In times full of practice sets, club planning, and strong winters, at least we had the Willets basement.
One of the numerous things I looked forward to during my freshman year was being able to experience all four seasons. One in particular stuck out to me, however, and that was seeing a snowy campus before the year ended. To my surprise, I woke up bright and early on the December morning of my Spanish final, and the roof overlooking my Parrish dorm window was covered in white. I quickly replaced my plans of locking myself in an academic classroom and strictly reviewing for my final to having some frozen fun with friends. Thanks to the Office of Student Engagement, we got to borrow some sleds and slide down the hills on campus! I also built a cute flower snowman down at the Scott Outdoor Amphitheater.
Winter break came and I returned to my sunny home in Guam, where I filled my time with beach trips with friends, around-the-island drives with my family, and at-home moments with my loved ones. Calling my trip home a “vacation” still felt new to me, and it certainly felt like time went by in a heartbeat.
When I returned to campus on another snowy evening, I suddenly felt a sense of homesickness–one that I did not necessarily feel in the beginning of the academic year, given the new, exciting opportunities that had preoccupied me during that time. I suddenly missed my family, my friends, and my island as a whole, and it was only the beginning of January.
The snow became more prominent during that month, and the concept of snow days occurred to me for the first time. My friends decided to invite me to Willets–the freshmen dorm on campus– during the weekend of the snowstorm. To prepare for the upcoming weather, they wanted to make some warm, delicious meals for the evening. Grateful for their thoughtfulness, I made my way to Willets just before the snowstorm was set to begin later that night. There, my friends made us dinner: sausage fried rice and bow tie pasta.
My appreciation for my Willets invite extended beyond the food, to say the least. Our conversations circled around summer applications, preparations for the first set of exams, as well as the upcoming events for the spring semester. It was funny to see a portion of my peers stressing over LinkedIn profiles and student resumes, while another focusing entirely on football games. Since my first invite, I only continued coming back to the Willets basement. This time, it was no longer to find shelter from a winter storm, but to simply find another home.
While my friends and I will depart from Willets in the upcoming years, I truly cannot wait for the new, exciting memories I get to make with them in other parts of Swarthmore. With their company, I missed home a little less and appreciated Swarthmore a lot more. The bond that we shared in a quaint space will never be replaced, but it can certainly expand and strengthen for the years to come.
