Once Upon a Time in a Treehouse

There’s nothing like being trapped in a mini blizzard to get your mind reflecting on all kinds of subject. One such subject that has been on my mind recently started when I moved to Miami. I have gotten used to the question of where I went to school, but I never realized that I was also used to the question of what house did I live in, until no one asked it any longer. Away from the world where people are familiar with our housing system the question doesn’t come across the minds of those who now wonder where I received my degree. So when I mention Currier House now, I have to explain how freshman year we all live in The Yard in the dorms. Then, we choose people to “block” with and get, in a way, sorted by the Harvard sorting hat into the House where we will live for the next three years. Freshman year I longed to be “quaded,” meaning living what I would describe as a bit and others miles and miles away from the main campus in the Radcliffe Quadrangle, better known simply as the Quad. So I was immensely excited and satisfied when on Housing Day my blockmates and I got the message that we would indeed be living in the Quad in Currier House. I think my blockmates at the time were a bit angry at me that I would ‘wish us into quad,’ but as time went on, we all came to love it in our own way. I had wanted it because I wanted the separation between school and home, adored the beautiful houses around the Quad, and thought the Quad had the better part of Mass Ave at its beck and call. And while Currier officially became my House after Housing Day, by the end of my four years at Harvard, the college was my house while Currier became my home.

The only way I can describe this is through a song and a saying. Harvard is the house that built me, while Currier is where my heart is. So if the college was a large part of who I am today, Currier was the mother that made sure I was warm, was fed, and was loved, during those changes. Currier was home to some of the greatest personalities I ever met on campus in years above me and below me, whether it was the eclectic combination of the G Force boys the year above us or the knocks on our door for 3am beer pong from the Junior Boys (one year our juniors). Currier gave me lavish House Masters Open House, the greatest house tutors and resident dean, and a dining hall fit to do hours of work. It also gave me my love-hate relationship with the side dining room and the Poker Room, both places that I did hours and hours of studying, writing papers, and my dreaded lock-in of February 2011 in order to finish my thesis. And even through Stockholm Syndrome from study rooms and that crazy room invader our sophomore year, there was still the birth of so many traditions from Passover Seder to the Gossip Girl Club that any even slightly unpleasant memory seems obliterated by all the amazing memories contained within that single entry door. Currier was my adult tree house and these are only some of the ways I can even begin to one who has not lived it, to explain why it will always be home.

And here’s a taste of nostalgia in picture: