One of the reasons why I chose Bryn Mawr, in the end, was for its botanic landscapes and comfortable, old spaces. From our art rooms and studios to our unique and individual dormitories, our campus architecture is unlike any I’ve seen before. Especially when I’m looking for a place to work or relax or channel energy, I find that there’s no shortage of places where one can feel at home, enjoy the greenery, & take refuge. In honor of final exams and reflecting on the places I’ve explored and made soft spots for in my heart, here are some of my most-loved campus locations from my time here!

Pem Dance Studio: The dance studio in Pem Arch, adored for its rose-colored walls and lovely natural view, may be unarguably the most aesthetically sweet place on campus. Though it was one of the first places I visited, (and though I’ve loved it ever since), I never actually had the chance to dance there until this past month when I joined Rhythm n’ Motion, the tri-college dance group created to honor and celebrate the African diaspora. I’m aware that because I’m a dancer that fact is kind of unforgivable — but I can’t express how excited I am to make use of it. Loved for: the feeling of dancing, surrounded by softly-lit ambiance, when the sun sets through the windows.

Erdman: I’ve noticed that people either love Erdman or hate it. Of those people, I wholeheartedly adore Erdman and would defend it to my grave. My new nine-month home both central and isolated on the edge of campus, Erdman holds a charm that goes unrecognized — from the artful exterior to the natural light that pools through huge windows. For lovers of experimental design and the ease of alone time, Erd is wheel-chair accessible on the first floor and offers a cozy living experience unlike any other at Bryn Mawr. Loved for: charming architecture / the trees and surrounding green / the obvious convenience / the single bathrooms! / the fact that I can heely on the first floor.

The treehouse: The setting of my blog photo! I always talk about how our campus houses some of the weirdest individualistic trees, but the treehouse was where I spent a lot of time taking photos or just hanging out when the weather was dreamy. Whether I wanted to sit among the branches or look out over the fields onto Cambrian Row, that tree on the walk from Brecon became one of my most-loved nature spots. Even if its a little creepy in the dark. Loved for: the feeling of enchantment and history that you get entering it / the names that you can find carved on the tree.

English House: I’ve met with some of my favorite professors in English House mostly because the English professors (in my experience) have been the ones most passionate about establishing a connection with me. In addition to office spaces that felt very lived-in and classrooms that feel open and warm, I found that English House often feels so homey that I melt a little in comfort (I tend to overshare in my conversations with professors, but in a nice way that leaves us more familiar), and I would even say enough for me to consider double majoring in English. Loved for: the fact that it’s surrounded by forest / its many, characteristically rose-colored bathrooms.

Pensby: For someone who lived in Brecon last year, there was nothing better than studying cozied up with a warm blanket or taking an air-conditioned nap away from late August heat. On Cambrian Row, Pensby houses the center for diversity and inclusion, hosting occasional workshops and conversations to enhance campus community. The building is unknown to most because of its location, but its lounges became a haven for me during exam week and moments when I especially needed a cozy, isolated space. Loved for: the plant-filled room upstairs / its faraway view of campus / the baskets of blankets that students are encouraged to use.

Honorable mentions: Arnecliffe Studio’s creative energy (a neat place for intimate hangouts), Uncommon Grounds & The Lusty Cup (for comforting espresso smells and camaraderie), that lovable outside nook in Guild, the Sunken Garden (for the branches!), and Campus Center 105 (for ideas and relaxation beyond the pool table.)

Every semester the posters appear. Every semester the Bi-Co blue bus emerges for a night as the unofficial Tri-Co van, & transports students to Swarthmore the hour before the performance. Every semester in the fall and spring, Mawrters pour into the center for performing arts and pour themselves into the colorful energy that characterizes one of Bryn Mawr’s unofficial traditions. I’ve never been to one of Rhythm n’ Motion’s celebrated performances—both semesters the effort I made to be there was interrupted by other responsibilities that now, for some reason, I can’t remember—until this semester when I auditioned for and became a part of the movement. My first RnM performance experience would be one that I had a hand in curating from backstage.

I arrived at Swat pretty early and worked on an essay while waiting for dinner to roll around. The whole team ate together talking and laughing. Therese, one of the Swat RnMers on this semester’s newbie team with me, baked us pumpkin pies to enjoy after the show and initiated a cup drop where we announced the performance’s time and place. At 6 p.m. we hurried back to the dressing rooms to prepare, do some last-minute run-throughs in dance studios, and get ready to perform. Below: Maliha Ashraf, Bryn Mawr ’19, fellow newbie going abroad next semester!

I cozied up in the dressing room corner surrounded by Bryn Mawr loves. I covered my eyes and face in golden shimmer. At 7 p.m., in our all-black outfits for opener, RnM warmed up together for the first time this fall since my audition. We had spent the last four months learning choreographed dances, the last two days getting the spacing and the colors and the music just right, & the night had finally come to bring our all. I had performed countless times before in ballet productions full of muted Marvin Gaye colors and debuts as the evil enchantress in Sleeping Beauty. But still, hanging in the shared dressing room dancing artlessly to old hits and helping my friends with eyeliner and highlight, (and later huddled after warm-ups receiving encouragement, and even later waiting to start off the show in complete blackout), my blood hummed with nerves. The lights went down. The cue for the newbies to walk on in darkness sounded. In one sharp beat the music played, the lights illuminated, and the ten newbies turned from our positions facing away from the audience to the vibrant roar of the crowd.

There was so much laughter shared soundlessly onstage and backstage in the dressing room while we watched our friends perform on the elevated screen. We marveled at clean choreo and danced the moves we knew for pieces we weren’t in, the energy easily matching that of the crowd even though the music and dances were committed to our memory. I grooved in mesh velvet to bubblegum pink and heartfelt blue in a piece named Honey, emerged in smoke and orange side-lights to dance in red silhouette and haunting golden-green. Backstage and hidden in the wings we energized one another.

I’ve never felt more heartened than when I learned that the dance I was consistently most nervous about perfecting turned out cleaner than I could’ve imagined. In all honesty, the piece I was now most nervous about was the one we newbies curated together, to Rihanna’s “Pose” and the classic “Get Ur Freak On.” But when it came time for us to close the show, hearing my name yelled in the crowd and the energy that surged when my friends Lia and Morgan danced beside me in our portion of choreo envisioned in 11 p.m. dance studio meetings, the nerves melted away and were replaced by my love for dance and performance, restored.

i have the sweetest hell babe!

Our finale featuring performers from Swarthmore’s Terpsichore & Bryn Mawr’s Ajoyo made me feel extremely warm and loved. That feeling only bloomed when upon returning to the dressing room, my sweet friend and fellow newbie Morgan Fernandez presented me with a rose and a handmade sign asking me to be her hell parent!! (For Hell / Welcome The First Years Week, a loved Bryn Mawr tradition welcoming frosh with creative tasks and chosen families.) I can’t express how thankful I was; I had been hoping she would ask me and hadn’t yet gotten a hell babe. If my night hadn’t already been made, the sweetness of it made my newbie semester experience of the passionate Rhythm n’ Motion Dance Company all the more memorable.

For those who can’t make the shows, check out Rhythm N’ Motion Dance Company’s channel on YouTube, and enjoy the filmed pieces from past semesters or make a game of it and try to find me in four pieces from this fall! <3 Until next spring!

Nearing the end of the semester means encompassing all that I’ve learned into condensed final projects, but, to an extent, finals season also offers a chance to reflect more personally on the emotional and academic elements of being a student. How have I created meaning? How have I bloomed into understanding of myself from the experiences I’ve had as an intellectual and individual? How have I performed? How can I reshape? In what aspects do I wish I had done more?

I’m awaiting the moment in my academic life when I’m not fortunate enough to have loved and felt passionate about the courses that I’m taking—my first year was full of lovely experiences exploring photography and education and women of color and poetics. This year is no different. The past semester has allowed me to re-imagine my favorite author (Toni Morrison, whom I read and loved in high school), examine a subject that envisions my future endeavors (working with children and youth in whatever capacity imaginable), and explore a topic that captures a lot of my interests (the sociology of bodies, and whatever that may mean). But much like past semesters, my studies have come with their own unique challenges that re-established my emotional boundaries; my energy waned with each blow to my mental health & I re-learned the realistic parameters to my performance. My passion & motivation often felt at odds.

My English course entitled “Toni Morrison and the Art of Narrative Conjure” nourished my need for an exploration of blackness & my love for poetic analysis all at once. I had the chance to re-read two of my favorite books, Beloved and Song of Solomon and fulfill my dream of reading the rest of Morrison’s works in a way that allowed for conversation. Professor Linda-Susan Beard is a performance artist in her own right. Her enchanting way of speaking and inclusion of black histories and creative concepts brought in so many elements at the core of Morrison’s heart. The room itself was full of artists and masters of language. Being there emphasized, and eventually solidified, my need to surrender my own stubborn nature & double major in English.

I could spend hours talking about each of Morrison’s pieces and her exploration. Of motherhood. Of blackness. Of heritage and local histories, inherited through trauma. Of magic and witches and spirituality. Of death and water. Of home. Of youthful sisterhood and women trying to love one another. Of color. Of intimate, emotional violence. But also the toll of reading one novel after another, all of them intimate to my own history and body and having no time for recuperation was more than I had expected. The coalescence of healing and heartbreak that is characteristic in Morrison’s work manifested in how I was able (or unable) to approach the material.

I’m working on my final Pilate Project (named for one of my most-loved characters in literature), where my sweet friend Hannah Chinn (’19) paints on the faces of people of color while we ask them about their relationship to history, memory, race, and family through the colors they ascribe feeling to. The element of narrative conjure feels important. I’m taking film & digital photos of each person after their face is painted, and piecing Morrison’s God Help The Child into her body of work through an essay on how it encompasses elements of her signature. (On the left: Stevie Campos-Seligman, Haverford ’20,  a dear sweet friend and fellow member of the Toni Morrison class!)

The easiest part of coming to my once a week Bodies in Social Life course was definitely the laughter and spirits of the people with whom I shared the space. Made up of all upperclassmen (with me being the only sophomore), the class felt extremely collaborative and encouraging of confusion; our professor Piper Sledge constantly emphasized the importance of us being easy on ourselves and was always open to ideas that would better accommodate our learning from the moment they crafted the curriculum around our discussed interests. We explored the sociology of bodies from embodiment theory: how do we inhabit our bodies and how do social locations become embodied? What meanings are embedded in certain body practices from body modifications to various forms of surgery? How do we think about visuality, authenticity, wholeness and “the self” in conversation with the way we treat bodies in society?

Nolan Julien (’18) is in Bodies in Social Life too

I wrote my midterm paper on the culture of tattooing and how marginalized bodies that are already visually marked negotiate the creative and meaning-making elements of body projects. I’m most likely writing my final paper on ambiguous bodies, how they inhabit space, and the reconciliation of ambiguity that manifests through the readings we’ve examined this semester.

Professor Leigh Campoamor teaches the Anthropology of Youth and Childhood course, where we complicate how childhood is imagined by recognizing the multiplicities of experiences that different childhoods hold. We have conversations about exercising agency, performance of an expected childhood, children as laborers, organized aid interventions, and issues of race, class, geography, gender, sexuality, and the realm of politics within the histories of neoliberalism, capitalism, and colonialism.

One of my most notable moments in this class was the class discussion I co-led on themes of citizenship & belonging, emphasized through a chapter of Aimee Cox’s Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship and two chapters from Sunaina Maira’s book Missing: Youth, Citizenship, and Empire after 9/11. Both involved an element of self-reflexivity that I’ve always loved reading in my academic work, and so I was enthusiastic about creating a conversation with my peers. To capture all that I’ve learned for this course, I am writing my own self-reflexive ethnography on how certain memorable readings emphasize my own experience of negotiating childhood and youth. Professor Campoamor encourages all of us to be creative.

I’ve written a culmination of thoughtful, weekly journals for all three of these courses. Often, too, the ideas melted together with embodied meanings appearing in Morrison’s work and imaginations of childhood, or notions of space and belonging threading through the three. The more time I spend here, the more I realize that I’m happiest with a liberal arts education, where all of my passions & ideas can fulfill me and be fulfilled.

Pretty much all of the dining services jobs lend themselves to a creativity that only happens behind the scenes. From experimenting with flavors to crafting ideas from napkin notes, new drink inventions, panini combinations, and pizza concepts come out of the kitchens as often as food is served. It feels easy to imagine that dining service work is easy or less valued because it’s the only job first-semester, first year students are able to be employed. But there are reasons — be it the perks, or the companionship, or the staff — why the experience of dining service makes people stay.

candid in uncommon | by Cordelia Perez ’16

For me, I’ve been working at Uncommon Grounds since I entered my first semester here. No barista experience & a whole lot of hope landed me a chance at the job, when in my first real week here, I left my name and expression of interest with the worker at the counter. I hold a place for it in my heart because not only was it my first on-campus job and first job in general, but also because I really love the ambiance of working to music and the mundane work of opening and closing. I met my lovable hell mum, Kamara, at Uncommon when she supervised my very first closing shift in radiant afternoon light.

lusty love (my co-workers Toni and Daphne, ’20, admiring our day’s work)

Taylor McClain ’20 met her hell mom as an enthusiastic first-year as well, and laughs as she tells me, “most of my hell family is from Uncommon actually.” After working there over the summer she has been promoted to supervisor this semester and is loving it so far. Her favorite things about working at Uncommon? Playing music, talking to our manager Lisa and cleaning the grill, which she names is something to be proud of. Missing the seniors she and I grew to love while working last year, Taylor says “working at Uncommon is amazing especially when it comes to May Day,” and exchanges a look that I understand but can’t for the sake of secrecy elaborate.

As of this semester, I have been splitting my hours between Uncommon & our very own local night hangout the Lusty Cup! Uncommon has the food and the camaraderie of working with people. Brewing coffee & having my own space at Lusty nourishes a different element of calmness.

To celebrate thankfulness and honor its spirit, this year (and every year) I’m thankful for dining service workers & staff and want to emphasize their invaluable place on campus! So, I made an effort to feature some student voices who contribute to the love and energy that is Bryn Mawr’s dining services.

i made a milkshake upon my return from break

New Dorm Dining Hall (lovingly known by its old name Haffner) is where Moreen McGrath (’20) found her home upon being employed as a student worker during her first semester. My experiences of New Dorm Dining Hall are embodied in cozy exposed brick and relaxed lunches in early afternoon, where Moreen recounts gratitude for lasting friendships and admiration for full-time staff members. When asked about them specifically (I am always hearing stories about and interacting with them in small slices—Arthur has made me laugh with his humor and Theresa worked at Uncommon for a brief time on my early morning shifts), Moreen expresses, “In truth, I wholeheartedly believe that the full-time staff members are the most genuine, caring people at Bryn Mawr; we are so beyond lucky to have them… each and every member of the full-time staff sincerely cares about every student who comes through the dining halls. Arthur is undoubtedly one of the kindest, most outgoing souls you could ever hope to meet. He is always singing and dancing in an effort to bring a bit more cheer to peoples’ days, and, if he sees that something is upsetting you, he is always the first to remind you how lovely you are and that he knows you’ll succeed in whatever you’re doing. For me, personally, Arthur was one of the first people to encourage me to apply for the supervisor position.” From Theresa’s love for baking and efforts to create recipes for all dietary needs, to Bryan and Sinclair’s stories and cool exteriors, to the passion of countless other members of the staff, Moreen vouches for their value and caring characters.

love notes for full-time staff! | from the lovely @brynmawrdining instagram

From my room on the third floor of Erdman I can hear the full-time staff laughing and playing music in the morning. One lovable Erdman hall-mate and new sweet friend of mine, Makayla Hope Selden (’20), is a supervisor at Erdman, a geology major & a member of the rugby team on campus. When I spoke to them about their experience working in dining services and at Erdman specifically, they expressed appreciation for fellow workers and friendships:

“So I love working in Erdman for the family environment we have and the kinship I have with fellow workers. Last year I looked up to my supes for info about BMC that they just don’t tell you in Customs Week™. Working in the dining hall lets me appreciate how many people have similar schedules to myself and shows me more students of BMC than I would’ve seen/met otherwise. I like making iced chais at Erd!! Indulge in the extensive tea selection we have!! Something people don’t really think about is the dining hall stench you get hugged by by the end of a shift. Also we can’t just call out of work so appreciate the work people in the dining hall do because you wouldn’t eat.”

a warm, Sunday Erdman brunch

a meal made by me but made possible by charming staff

Wyndham‘s charming energy houses visitors, caters events such as weddings and brunches, and doubles as both a restaurant and a bed and breakfast available to outside patrons. The Alumni House employs student workers like Nattalya Pacheco ’18, my fellow Community Diversity Assistant and Sociology major, who tells me amid the Campus Center’s late afternoon hum that she has been working at Wyndham since her first year. Among heartfelt memories reminiscing with graduated seniors in Wyndham after May Day last year, and ideas about post-grad dreams that are typical of seniors, Nattalya recounts a special love for catering weddings and working morning prep shifts to start her day. When asked about creativity, food, and staff relationships Nattalya tells me, “Sometime’s we’ll ask the chefs to make us fries during a shift or something… one of our new chefs makes really good grilled cheeses. The closest thing you get to cooking is a prep shift… but I enjoying working with all the full-time staff.” She laughs. “They each obviously have their own personalities.” 

Movements like Humanizing the Hat and events like Dining Worker Appreciation echo the idea that Makayla emphasizes in their reflection of working at Erdman, and illuminates the passion and effort that student and full-time workers alike embody.

Warmest thanks to the lovely fellow students who elected to share their experiences. <3