Love Tsai

I am on the off-campus meal plan, which means that I have around $1,000 to use in Dartmouth dining halls but no meal swipes to use at the main buffet-style dining hall, which students affectionately call FoCo but is actually called Class of 1953 Commons.

Therefore, I have to be a bit more creative with my meal choices so that I make sure I get in all my vegetables and protein.

One way I do that is to get stir-fry at Collis Café! Collis serves stir-fry Subway-style during lunch; at dinner, they serve pasta instead. I like getting beef and vegetables with mine, and I usually add General Tso's as my sauce.

Dartmouth students usually have a few opportunities to leave campus during the term, whether it be for sports, conferences, or fun excursions to Boston or New York City.

I ended up having the chance to go to a conference around Week 4 and we got Smashburger on the way back! Hanover doesn't have much in the way of fast food or other restaurant chains, so while I enjoy small-town living and being able to support local businesses at school, the occasional french fry or pizza has become surprisingly reminiscent of home since that is when I normally can have it!

All this to say—any time I get to eat something like Smashburger, I happily indulge.

This year, Collis Café started serving fresh, hand-made sushi!

It can be very pricey compared to the pre-packaged ones (one nigiri piece is almost $4!), but sometimes you just need a pick-me-up in the form of salmon nigiri and eel sushi. I shared this plate with my friend and we both thought it was quite good for being from the Upper Valley. Dining Services is always trying to improve and listen to student voices, and I greatly appreciate all that they do in making multicultural food for Dartmouth students.

In the first half of junior spring, all '23s went through the housing process for the 2022 - 2023 school year. Seniors are allowed some of the widest range of choices in terms of housing—you can live in regular dorms, LLCs, senior apartments, off-campus, Greek housing, etc. Seniors also get the highest priority numbers out of the entire school (1 - 1600), which means they get first dibs on room selection when the time comes.

I've wanted to live in a senior apartment for some time now. There are a number of things that drew me to this type of housing vs. getting a single in a more traditional West House dorm like Fahey. For one, I like living with friends and people I know. Coming home to a space where you can say hi to people and catch up with them is really nice to me, vs. living in a big, impersonal dorm. In fact, each term I've lived on-campus I've been able to be in a smaller residential setting. My freshman year, I lived in an LLC when they were still housed in the McLaughlin Cluster. Sophomore summer, I lived in my Greek house. Junior fall and spring, I lived in two different LLCs, both situated in actual houses on campus!

Secondly, living in a senior apartment replicates more of the independent, "non-college" living that I'd gotten used to during COVID and have grown to prefer. The apartment I am going to be in, for example, is in a stand-alone house on a quiet street, with a full kitchen, two bathrooms, and a living room alongside the four bedrooms. The apartment space is big and private enough to really make it yours. I like these types of environments and hope to do more cooking, movie nights with friends, and general "home-y" activities next year, especially since I can stay in the same room for three terms without moving out (a luxury must students don't get after freshman year at Dartmouth due to the D-plan)!

Speaking of dorms and LLCs, I've also greatly enjoyed my living situation this term despite my excitement for senior apartments next year! 

The Chinese Language House is one of the smaller ones on campus, with only around 8 residents this term. There are a lot of places to relax, such as the kitchen, living room, or mudroom-turned-study space. People in the dorm are also very friendly and host events such as joint birthday parties and other garden parties.

If you're ever wondering about a way to make community in the chaotic world that is Dartmouth, I highly recommend trying out an LLC. There is something really special about surrounding yourself with people who share similar interests or values as you, especially when you are trying to branch out and grow in all the other parts of your life. 

I am taking biochemistry this term through the Chemistry department rather than the Biology department, which means that we still have weekly, four-hour labs.

Thankfully, the amount of time varies for each week and we also get some time during lab to eat and do other work while experiments are running. I've liked being able to apply both my biological and chemical knowledge in a "research" setting since I didn't get to do a lot of labs due to COVID. The work is a mix of chemistry and biological lab skills, although the first half has been mostly biology bench work (such as cloning, running gels, doing PCRs, etc.).

The lab is set up so that everyone does the same thing each week and whatever is still viable at the end of the term, we use for the final experiment. While my lab partner and I have had some mishaps, we've also had some fun successes, which has been very gratifying!

It was a huge shock to return to a fully-occupied Dartmouth this past fall.

While I was here in the summer, we only had one class fully on (the 23s for their sophomore summer) and some 22s and 24s as well. Now, we have three classes fully on (22s, 24s, and 25s), and many 23s are also still here as well.

Lines now are very long and the library is almost always full whenever you need a seat. In some ways, I preferred sophomore summer (camp Dartmouth!) when it was a bit more de-densified, but I also love the collegiate feel that comes with a busier, slightly more anonymous Dartmouth.

I loved getting to see the Homecoming Bonfire again!

Getting to participate in these Dartmouth traditions as many times as possible is one of my many goals while I am here, and the bonfire is one of my favorites. I also hope to do the annual midnight snowball fight again my senior year (I'll be off-campus junior winter) and I am really looking forward to my first Green Key next spring.

One of the surprising things about the fire is exactly how hot it can get. Upperclassmen usually heckle the freshmen doing their circle to "touch the fire," but the truth is that it gets so hot near the fire that most people don't want to be anywhere close enough to the fire to touch it!

Being a part of Dartmouth means also getting to experience a lot of amazing things outside Dartmouth.

This term, I was able to go to a faith-based conference in New Jersey for a couple days, completely paid for by the organization. Going with the Dartmouth group was also really nice because I got to spend time with friends and new people outside the context of school (which, in all honesty, can sometimes be stressful and overwhelming while simultaneously being repetitive).

This particular conference was open to Ivy League students and students from a few other peer institutions so I even got to meet one of my sister's friends who was doing an exchange at Columbia.