Lazy Sunday

Even though I have titled this blog entry “Lazy Sunday,” it would only be fair to warn you that even the laziest days spent at Barnard aren’t particularly “lazy” at all. In fact, most days here are quite the opposite. I thought it would be fun to walk you through a typical day here on campus. As I started to write, I realized it would be pretty much impossible, given that there really is no “typical” Barnard day. So, instead, I decided to tell what I did today.

I woke up at 7 am to attend mass a little further downtown at 72^nd and Broadway. The city is still pretty quiet (well, as quiet as it’s ever going to get!) at that hour, and it’s a really peaceful way to begin the day. On the subway ride, I read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad for my First Year English class. Afterward, I met up with a friend and we had breakfast at Nussbaum and Wu, a café/bakery just a few blocks away from Barnard’s campus. My friend and I discussed our plans for the day over our cups of coffee and lemon poppy muffins. She decided to take a bike ride through Riverside Park, all the way to 42^nd street and back, while I decided to visit the Frick Collection on the East Side. We said our goodbyes and I hopped on the M4 and twenty minutes later I stood inside the Frick Museum.

I had never been there before, and I really enjoyed myself. The art is housed in the mansion of Henry Clay Frick, so the ordinary “museum-feel” doesn’t really apply, which makes the art seem a lot more accessible. The weather was so lovely today, so I decided to walk through Central Park on my way back to campus. I’ve been through the park so many times, but it never gets old, especially on a beautiful spring day like today! There were people everywhere and my entire walk was so pleasant. I decided to sit down next to Bethesda Fountain, and as luck may have it, I happened to plop myself down next to a Central Park tour guide, who spent the next fifteen minutes telling me all about areas of the park I had never even heard of as well as providing me with a detailed account of the resident family of hawks that lives nearby.

I left the park on 72^nd street and caught a subway back uptown to campus, where I hurried to the dance studios to meet up with a friend. The Dance Senior Thesis Showing is this coming Friday (all dance majors show their thesis performance piece) and I met up with a dance major to help her run through her choreography and provide some last minute critique before she began her show week. The relationship within the Dance Department is really wonderful. I think it's pretty great that a senior dance major asks a first year to help her run through her piece! You might think that this is enough for one day, but it was only 2:30!

I went back to my dorm, grabbed a few books, and then headed back outside to the patio of the new Diana Center. I pulled up one of the chairs and tables for outside study and got to work on some reading for Biology and starting studying for the midterm we have later this week. I’ll skip over the next few hours since they pretty much just included schoolwork! I met up with a few friends for dinner in Hewitt Dining Hall and then headed back to my dorm to finish up some work and start my laundry. And that’s pretty much where I am now. Just sitting in the TV lounge on my hall with a few friends and waiting for my laundry to get done. We don’t have any plans for the rest of the evening, but we will probably end up watching a movie or playing a card game like we do most Sunday nights.

As you can see even a “Lazy Sunday” isn’t so lazy here. One of the best aspects of Barnard is the almost overwhelming number of activities that are at the students’ disposal. Whether you want to ride your bike, go for a walk in the park, visit a museum, get ahead on some homework, or participate in whatever extra-curricular interest you pursue, there really is no time to experience boredom! That’s why there’s no such thing as a “typical” day at Barnard!