{"id":1288,"date":"2011-10-26T13:10:48","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T17:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2011-10-26T13:12:11","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T17:12:11","slug":"quadgirlproblems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/2011\/10\/26\/quadgirlproblems\/","title":{"rendered":"#quadgirlproblems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me start off by saying that my freshman year dorm, Canaday, gets an unnecessarily bad rap.\u00a0 Built in 1974, Canaday is the newest Yard dorm (as well as the ugliest).\u00a0 The architecture lacks the romance and history of Weld or Matthews, but it was amazing housing nonetheless.\u00a0 Suite style living meant that my roommates and I could have social space in our common space, and private space in our bedrooms.\u00a0 Carpet floors helped ensure that we never had to enter into battle with dust bunnies, and made for easy vacuuming when we had guests to entertain.\u00a0 Most importantly, Canaday has arguably the best location out of all of the freshman dorms (my apologies to the Union Dorms and Apley.\u00a0\u00a0 You guys aren\u2019t even in the running).\u00a0 Annenberg and Memorial Hall, the Science Center, and the classrooms and libraries surrounding Tercentenary Theater could all be reached in less than 5 minutes when walking at a leisurely pace.\u00a0 Sounds like a dream, right?\u00a0 It really was.\u00a0 In fact, in retrospect, the worst thing about Canaday-living was defending my dorm to non-Canaday citizens who just couldn\u2019t get past their preconceptions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Canaday Hall<\/p><\/div>\n

So, when Housing Day came around last April and my blockmates and I were assigned to Pforzheimer, a house in the Radcliffe Quadrangle, I wanted to cry out loud in frustration.\u00a0 Not because I was upset about my future home, but because I didn\u2019t want to defend the place that I knew that I would come to love to people that simply just didn\u2019t understand my good fortune.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pforzheimer House<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, now that I am a couple months into my sophomore year, I can breathe my sigh of relief because I have learned that my house is my \u201clight\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m going to let it shine\u201d.\u00a0 When my friends that live in one of the nine river houses try to console me over my status as a quadling, I stand up loud and proud and defend my home.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a loose interpretation of how a River-Quad interaction might play out:<\/p>\n

River Frenemy: The Quad is about half a mile a way from the Yard. That sucks.<\/p>\n

Me: Not really.\u00a0 A white chariot, that some like to call the Quad Shuttle, comes to pick me up at a convenient location, and whisks me away to my destination.\u00a0 I probably end up walking less than you do!<\/p>\n

River Frenemy: Oh, well don\u2019t you feel left out?<\/p>\n

Me: Not at all.\u00a0 Pforzheimer (affectionately known as Pfoho), Cabot, and Currier actually form a really tight community.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice to see familiar faces around the Quad Lawn and on the shuttle.<\/p>\n

River Frenemy: Yeah, but don\u2019t you feel like you got the short end of the housing-lottery-stick?<\/p>\n

Me: Nope. Quad housing is spacious, and full of natural lighting that does wonders for me aesthetically.\u00a0 Also, I get to go home to a peaceful suburban environment and escape the urban buzz of the Square.<\/p>\n

River Frenemy: You\u2019re right! I\u2019m going to transfer from the River to the Quad as soon as I get the chance! *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*To be fair, I took some liberties with the last line of this little script.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The truth is that each one of the twelve upperclassmen houses has something to brag about.\u00a0 The upperclassman housing system fosters spirit and pride in your respective dwelling, so we will never really know which house is objectively the \u201cbest\u201d.\u00a0 What\u2019s important is that at the end of the day, more often than not, people are genuinely happy with the hand that they are dealt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Me with the Pfoho polar bear mascot on Housing Day!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haters gonna hate.\u00a0 QUADLYFE!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start off by saying that my freshman year dorm, Canaday, gets an unnecessarily bad rap.\u00a0 Built in 1974, Canaday is the newest Yard dorm (as well as the ugliest).\u00a0 The architecture lacks the romance and history of Weld or Matthews, but it was amazing housing nonetheless.\u00a0 Suite style living meant that my roommates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37379],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kemies-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1295,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/collegeadmissionsstudentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}