{"id":136961,"date":"2020-11-02T18:13:46","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T23:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=136961"},"modified":"2020-11-13T14:46:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T19:46:02","slug":"slideshow-what-they-brought-for-comfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2020\/11\/02\/slideshow-what-they-brought-for-comfort\/","title":{"rendered":"Slideshow: What they brought for comfort"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maria Roca, a first-year student from Porto Portugal, is pleasantly surprised. The fall semester at Bates, despite the myriad challenges posed by COVID-19, doesn\u2019t feel as tough as she thought it would. \u201cBut at the same time,\u201d she says, \u201cit\u2019s more challenging than it would have been in a normal year. Anything that makes you feel more comfortable and brings you a sense of normalcy definitely helps.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Roca, that\u2019s Ping, the stuffed penguin she\u2019s had since she was 8, who keeps watch over her Zoom classes and is always there when she returns to her dorm room. We talked to her and other Bates students about the treasured objects, from juggling clubs to house plants, that they brought with them to ease the stress of being away from home during a pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most chose something that reminds them of home. And given the increased alone time \u2014 given pandemic rules around gatherings and in-person activities \u2014 and general uncertainties experienced by each of our students, these mementos play an even greater role than usual in their peace of mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Linne\u0301a Selendy ’23 of Stockholm, Sweden<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Major<\/b>: Environmental studies (intended)<\/p>\n

What she brought<\/b>: Custom-made wall calendar of her little cousins in Stockholm<\/p>\n

Linne\u0301a says: <\/b>Being really far away from home is tough \u2014 especially my baby cousins who I don\u2019t get to see often at all, maybe twice a year, who are really special to me. They\u2019re like the sisters I never had.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cousin on left is Ale\u0301a, 9 (oh my gosh, she\u2019s so old!), and on right is Yara, 7, and I literally remember them as if they were babies. I remember holding Aliya when I was 11. And she was taking her first steps when she was visiting me. They\u2019re my mother\u2019s sister\u2019s daughters. <\/span>They were born in Sweden, and their father is from Uruguay<\/span>. They are dressed for Halloween.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing them every day just puts a smile on my face.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a gift I get every birthday from my cousins and my aunt. It\u2019s a tradition. At first I brought it with me because I thought \u2014 oh, it\u2019s so cute. <\/span>It just kind of keeps some Swedishness in my dorm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever since I\u2019ve been here it\u2019s become more and more comforting to me, more than I realized it was going to be from the start. When times get hard, just the daily reminder of just crossing off each day \u2014 especially now \u2014 is making me feel I\u2019m taking day by day more so than I did earlier in the year. Marking things that are going to be fun, to look forward to \u2014 Dunkin\u2019 Donuts or a hike I\u2019m taking \u2014\u00a0 and also school work. It\u2019s right by my door, so every time I leave for class, I get to see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ben Hoffinger ’22 of Arlington, Mass.<\/h4>\n
\"Phyllis<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Major<\/b>: American studies<\/p>\n

What he brought<\/b>: Juggling clubs<\/p>\n

Ben says: <\/b>I bring these juggling clubs here during any other semester but they have been especially nice this semester. Juggling them is something I really enjoy doing to relieve stress and to re-center myself, clear my head.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019ve had a rough night or with work, stuff like that, and I will just come outside at night \u2014 I have light-up ones too \u2014 and I\u2019ll just juggle juggling clubs to sort of relax and cool off. I mostly use the amphitheater because I live in Adams and it\u2019s convenient.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I am co-president of the Circus Club. It\u2019s especially been important to me this semester just because we can\u2019t always be socializing as much as we did in the past. It\u2019s nice to have a hobby that I can work on in my free time that also even outdoors sparks social interaction because when people see you juggling they will come up to you \u2014 not right up to you \u2014 but to say, hey, like that\u2019s kind of cool. Circus Club meets 4 to 5 p.m. on Sundays in Memorial Commons! We are always looking for new members, no experience necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Helen Carr ’21 of Tarrytown, N.Y.<\/h4>\n
\"Phyllis<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Double Major<\/b>: Politics and French and francophone studies<\/p>\n

What she brought<\/b>: Three mugs<\/p>\n

Helen says: <\/b>Each of these mugs has a story that\u2019s important to me: someone who gave the mug to me, or a funny joke in some cases. But what I really love about them is that even on my worst day \u2014 or my best day \u2014 I can always make a cup of warm tea and it\u2019ll always make me feel better. It will make me feel like I\u2019m back home with my mom sitting on the couch drinking tea together.<\/span><\/p>\n

This mug was made by a Bates studio art major who is now a graduate, Sarah Daehler ’19. This mug was given to me and all the other Purposeful Work interns from Bates who worked for Kellogg Hansen, a law firm in D.C. And lastly, this was a gift from my sister that she got when she was living in Scotland. It says \u201c<\/span>Ceci n’est pas une bagpipe<\/em>,” which is a reference to “Ceci n’est pas une pipe<\/em>” \u2014 it\u2019s a painting by a French surrealist artist [Rene Magritte] who wanted to kind of demonstrate that a picture of something is not the thing itself, even though we understand it to be the thing itself. But she got it in Scotland, so it\u2019s a bagpipe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though I love in-person classes, the benefit of Zoom classes is that I can always take tea breaks in the middle of class. So I\u2019ll see how my day\u2019s going and pick out which mug I want to use that day and make myself a cup of tea in the middle of class.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Adam Banks ’21 of Jamaica Plain, Mass.<\/h4>\n
\"Phyllis<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Major<\/b>: Environmental studies<\/p>\n

What he brought<\/b>: Plants<\/p>\n

Adam says: <\/b>I brought a lot of plants. Plants really help me out in the sense that they help me be mindful of the space I\u2019m inhabiting. You\u2019re co-existing with living things and you have to watch them and take care of them. It keeps a nice daily rhythm for me. This spider plant in particular might be from a larger one that I have. That larger one came from a plant that my mom had, and she gave me one of the babies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, whenever I see any of that line, it makes me think of her. It\u2019s a nice little connection to home in that way. This semester, they have stronger connections, especially due to the fact that we haven\u2019t been able to go home at all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Maria Rocha ’24 of Porto, Portugal<\/h4>\n
\"Phyllis<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Major<\/b>:\u00a0 Not yet declared<\/p>\n

What she brought<\/b>: Plush penguin<\/p>\n

Maria says: <\/b>His name is Ping, which is short for <\/span>pinguim, <\/span><\/i>which means penguin in Portuguese. I remember my older sister Beatriz gave him to me when I was really, really young, 8 maybe, so I\u2019ve had him for just over 10 years. I always take him everywhere with me. I went to boarding school in India, also very far away from home, so I took him with me. It helped make my room feel homier, because the whole environment was foreign to me. At least I had this one constant thing. And it\u2019s similar at Bates. I always have him in my room; he\u2019s just there.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think because of the pandemic, we end up spending more time in our rooms. I have an online class when, even if I don\u2019t notice him there, I feel that subconsciously seeing him there makes me feel a little bit better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Jasper Beardslee ’22 of Miami<\/h4>\n
\"Phyllis<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Major<\/b>:\u00a0 Environmental studies<\/p>\n

What he brought<\/b>: Conch<\/p>\n

Jasper says: <\/b>It\u2019s a conch shell and I brought it because Maine\u2019s really different from Florida. Growing up in Miami meant that I was pretty connected to the ocean \u2014 and being near it at all times \u2014 through diving, surfing, and swimming.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found this conch off of Elliott Key, which is right next to Miami. I was doing some free diving, and it was laying on the bottom, just empty and perfect looking so I picked it up and brought it home and decided to bring it to college with me. I\u2019ve had it all three years at Bates. I put it right by my window so that the light hits it in the morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though it\u2019s really tough to not be with my family during these trying times, as it grows colder and the sun goes down, I appreciate these trinkets more and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Madeleine Lee ’24 of Providence, R.I.<\/h4>\n
\"Phyllis<\/a>

Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College<\/p><\/div>\n

Major<\/b>: Not yet declared<\/p>\n

What she brought<\/b>: Parents’ wedding photograph<\/p>\n

Madeleine says: <\/b>The story is that on my first day of pre-school I was really nervous, and I went clutching this picture of my parents on their wedding day, and also one of my mom\u2019s shirts, and there\u2019s a picture of me holding this looking terrified. <\/span><\/p>\n

I recreated the picture with my friend, who was in the pre-school photo with me, on my first day of senior year in high school. Then on my first day of classes here at Bates \u2014 my first day of classes ever in college \u2014 I went to Post and Print, and my parents had sent me this photo. It\u2019s a sweet little reminder that they\u2019re always with me, and I just love having it in my dorm room. It was kind of better than any kind of care package I could imagine because it was so sentimental.<\/span><\/p>\n

On your first day of school when you\u2019re a child, you take the pictures by the door and have all these little traditions. So at Bates, it was my first day of school without my parents, and I wasn\u2019t really feeling nervous, but opening it made me miss them \u2014 it was so special that they would remember to send it.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is definitely the longest I\u2019ve been away from my parents. Being able to Facetime them whenever I want is certainly different from how scary it felt in preschool the first day I was away from them all day and all I had was this picture to remind me that they were right there. It\u2019s come full-circle. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll have it with me on my last first-day of classes ever in my senior year at Bates.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We talked to Bates students about the treasured objects, from juggling clubs to house plants, that they brought with them to ease the stress of being away from home during a pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":136967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1,223,11012],"tags":[12135],"class_list":["post-136961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews","category-slideshow","category-student-life","tag-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136961"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137167,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136961\/revisions\/137167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}