“What is 575 Commonwealth Avenue?”
The phrase I’ve heard hundreds of times now, yet the first time, I was the one inquiring.
It was the second semester of my last year of high school—I was breezing by in my “senior slacker” classes, finding more time to tighten my friendships before leaving home for Boston, and finally relinquishing my leadership positions in clubs, councils, and my youth group. I should have been relaxing, kicking back and watching “How I Met your Mother.” Instead, here I was, glaring down my computer screen, wondering why I had not been placed in West or Warren Towers with the rest of my freshman class at Boston University.
I turned to my dad, “Do you remember where that is?” I heard the same answer which I would be giving for the rest of the semester: “Oh, it’s that white-washed building that looks like a hotel… next to SMG. You know, with the parking lot in front.”
Life has not been easy living here. As a student in the College of General Studies, I have had to master the daily mile walk (or sprint depending on whether I sleep through my alarm) up and then back down Comm Ave. I’ve learned how to convince some friends to bear the cold to travel to my backyard’s culinary hot spot, the one and only “Hundo Bay.” And I have fully embraced that I am the monster under my bed— because all of the three beds in my room must be lofted to open up some decent space.
Though we may be distant, though we may lack a dining hall, though perhaps we could use a little more room to breathe, “there are perks of being the campus residency wallflower,” said the previous Howard Johnson Center in my nonexistent interview of an inanimate building.
For instance, we have a beautiful study lounge on the 8th floor which students can only access by a stairway placed in the middle of the seventh floor. Anyone can hike up the carpeted steps and witness our panoramic view, a quiet lounge, and students happily engaged in skyping and studying. Our main lobby bears a pool table, a flat screen television, and couches. True, we no longer have a café, but we are seconds away from the Starbucks in SMG or Barnes and Noble. And, if you’re a dedicated Dunkin fanatic like I am, you can feed your addiction a step away in Kenmore square, right before hopping on any T line you need, rather than just the B line.
And if your thirst for caffeine is quenched and your need for a beautiful Boston view met, you can literally spend the rest of the day in your room, undisturbed.
At first, I thought this idea to be unnerving, almost lonely. Why wouldn’t I want my friends to come bursting into my room gushing about some elevator heart throb? Wouldn’t I miss the sounds of laughter rumbling through the hall emanating from the common room? And don’t communal bathrooms add to the college experience?
Of course. Without a doubt. Well, maybe minus that last one.
But there are times when one needs to depart from friends to concentrate on work, find a quiet moment to reflect, or just enjoy that Ben and Jerry’s nosh in the freezer without a hall mate muttering “freshman fifteen.”
So, at the end of the day, I try not to question why I was placed here. When I’m curled up high in my bed a foot from my ceiling, an inch from my private bathroom, a breath away from the air conditioning unit, I instead remember: there is no place like HoJo.