Dormies

My armchair and ottoman.  The book on the arm of the chair is the pocket Oxford French-English dictionary and in no way could fit into a pocket.

Everyone has their people at college.  For my parents, it was their group of friends at Foley House (and some guy named Omar?  Mum and Daddy, am I getting this right?) and for my darling Kuzu, it's her customs group.  For me, almost two weeks in, it's my dormies.
Reedies like to put "ies" on the end of everything.  If you go to my school, you're a Reedie.  If you're a prospective student, you're a prospie.  If you live with me in Chittick, you're my dormie.  Living in Chittick - a building that can apparently be taken apart with a screwdriver - is one of my favourite things about college.  Here, my people are excellent.  We live in the gourmet dorm and so last night M made tongue tacos and G made fresh bread and garlic oil and A made carbonated grapes (more on how to carbonate grapes later, I promise).  I love eating meals with my dormies, I love talking on the balcony to E and T (I'm really not sure if they want their names on the Internet, so you'll have to bear with me on the whole alphabet soup thing), I love it when W comes into my bedroom and stretches out in the armchair and we talk about boys and French homework.
Really, I love the community that my dormies and I have made.  They are kind and lovely people, who make dinner with you and quiz you on your French words and yell at people who are mean for you.  It's kind of like a surrogate family - when A makes sourdough bread it's a strange crossover to when my father and I used to do that in our kitchen, and when N yells at someone for being a jerk I am immediately reminded of my darling brother.  So thank you, my dormies, for making Reed a home away from Cambridge, and for helping me find a family on the other side of the country.