Boarding from a New Student's Perspective
This week, I interviewed Kyla, a hilarious new Junior from New York City. She is not only an excellent interviewee, but she is wonderful company as well! We spent a lot of time talking about dorm life, her work job this semester (AM Horse Barn), her roommate, and the city. Although we found ourselves getting off topic sometimes (as teenagers often do), I ended up with some great answers from Kyla.
1). Name something you share in common with your roommate.
One might think that since Kyla’s roommate, Max, was in the room during the interview, her answer isn’t as valuable. However, seeing Max and Kyla joke around and make priceless faces at each other confirmed that Kyla was not exaggerating in the least bit. Kyla raved about her and Max’s relationship. “We have similar style which is really nice -- our room feels very homey and cozy because we have a lot of the same interests.” Kyla and Max both love to play the guitar, and spend time in their room jamming together. Max is also teaching her how to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano.
Kyla also told me how coming into boarding school, one of her greater worries was that she and her roommate wouldn’t get along. However, less than a week after arriving at Putney, she and Max were already sharing clothes. “It’s awesome to be comfortable enough with each other to take each other’s clothes and not have to worry about it.”
2). What activity are you eager to try here that you’ve never seen at another school?
Kyla told me that she’s actually doing a lot of the things she wants to do right now. She wanted to start taking advantage of all the opportunities she had right away. “Right now I’m in cider-making. I’m from New York City so you can imagine I don’t make cider very often. It’s a great activity because not only is it really fun, but you get to bring back apple cider that YOU’VE made and drink it. It’s also a small group so it’s a good way to make friends.” She also told me about how doing AM Horse Barn is great because it gives her an opportunity to work with the horses without actually having to ride. City-living hasn’t granted Kyla with a lot of horse experience, so getting to learn about and take part in caring for the horses has been really fun for her.
3). Do you have any good stories from the common room?
“If you’re living somewhere it’s important to get comfortable with your dorm.” We talked about dorm-bonding activities (like movie night), dorm meetings, and just dorm-life in general. Kyla said one of her favorite parts of living in a dorm is the birthdays, and since we have thirty girls in our dorm, birthdays happen pretty often. “Every birthday is really nice. The birthdays come around often and it’s really awesome because cake is good and I like food.” However, the cake/ice cream/brownies/other birthday treats were not her only highlight for dorm birthdays. “It’s nice to see how even if you’re not super close to the person who’s birthday it is, everyone is still excited about their birthday. There’s a lot of love during birthdays, and you can definitely feel that in the common room on those nights. When you’re not with your family on your birthday it can be hard, so it’s really great to have a family within the dorm.”
Max then chimed in, “Also, the trouble that the dorm parents go to in order to make sure that we all feel like we have a home here, and to bring us cake for our birthdays is so awesome.”
4). What has been your favorite meal so far?
“I’m a vegetarian so it’s a hard life for me. It’s different because at home you can cook for yourself. Despite that fact, they do a great job here.There’s always an option, and there is never a time when there just isn’t food you can eat. However, sometimes the meal choice isn’t my favorite so I just make an awesome salad instead.”
5.) Do you have any memorable moments that you’ve experienced in class this semester?
One of the classes Kyla is taking this semester is Spanish 3. We talked about how it’s hard to stay interested in a class when you don’t have a good teacher or a good relationship with that teacher. “The teacher is everything” Kyla told me. She then filled me in on why Spanish 3 continues to enthrall her.
“Abé [one of our Spanish teachers] is the best person ever. He’s like the funniest thing in the world.” As a demonstration in class one day, Abé decided to rap the song “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz. However, he not only rapped the song, he rapped the song in Spanish, and he made it up on the spot. This sounds pretty impressive in itself, and Kyla confirmed to me that it was in fact, VERY impressive.
