Currently, I live in Currier House which is one of three dorms in the Radcliffe Quadrangle (known simply as “The Quad”). During my freshman spring, I blocked with four girls from my floor and my best friend Jason. We were lotteried into Mather House, where we would presumably live for the rest of our Harvard years.

Mather is known for a few things: 1) raging House spirit, 2) its annual foam party, Mather Lather, and 3) “singles for life” meaning single bedrooms for all residents, including sophomores. At a school where 97 percent of undergrads live on campus all four years, single bedrooms are not easy to come by. Mather and the Quad dorms are the only places where every sophomore (with a few rare exceptions) gets a single bedroom. A lot of my junior friends housed elsewhere still have to share.

My sophomore year was really rocky. I had just started writing Sex and the Ivy, didn’t have any idea how to react or deal with the attention, and withdrew from most social activity. I was so depressed and anxious that despite Mather’s infectious spirit, I spent the first semester hiding in my dorm room from just about everyone, my blockmates included. Mather and I never really hit it off.

By second semester, Tara had moved off campus, Jason was spending all his time in Boston with his new boyfriend, and another blockmate was entertaining thoughts of transferring. It felt like I needed a fresh start, and Currier was the perfect choice. Kennedy lived in next-door Cabot House. Her freshman year roommates blocked with her boyfriend Spencer’s freshman year roommates and they were all housed in Currier. I was so close to that group of kids that originally, I nearly joined it myself. I spent almost all of my freshman autumn living with Kennedy as an adopted roommate. It wasn’t until the spring that I got close to the girls on my floor.

So at the end of sophomore year, I applied to transfer to Currier and was accepted. Tara took Tiffanie with her off-campus this year and they moved into a duplex in Harvard Square. Megan still lives in Mather. Jason lives there too (though he sleeps at his boyfriend Nick’s). A. transferred to Quincy. My original blockmates are still some of my closest friends, but living alone definitely works better (even though I’m ALWAYS in Tara and Tiff’s apartment). I’m so lucky that things worked out really well for me. I came into a House as a transfer, but I had a built-in blocking group that adopted me despite my being MIA all of last year. I love that I’ve been able to spend more time with people I almost never saw as a sophomore. Plus, the Currier kids are incredibly different from my other blockmates and I think that’s important for my sanity. I refer to the boys teasingly as my “invisible blockmates” because they are largely low-key, undramatic, and don’t do a ton on campus besides debate. With them, there’s rarely internal conflict or spats. Not that my girls have epic feuds or anything, but it’s just not as calm come PMS week.

I no longer live in a suite since Currier is comprised largely of standalone singles. I have a LOT more privacy than I used to and there’s no one to answer to in the morning when I have guys over or when I come home drunk. Around the House, I have not been bothered or whispered about as often as before (and if people do whisper, I at least don’t hear about it). Because the Quad is so far, only Currierites eat in the dining hall unlike Mather’s where non-residents filter in all the time for meetings, etc. I like being away from that raucousness and the faces of strangers. I don’t like strangers. People in Currier have become familiar to me, even if I’ve never spoken to them. If I had to deal with ever-changing, always-bustling Mather dining hall during the naked photo debacle, I would’ve probably had twice as many panic attacks (lord knows I experienced ridiculous anxiety during my sophomore fall in that place). I used to wonder all the time if people were saying things about me across the room. Often times, I’d be right. Here in Currier, I mostly feel anonymous, and that is awesome.

In conclusion, Currier doesn’t make me want to kill myself. Yay.