Finding Center

Like Susan, I, too, started my walk with the cloisters in mind. I thought that they would be a good center, and that the roads beyond Goodhart Theater, where I hadn't explored as much, would make a nice, decisive, edge to the Bryn Mawr campus. And, similarly, my idea of the campus changed as I was walking, writing my paper, and in the days since then. As I was walking (and stopping to sit in trees), I was exploring. And, every day in class, I think that I explore. I learn new things and meet new people and discover things that I never knew existed. But, like plants, I have a place with resources that I love to go to. And, no, it isn't the library or the classroom. Every day, I skip down stairs, trudge up another set, and then walk up a hill to get to my classes and the dining halls. I live in Brecon. I am far away from most things on campus; I don’t, unlike most Mawrters, live near classrooms or the dining halls or even other dorms. Because I live so far away, all of the mementos I brought from home, most of the new friends I have been making, and the learning I have been doing out of class, is far away from my classrooms. Although I explore when I am in class, I always have to plan my next move carefully, because travelling from Brecon to the main campus is a grand excursion. And, having made my nest of books, blankets, tea and friends in Brecon, that is where I always come back to, and so it is the center of Bryn Mawr for me, on both the weekends and the weekdays.