When I transferred to Punahou (my high school alma mater) as a sophomore, I read YA “school stories” to prepare myself for dealing with the ups and downs of tenth grade. The pubescent protagonists of these novels assured me that I could achieve my own high school happy ending by following a few simple steps:

  • Bonding with fellow outcasts and eventually creating a ragtag band of allies
  • Joining a nerdy organization and immediately falling for one of its adorkable yet unattainable members
  • Eventually capitalizing on my fame amongst the commoners and defeating the Super Hot Popular Babe in the epic battle for Senior Class President.

Unfortunately, life is neither a Taylor Swift song nor written by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I did find a clique, but most of them had already been friends since middle school. My presidential campaign posters, which featured a supportive-looking Yoda and my last name typed in the Star Wars font, were hijacked by a group of anonymous punks who plastered the campus with pictures of Vader captioned “Rise, Lord Keely!”

Fortunately, I didn't watch Buffy's high school adventures until I was well into college. Waiting for my sudden rise to class stardom was one thing, but at least I didn't think I was the Slayer, the Chosen One, or capable of looking good in awkward 90s fashion.

So, with two strikes, I had one last hope: finding comraderie in a league of extraordinary teenagers with similar interests. Except the Punahou club scene never really did much for me. I signed up for the French Club, Model UN, the Environmentalist Club and a wide variety of others, but didn’t stick with any. It would be a year until I finally had time to join the Speech Team or the lit mag. In the meantime, sophomore Keely had a grand plan: she’d just make her own clubs.

I wanted to start not just one new organization, but two. The first was fairly generic–a vegetarian support group, which Punahou desperately needed to combat the idiotic guild known as the “Meat Club.” The second was a Lord of the Rings fanclub whose members were to be called the TASLs.

Because I can't remember what the L stood for, I'll tentatively guess our full name was the Tolkien Appreciation (and Stuff) League.

Forming a group of one’s own, though, was much more difficult than I thought. I had to find an advisor as well as a significant number of members from each grade level. Then, provided I completed these tasks, my application would be assessed by a committee consisting of some select students and one of the crankiest women I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet.

Needless to say, Punahou remains unadorned by TASLs to this day.

That’s why I assumed Cornell was, to use a professional term, totally lying when I heard that it was simple for students to form their own organizations at Big Red. Cornell is obviously at least fifteen billion times bigger than my high school–how could it be easier to start a club here?

Forming <3 A Cappella this year taught me otherwise. Though we’ve been singing since last fall, <3 only very became official. Based on my past experiences, I had no desire to go through the madness again: I thought it would take weeks for us to finally have our own listing on the CU RSO website.

Make that approximately three days, guys.

We found an advisor, snagged his autograph, filled out some personal information and now–bam!–we’re eligible to reserve rehearsal spaces for free, apply for funding, and generally brag about how legit we are.

In short, don’t be afraid to create something new if Cornell’s massive amount of pre-existing clubs doesn’t hold anything that strikes your fancy! And hey, if anyone feels the need for a Middle Earth group, shoot me a line. I promise my acronym-making skills have improved since the last time I was a sophomore.