Surviving Ivies Brunswick Quad day

Katherine gives advice: College houses and chambo singles; the dos and don’ts of housing

Dear Katherine,I'm having trouble trying to figure out where/with/who I want to live with next year... so please give me some advice/your thoughts!Sincerely,Dislocated in Druck Dear Dislocated,
Picking the right housing and roommates depends, I think, on a certain level of self-awareness. Are you messy or neat? Do you need access to a kitchen? Can you live alone? Can you live with other people? Do you like to be surrounded by people or a little more removed? Do you want to throw parties?
You could probably make an amazing BuzzFeed type quiz out of these questions to give you a personalized response. Unfortunately, I am trying to write my honors project, and I don’t have time for that. So instead, here are my concrete, unbending, blanket opinions on housing, which are almost certainly not universally applicable:
1. Do not live in a Chambo single.Once I lived in a Chambo single for a week because of Ebola. (It’s a long story.) I cried every night and usually in the morning if I had time. Thankfully, my friend Ally left her semester abroad in Ghana because of cholera (it’s a long story) and came to live with me in my new Chambo double. Then it was better.
2. If you are a sophomore and you think there is any chance you want to live in a social house, APPLY TO LIVE IN A SOCIAL HOUSE.
Yes, the house will always smell like stale beer. Yes, you will sit through house meetings. And yes, living in Mac was one of the best decisions I made at Bowdoin. I realize that the time for applying for houses this year has past. But like Nietzsche, I am untimely.
3. Who you live with is more important than where you live.(“True,” say my roommates, who are also some of my best friends.) To quote the fireplace of Ladd House: “The ornament of the house is the friend who frequents it.” But also, even if you don’t live with your friends, try to live with people you think you might be compatible with, people you are excited to get to know. So like, not your enemies.
4. Don’t screw over your friends. Like, don’t get yourself into living situations that will make you unhappy. But also don’t be a jerk or do anything sneaky and underhanded. If you do, your friends will forever remember you as sneaky and underhanded.
Good luck making your housing choices! Out,Katherine

Katherine gives advice: Cry in the car and reminisce; a step-by-step on graduating

Dear Precious Readers,
There comes a time in every young advice columnist’s life when she, herself, is in need of some wise thoughts. When she finds herself at a loss for how to proceed. When she needs advice. What does she do?
Advice to myself on how to graduate:
1. In the fall, don’t think about it. Ever. Have lobster bakes, and go hiking and lay in bed. You have so much time. You have all the time in the world.
2. Go to the mandatory Career Planning meeting. Bring a matcha latte. Laugh when they make you do the handshakes. The handshakes are ridiculous.
3. Fill out your Intent-to-Graduate form in November. Think perhaps you should panic. Go to brunch instead. You have so much time.
4. Find a job in a foreign place. Drink cheap champagne. Picture yourself in Europe. The picture is a little bit lonely.
5. Drink beers with friends instead of reading. Drink too many beers. Fall asleep in your friend’s bed by accident because you don’t want to leave, because you can’t stand to be alone. Wake up at five in the morning. Walk home.
6. Cry in the car listening to Adele. You feel ridiculous. You are ridiculous. You aren’t sure if you are sad, or if you just want to be.
7. Go on spring break with your friends. Sit on the deck of a beach house in California and drink wine and eat goat cheese. Laugh. Laugh harder.
8. Come back. Fight with a friend about relatively nothing, preferably at a party, preferably while you are drunk. Say, “Why are you so anxious!” Hear, “You’re projecting.” The next day, buy each other boxes of raspberries and never speak of it again.
10. Order your cap and gown. Panic. You thought you had so much time.
11. Picture yourself next year, eating pastries sitting on a dock by the sea unable to eavesdrop on strangers speaking a language you don’t understand. Look around the Moulton Light Room. Wonder if you are tired of eavesdropping anyway. Wonder if you are tired of a lot of things.
12. Finish your last essays. Suddenly feel that Matthew Arnold and James Joyce and Charles Dickens aren’t really that important anymore. Why did you used to believe they were so important? Hand in the essay. Receive a B-.
13. Cling to your books. Reorganize them ten times in your room, which you will pack up in only a few weeks. Reread passages from Hawthorne and Whitman and Gawain and Virginia Woolf. Pour over the timestamps of the ones from the library. Wonder who checked out The Bostonians in 1986. Wonder if they ever kissed anyone on the museum steps.
14. Sit in your car as you’re about to drive away from a party. Look in at the lights of the house spilling through the windows. See people inside. They laugh, they talk, but you cannot hear them. You love these people. But you can’t go back in now and it’s getting late, and you’re already going, and so you’re gone.
15. Graduate.
Out, Katherine

Katherine gives advice

Surviving Ivies Brunswick Quad day

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Katherine Churchill

Columnist

April 22, 2016

Dear Katherine,

I am a first year, and I’m so excited for Ivies! What is Brunswick Quad though…?

Sincerely,

Excited in Edwards

Dear Excited,

Ah, Ivies. The perennial celebration of spring, music and the incredible force of the human will to overcome obstacles. (By obstacles, I mean hangovers.)

You have asked the age-old question. You’re in good company. Philosophers for centuries have mused on this inquiry: Plato, Nietzsche, that guy in our political theory class. “What is Brunswick Quad?” they ask, staring up at the heavens and, in their state of distraction, losing a game of slap cup.

I have actually only attended one Ivies so far. This is my biggest failing. So I am bringing in a guest co-writer to help me out: Ivies Goddess Jillian Burk.* Jillian hails from the great state of Canada, where it’s a national pastime to drink until you can’t feel the cold—a key skill if you want to rock an Ivies sundress. For the rest of this column, we will be writing our collective opinion in the first-person plural.

Ah, youth. We’re so excited for you to become Ivies aficionados like ourselves (read: like Jillian). We have a definitive answer to your inquiry. Brunswick Quad is like a family reunion, except everyone is as drunk as your one crazy aunt and you can make out with people without them being your cousin. It’s an outside darty where for a few sweet hours, we all pretend we go to a party school by playing beer pong in the dirt, generating tornadoes of trash and wearing crop tops that we should have thrown away after senior year of high school.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, as an added bonus, we’re going to impart some of our Ivies wisdom onto you. Here are some handy tips to survive the Friday afternoon darty that is Brunswick Quad:

1) Make sure you either a) befriend someone who lives in a Brunswick apartment or b) get really good at sneaking into slightly ajar doors. At some point you are going to need to pee. (There are also porta-potties, but we’re above that.)

2) Wear something identifiable in case you get separated from your friends. For instance, a grape costume or a scuba suit or nothing.

3) No napping. Not yet. Not until you’ve drank every last drop. Napping is admitting defeat. Napping is like lying down and sleeping 13 miles into a marathon. Napping is like kissing your cousin. It’s just wrong.

4) Try not to destroy things like college property or relationships or your liver.

5) Eat beforehand. Your body will thank you later. Just kidding. Your body won’t thank you for any of this.

6) Choose your drink wisely. Starting out too strong or not adequately planning ahead can ruin your afternoon.** No cream-based liqueurs for the love of God. Avoid alcohols that make you sleepy (see rule 3). Like wine. Or Nyquil.

7) Be careful where you leave your things. Do not give them to friendly strangers. Do not stash them in sneaky place. You will never find them again; they will be lost to the graveyard of solo cups and dignities.

8) Remember, people can see into the windows of the apartments. If you choose to hook up in a Brunswick room, please consider putting down the blinds.

9) Do not go on slip-and-slides if you ever want to see your nipples again.

Just remember: Ivies is a marathon, not a sprint. And God knows, this is the only kind of marathon we’ll ever run.

Out,

Katherine and Jillian

*Jillian is on Peer Health and does not endorse binge drinking. Katherine has no comment.

**Again, Jillian is on Peer Health.

Dear Katherine,
I am a first year, and I’m so excited for Ivies! What is Brunswick Quad though…?
Sincerely,
Excited in Edwards

Dear Excited,
Ah, Ivies. The perennial celebration of spring, music and the incredible force of the human will to overcome obstacles. (By obstacles, I mean hangovers.)

Now that we’ve cleared that up, as an added bonus, we’re going to impart some of our Ivies wisdom onto you. Here are some handy tips to survive the Friday afternoon darty that is Brunswick Quad:

2) Wear something identifiable in case you get separated from your friends. For instance, a grape costume or a scuba suit or nothing.

4) Try not to destroy things like college property or relationships or your liver.

5) Eat beforehand. Your body will thank you later. Just kidding. Your body won’t thank you for any of this.

8) Remember, people can see into the windows of the apartments. If you choose to hook up in a Brunswick room, please consider putting down the blinds.

9) Do not go on slip-and-slides if you ever want to see your nipples again.
Just remember: Ivies is a marathon, not a sprint. And God knows, this is the only kind of marathon we’ll ever run.

Out,
Katherine and Jillian
*Jillian is on Peer Health and does not endorse binge drinking. Katherine has no comment.
**Again, Jillian is on Peer Health.

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