As anyone with a birthday in the fall can tell you, it can be both a blessing and a curse. Fall is my absolute favorite season and having your birthday in the fall, especially at Swat with the leaves turning beautiful colors and the air the perfect temperature for working outside, just makes it all the more special. But having a birthday in September, right as the school year is picking up and you’re figuring out new friendships and schedules, means that it can sometimes fly by in the hustle and bustle without much notice. In high school, my birthday would almost always fall on a game day in the middle of soccer season, which meant cupcakes after the game and a lowkey family dinner at home. Nothing wrong with that, but coming into college knowing that my 18th birthday was going to fall two weeks into the semester, in a totally new place with new people and a new routine, was a little stressful to say the least.
My mom, as per usual, figured out the first ingredient to the perfect swat birthday. She called me a few days into orientation, super excited, and told me that she had figured out that the dining hall makes birthday cakes, and she ordered me one for my birthday, right then and there. The desserts from the dining hall are one of the things that always excel. No matter what meal I’m there for, you can guarantee I’ll be grabbing a cookie or cupcake on my way out. Even a few days into the semester, I knew that a cake from the dining hall was going to be good, and that was exciting to look forward to!
So that was the first, and arguably the most important piece. I was lucky enough to find the second ingredient as well: a really incredible first-year friend group who were all excited to celebrate my birthday. We went out for a day in Media, and at the end of the day we went to the dining hall for dinner and ended the night with some delicious cake. It was a pretty perfect end to my first birthday at swat!
But wait – there’s more. Because, as you know, birthdays happen at the same time every year, I of course also had my 19th birthday at Swat at the beginning of my sophomore year. And that time, I didn’t get a call from my mom. Only a cryptic text message from my friend telling me to meet her at the entrance to the dining hall at 6pm on my birthday. So I did. She escorted me upstairs to one of the great private rooms on the second floor of the dining hall, where all my friends were waiting to celebrate my birthday with me – accompanied, of course, by a dining hall birthday cake that my mom had ordered. I learned later that she had been in cahoots with my friends to order it without my knowing, which made it all the more surprising and special!
Last year, my 20th birthday fell on a Tuesday, which is not the best day for big celebrations. However, my mom ordered me another cake, and I had a really lovely dinner on the terrace with my friends. Even though it was lowkey, the cake made it feel like a special and fun night, and it was really nice to look back and think about how my friend group, and, by extension, I, have changed over the past three years. I think I’ve grown and changed a lot as a person in my time at Swat, and I’ve figured out a lot about who I am and who I want to be. But one constant in my life, at least for one more year, is that there will be a chocolate cake with vanilla icing waiting for me in the dining hall on my birthday, with wonderful people to share it with.