All the things I’m going to miss from Sarah Lawrence College

It took me longer than I care to admit to process the fact that I was done being up at Sarah Lawrence for the remainder of the semester and that my first year, as I knew it, was over. The separation has had me appreciating things that I took for granted while I was up there. I’m not going to miss the willfully ignorant Bernie Bros who start sentences by saying things like “Bernie Sanders should not have brought up Castro, but he actually made a really good point…” or the people who shamelessly air bomb the communal bathrooms as they watch youtube videos on the toilet. I won’t miss the copious amounts of work or the discomforts of dorm life, but I will miss many things, starting, of course, with the people. The level of character in the school and in the people is outstanding. But aside from them, there were many things that made my first year away from home really special. 

• The TeaHaus for keeping me warm through the winter

The Teahaus is an on-campus landmark known for it’s hot tea and for looking like Hagrid’s Hut in Harry Potter. Most of the time, I’d just grab lemon tea from the Barbara Walters Student Campus Center but the Teahaus is a cozy little hub where one can drink obnoxiously large mugs of tea. When it’s not there serving the students their tea it is serving up looks as one of the most aesthetically pleasing parts of campus.

• Sunsets like these

Some days the sunset would add in a pop of color at the end of the day and I still don’t know why the sky had to flex so hard by looking like a fresco.

• That transcendent swimming pool

While it might be overly-chlorinated, this pool can really hit the spot over the weekend whenever I felt like swimming. There’s not much else to say, except that I love taking laps in this uncrowded and criminally underused pool.  

• All of Bronxville  

For me, “Dumpling and Noodle” was that restaurant down the street that you could pop over to at any time, whenever you were sick of school food. “Slave to the Grind” was the altar for which many coffee addicts bowed in worship, though for me it was the place with the greatest chai tea in the world. “Topps Bakery” started my addiction to black and white cookies, thanks to a friend. “Taco project” has a healthy but still fast approach to Mexican food. “Bronxville Diner” is the place where I have gone for brunch and dinner with my friends, but I mostly only go for their patty melts and shakes. In other words, Bronxville has all the food a girl needs.

• The proximity to the city

It’s the next best thing to being there. I didn’t want to live directly in the city the first year I moved away, not wanting to have a baptism by fire. Thankfully, I have ample opportunities to enter into the city at will. The school provides shuttles from the local train station, into Grand Central. On weekends, the school has a bus that takes you to The Met and being a student in New York, you get in for free. 

• The immaculate winters  

Growing up in a sub-tropical climate, I was so looking forward to that satisfying crunch beneath your feet whenever you trek through the snow and this winter did not disappoint. I quickly learned that bright, glistening snow turns to sludge in a matter of days. Sometimes, however, when it really snows, the entire campus gets caked in ice and it looks like everything is sealed under glass, like in a museum. I was fed-ex’d a “Lands End” parka and snow boots by my dad, who knew that my fashion-forward, but ultimately thin coats, were not going to successfully keep me warm.

• Spring days on campus

Granted, I didn’t get to see many of these. Basically, on days when it’s really sunny, everybody gets the same idea. It seems like everybody on campus is lounging around on a blanket on the lawn, throwing a frisbee, having class outside, skateboarding, or even serenading people on the guitar. It looks as though someone put a beauty filter on the campus. People are playing soccer all over campus and sometimes even in the streets. These also are the days when the ice cream man decides to pull up curbside and feed us starving college kids. 

In summary and in summation, my first year at college was a success, thanks to these things and more. While I will forever wish I had been able to finish my first year on campus, I finished my work at home in Valdosta and will be looking forward to my next semester. I will however miss the cafeteria in the Barbara Walters Student Center where I ate the same things every day, so much so that the lady at the salad bar memorized my order. I’ll also miss the library where I went almost everyday for Italian class, and where I’d choke out Italian words that sounded exceedingly less romantic when I said them.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel