routine. Unsurprisingly, there is no used vinyl at B&N, so be prepared to pay new vinyl prices. There is an obvious pop bent in the artists whose music is stocked there, but you can also find classic rock, indie, hip-hop, and a surprisingly consistent selection of film soundtracks. The options are the fewest here than anywhere else, but if you're looking for an artist that features on top 40 radio stations, then this might be your best bet.

Recommended if: your tastes are modern and mainstream and you know there's nothing wrong with that, or if you were going to stop and get a book anyway so might as well, right?

My purchase: The Lumineers self-titled debut (2012)

As an intern for the Office of Admission, I have been granted the luxury of living in college-provided housing for the duration of the summer. For most of the students spending the break here, this means a room in Greenway Dormitory B, C, or D. For a handful of us, including me, this means staying in Hitchcock House, on the opposite side of campus from the Greenways. It is an odd divide, with the mutual proximity and imposing size of each Greenway building turning that particular pocket of campus into the de facto centre of campus life, a cosmopolitan collection of student researchers, summer interns, and thesis writers, of various classes and school-year social affiliations. If you spend a while lounging in one of the Greenways' slickly furnished common spaces, it feels like you might just run into anybody.

Hitchcock, on the other hand, feels quite different. Already much smaller than a Greenway (let alone three of them), it is comprised exclusively of single rooms, bringing down the population density significantly. If all the rooms are occupied, it doesn't seem like it. Only occasionally will people pass through the hallways, and the common rooms sit empty most of the time. The few faces I see, however, quickly become familiar. I pass the same handful of people consistently in the hallway, and the same couple of faces are regularly sitting at the picnic table on the front lawn, hand-rolling cigarettes. We exchange friendly glances, maybe a brief hello, and then the building goes back to its state of quiet. If Greenway is a hub, then Hitchcock is an outpost. If Greenway is a bustling port city, then Hitchcock is a shadowy cove where mariners take refuge from both sea and law.

It may appear as if I am complaining about Hitchcock; for the record, this is not the case. There are several advantages to living there. For example, Hitchcock is situated on the Amherst Town Common, allowing me to walk out of the front door and access shops and restaurants in less than a minute. All the rooms in the building are singles, so I get quite capacious accommodations without having to share the space with a roommate. A former fraternity house, the architecture both exterior and interior is attractive and functional. Hitchcock has its drawbacks as well, but all things considered, I quite like it.

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                                                     Hitchcock House at Amherst College from the town common

What I am attempting to access through this comparison are the concepts of centre and periphery. Greenway has become the summer's centre of campus, both in terms of population and geography, situated as it is surrounded by the main body of the campus, looking out over the soccer and rugby pitches. Hitchcock is on the periphery, abutting the town centre, requiring the crossing of two to three streets to access almost anywhere else on campus. My room at the rear side of the building gives me a view of a small two-story house lived in by residents of the town, day in and day out.

During the past year, my first at Amherst, I lived in Williston, on the first-year quad. Most people here would likely identify said quad as the centre of campus, and being steps away from the library and only a little farther to the dining hall reinforced that feeling of being right in the middle of things, removed from the outside world by a layer of Amherst. Being on the quad and having quick access to pretty much all of campus is a great experience, both representative and an extension of the energy and enthusiasm of the first year at college. It is a strange shift, moving to the periphery, but as lonely as it can sometimes seem, it also feels correct. Summer is an in-between time, a transition, neither truly here nor there. Many Amherst students are gone until next semester, and the Class of 2018 is gone permanently. The quad lies quiet, awaiting the fresh faces of 2022. Amherst feels partial, incomplete. Living on the edge of it and watching from afar seems an appropriate way to while away these long, hot days.

I have come to realize recently that I think a lot about the concepts of centre and periphery, even if I'm not creating a dichotomy in those terms. I come from a place that is deeply peripheral, and it has shaped the way I think about occupying and belonging to space. I live on the northern periphery of a city that sits at the northern periphery of San Diego county, a place that itself occupies the southwestern-most periphery of the United States. Growing up restless, a bit bored, and always dreaming of being somewhere, anywhere but where I happened to be, I understand now that at least to a certain extent, I was dreaming of finally being at a place one could properly call the centre.

Amherst some of that dream fulfillment for me. It is, after all, a centre of higher education, with three colleges situated within the town limits. Hampshire County isn't too far from the centre of New England. Amherst is also, however, the northeastern periphery of the Springfield metropolitan area, linked to that city's urbanness economically but not physically by a contiguous string of population density and land development. If you ask a Bostonian, it's on the western periphery of Massachusetts due to it being anywhere past Worcester on the turnpike. Perhaps I cannot escape such a conundrum, the simple but seemingly inescapable reality that almost everywhere is both in some way both centre and periphery. Even though I've spent most of my life longing to run towards the place that is the Platonic ideal of centre, I might have to come to terms with the possibility that I will never find it. There is beauty to be found in both, in the many peripheries and the many centres of our world, and I think I am happy with that. As I gaze out of my dorm room window into the long summer twilight, I can be content with the little corner of periphery that, at least at the moment, belongs to me.