Boarding school. There, you have your word. Ask away. “So, is it like, Harry Potter?” “Do you guys have dorm rivalry and stuff?” “So you actually live with other people? You share a room?” “Don’t you miss family?” “Wow, it must be so easy to party without your parents.” I’ve had it all.
I would think for a bit and reply that, yes, it is rather like Hogwarts, although only in system. I lived in Korea for the full fifteen years before I went to a small boarding school in Massachusetts. I have never set foot in a public or private day school, leaving me with a slanted understanding of the US.
There are so many characteristics to “boarding school,” the truest of which are privy only to those who have lived in such a home away from home. Everyone has their favorite memory, and for me, one of the best – which might also seem the least important – is at the beginning and end of every school year: the comings and goings of students.
The arrival patterns vary every year. Some manage to materialize everything from a page of the Pottery Barn catalogue; others bear a single suitcase and pre-packaged bedding. As for me, I considered my status as international student as not to be burdened with “clutter.” Apart from basic furniture, I had a desk lamp, a printer, and two suitcases in which I could fit all my clothing, bedding, and miscellaneous items. I had not a single memento of home or a poster of Audrey Hepburn.
The departures, however, tend to be similar. Sweaters are folded, pants rolled, dresses nicely covered in vinyl protectors, all neatly lain in their allotted place in the suitcase. The rest, such as lamps, plastic shelves, bean-bags, and rolls and rolls of posters, are either brought home or sent to storage. The rooms are vacuumed, Windex-ed, and Clean-Wipes-ed, according to protocol. When the room is thus squeaky clean, we stretch and smile, strangely satisfied that we will be leavingno trace of us behind. We primly spin around, closing the door to a gray and bare room. Oddly enough, the school itself may be a family to its students, but the rooms, albeit full of memories of late nights and gossip, never mean much.
The arrival of freshmen to their college dorms varies, as well. Some arrive wide-eyed, having only a couple of hours ago gazed wistfully at therooms they’ve inhabited since childhood, tears welling up at the fact that they are leaving its comfort for a dreary college room. Others, having rocked out to “This Town” by O.A.R. (a part of the iTunes playlist “Packing”, updated yearly) just a day before, skillfully lug their belongings up the stairs, already knowing which drawer their socks belong. This year, I have tried to make myself much more at home. So I bought a couple of posters (ten), a basket or two (six), and some extra lighting (two floor lamps and twenty feet of Christmas lights). As it turns out, “clutter” has turned into “indispensable.”
The departure of college freshmen, I have yet to tell. College and boarding school are similar in that they both require students to live in dormitories, so it may seem obvious that the trends ought to connect. But the biggest difference between the twois that while one aims at being a family, the other aims at being the gateway to society, where a student is an adult, an individual. Now, we are truly away from home.
So I wonder… whether students would find more comfort in their private rooms in college than at boarding school. I wonder whether I, too, will look at my room at the end of the year and let out a mixture of a laugh and a sigh.