Verbal Snippets & Snapshots

After spending my freshman year in AMR I, my sophomore year in McCoy Hall, and my junior year in an off-campus apartment, I moved back into on-campus housing to live in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in the Homewood Apartments for my senior year. Take a look at it!

I. ENTRANCE

I think the title of this section of my entry and the photos are self-explanatory. By the way, do enjoy the college-style decor of the poster that greets you upon entering my apartment. In peeking to the right, you see the kitchen. Let’s take a look at it.

II. KITCHEN

The kitchen in my apartment isn’t large, but it serves the purpose. By the way, as in typical apartment buildings, the layouts of the apartments in Homewood Apartments vary–there are many other two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments in the building, but they differ in the size, shape, and location on their rooms. Take a moment to look at the magnets on our freezer door. Most of them are mine, but the butterfly one–which I think is gorgeous–belongs to my roommate. Upon looking around the kitchen, you can see the living room through a little opening in the wall. Let’s take a look at that next!

III. LIVING ROOM

Like the kitchen, the living room (which has a small dining table) is small but serves the purpose. Again, posters serve as college-esque decór. As with all University-owned housing (both dorms and apartments), most of the furniture you see comes with the apartment. In this room, the exception is the floor lamp. My roommate and I thought we should get it to add even more light to the living room (which only comes with an overhead light and a lamp on a small table next to the couch.

IV. HALLWAY/BATHROOM

I also think that this section’s title and photos are self-explanatory. By the way, if you couldn’t tell from the photos, the bathroom is also like the kitchen and the living room in being small but functional. Also, note the shower organizer–it helps minimize the number of items lying on the sides of the bathtub!

V. MY BEDROOM

My bedroom is next to the bathroom. It’s the first bedroom I’ve ever had on my own during my undergraduate career at Hopkins–I lived in doubles in my freshman and sophomore year and shared a master bedroom in my junior year–so I like spending a lot of time in it to study! Some items of note are the wall next to my bed covered with photographs from calendars, the set of National Geographic magazines on the top shelf over my desk, the classic touch of college-esque decór with the Hopkins pennant, my orange crate overflowing with dance clothes, and the small table behind my bed with a lamp as well as a few personal items (including a small wooden elephant).

VI. VIDEO

To see a video tour of my apartment (as well as how much less decorated my bedroom was in January, compared to this month–and how horrible I look when I don’t fix my hair up, but that’s not really related to my apartment), take a look below.

As some people at Hopkins who’ve seen any of my Hopkins abodes in person know (such as JHU_Jackie and JHU_Stefanie), my housing experiences over the past three years have slowly, but steadily, improved in terms of luxury.

As a freshman, I lived in a double in AMR I. AMR I is one of two “traditional” dorms for freshmen at Hopkins–that is, it has communal bathrooms. AMR I also lacks air conditioning! Overall, I enjoyed living in AMR I, and I usually didn’t have a problem in using communal bathrooms or dealing with a lack of air conditioning. However, it’s not a surprise that AMR I is thought of as the “least luxurious” on-campus housing option for freshmen.

As a sophomore, I lived in a four-person suite in McCoy Hall with my friends Miriam, Nian, and Zainab. Our suite had a small lobby with a kitchenette, a bathroom, one double, and two singles. Unlike AMR I, McCoy Hall does have air conditioning. Combine that fact with having a private bathroom (instead of using a communal bathroom) and a kitchenette, and I thought my sophomore year housing situation was a huge step up from my freshman year one–even though (1) McCoy Hall is the “least luxurious” on-campus housing option for sophomores and (2) I shared the double with Zainab, while Miriam and Nian each had singles.

This year, I’ve been living in an off-campus apartment with the same three friends with whom I shared a suite last year! We live in a lovely three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in a small, quiet apartment building that’s verrrrry close to campus. It’s right across North Charles Street from AMR I and AMR II (which are two of the dorms for freshmen on campus), and it’s between two University-owned buildings! In a fashion similar to last year, Zainab and I share the master bedroom, while Miriam and Nian have their own bedrooms.

So, what are the “steps up” this year for me compared to last year? As you’ll soon see, the apartment where I live this year (1) is very spacious and has lots of natural light coming in during the day (there are windows in every room of the apartment), (2) has two bathrooms being shared among four girls (instead of just one), (3) has a full kitchen (instead of a kitchenette), and (4) has a living room (instead of…uh…none).

I. ENTRANCE

First, the above photo is of the main door of the apartment…

…and when you open that door, this is part of the view you have! In the photo above, you can see a bit of the kitchen towards the left and a bit of the living room towards the right. Let’s look at the living room first.

II. LIVING ROOM

Most of the furniture in our apartment came along with the apartment, and the furniture you see in these photos of the living room is no exception. As you can see, my roommates and I created makeshift curtains out of old bedsheets, and we even decided to cover the throw pillows on the couch with matching pillowcases!

III. KITCHEN

Miriam, Nian, Zainab, and I all love to cook and even bake–and for that reason, we have a lot of fond memories that center around this kitchen! Even though the above photos might not properly convey our kitchen’s dimensions, our kitchen is pretty large for an apartment. To give you an idea, it’s pretty easy to fit four to five people in it while they do things such as washing the dishes, cooking, looking through the fridge, and heating something in the microwave. Given that the kitchen is my favorite room of the apartment, I can ramble on–but I won’t.

IV. HALLWAY BATHROOM

This is one of the two bathrooms of the apartment, and it’s the bathroom that my two roommates who have their own bedrooms use. Given its location in the hallway, it’s also the bathroom that our guests use.

V. MASTER BEDROOM

Last, but not least, let’s take a look at the master bedroom! As I mentioned earlier in this blog entry, Zainab and I share this bedroom. We agreed to split the room so that I have the side of the room with the only window of the room–but a small closet, while Zainab has the side of the room that has a walk-in closet–but no window.

I don’t have much to say about the bathroom that’s located in the master bedroom, besides the fact that I really enjoy being able to use the bathroom without leaving my bedroom!

As I’ve done in previous years, I’ll close this entry by highlighting a few miscellaneous items in my bedroom. The top left photo is of a wooden mask from Ghana that’s hanging on the wall beside my bed; I received it as a gift at the beginning of this semester from Nian, since she went on a Hopkins-sponsored study abroad trip to Ghana during Intersession. The top right photo is of a few decorations I taped onto the wall above my dresser. The top decoration is a bunch of doodles I made that I liked. Meanwhile, the middle decoration is a miniature collage with my name and a photo of Miriam, Nian, Zainab, and me from last year–Nian made it and gave it to me along with her Christmas present for me. (Miriam and Zainab have similar collages from Nian.) The bottom decoration is a collage that my friend Christine made in an activity in which she, a few other girls, and I made collages of images and words to describe each other. The bottom left photo is of a photo frame that Zainab gave me as a birthday present last year; the photo it encloses is of a few of my freshman year housemates and I posing after a mud wrestling match we had. Also in front of that photo frame are three mini wind-up toys I own. I received the sushi toy and the rice bowl toy as part of a birthday present last year–and I got the brain toy all the way back in my senior year of high school at a neuroscience major info session here at Hopkins! (JHU_Wafa knows just how awesome this toy is.) Last, but not least, the bottom right photo is of metal “jeepney” model. In the Philippines, the first “jeepneys” were jeeps that were left behind by American soldiers after WWII–and then elongated, elaborately decorated, and converted into public transportation vehicles by Filipinos. Nowadays, jeepneys are actually manufactured in the Philippines, and they’re a popular mode of transportation there.

With all that said (and shown), I hope you enjoyed my third year of “Hopkins Cribs”!

Well, it’s time for another round of “Hopkins Cribs” blog entries from Hopkins Interactive! After having written about my double in AMR I last year, I’ll write about my much luxurious on-campus living quarters this year. I live in a four-person suite in McCoy Hall, a dorm that houses mostly sophomores and that has four-person suites, each of which has a kitchenette, a bathroom, and either two doubles or a double and two singles. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries this year (such as one that I wrote in October about the “odd” items we have in our suite), my three suitemates are my friends Miriam, Nian, and Zainab; our suite has a double and and two singles, and Zainab and I share the double. Since describing a suite with multiple rooms is (obviously) more complex than describing a single bedroom, I’ve broken up this entry into sections. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the tour!

I. THE ENTRANCE

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Let’s start by looking at the main door of our suite from the hallway. As you can see, it’s decorated according to the theme for our wing, which is the movie Finding Nemo! The second photo is of the same door, as seen from the kitchenette inside our suite.

II. THE KITCHENETTE

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Anyway, back to the hallway, where we’re looking at the Nemo-esque suite door. Let’s open it and see what’s inside. Our first view is of the main wall of the suite’s kitchenette. In the world of McCoy 512-land, this wall serves as an unofficial bulletin board. Miriam, Nian, Zainab, and I post our schedules on that wall in order for us to have an idea where we are at different times during the day; the four of us also post schedules for the Collegetown Shuttle, the Homewood-JHMI shuttle, and Hopkins intramural sports. Hmm, by the way, what’s that to our immediate right? Do you see that? Yeah, that’s a cabinet that Nian received as a hand-me-down from an upperclassman friend of hers (by the way, upperclassmen can serve as great sources of cheap/free furniture); we use it to store extra food, as well as to serve as a support for our rice cooker and toaster oven. If we walk towards our right, we get to have a better view of the kitchenette’s stovetop burner, sink, cabinets, and mini refrigerator; every suite in McCoy Hall has these. In addition, my suitemates and I have a microwave oven and a coffee maker in our kitchenette.

III. THE BATHROOM

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In looking around the kitchenette, we notice an open door by the mini refrigerator, and we see that it leads to a bathroom! After having lived in AMR I last year and using communal bathrooms, one of my favorite things about living in McCoy Hall is having a bathroom that I share only with my suitemates. I’m not saying that the communal bathroom experience in AMR I was horrible (in fact, I thought otherwise), but this luxury is a nice improvement in standards of living from last year. The con about having a bathroom that’s only for my suitemates and me is that we have to clean it ourselves — at least we’re cleaning our own messes only, though!

IV. THE “CRIBS” VIDEO

V. THE BEDROOM

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After looking around the bathroom, we notice that right across the hall is the door to one of the three bedrooms in McCoy 512. We open the door and realize that this bedroom is the double in McCoy 512, for two desks and two wardrobes greet us. We take a look at the desks and the wardrobes, and then we shift our gaze to the bed next to one of the wardrobes. This is Zainab’s bed. We then look across the room at the other bed. Yes, that’s my bed and yes, I have the same bedsheet set as Zainab. (We didn’t plan it! It’s just a coincidence. Seriously.)

VI. MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS

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Before I close this entry, I just want to show you a few items in my room. First of all, at the middle the windowsill is an aloe plant that Zainab brought to Hopkins at the beginning of the year; some of the things on my side of the windowsill include my alarm clock and a crab-shaped stuffed animal that I bought at the Inner Harbor at the beginning of last year. In addition, I have a K-shaped ornament that I tied to the cord of the Venetian window blind on my side of the room. (I closed the blind before taking a picture of the ornament, so that you could see the ornament better.) Hanging on the wall right above my pillow is a Hopkins pennant that I’ve had since the beginning of last year, and some of the photos and artwork that I’ve posted on the wall next to my bed include the following: (a) a large “thank you” card made from poster board that tutees in the JHU Tutorial Project made for the Filipino Students Association (after we demonstrated and taught the children some simple steps of the folk dance tinikling), (b) a map of Connecticut (my home state), and (c) photos of pointe shoes and piano keys, along with a painting of two salsa dancers. Also, on the edge of my desk’s bookshelf, I’ve taped three valentines that I received from my friends Mary, Miriam, and Zainab on Valentine’s Day this year. Last, but not least, above my desk is a poster I made to advertise the CSC Dance Program (a community service organization that teaches dance after school to elementary school students) whenever we try to recruit new members at student organization fairs.

With that said, that concludes my tour of McCoy 512. I hope you enjoyed it!

If you’ll be accepted to Hopkins and choose to come here for college, then you’ll want to have an idea of what your future living situation is like. That’s why there’s Hopkins Interactive, and that’s why last year’s bloggers wrote “Hopkins Cribs” entries. While last year’s set of “Hopkins Cribs” entries were great, the eight of them didn’t scratch the surface in terms of the different types of bedrooms offered in on-campus housing! During the summer before my freshman year–that was just the previous summer–while I thought that those “Hopkins Cribs” entries gave me good ideas on how to decorate my room on a small budget, I was disappointed that none of them discussed life in the AMRs. None of the then-bloggers (who are still bloggers) lived in either AMR! Horrors.

Here comes the good part. This year, Hopkins Interactive is doing another round of “Hopkins Cribs” blog entries, and this is one of three AMR “Hopkins Cribs” blog entries! (JHU_Jackie, a fellow AMR I resident, and JHU_Roxi, who proudly represents AMR II, are the authors of the other two AMR “Hopkins Cribs” blog entries this year.) Be excited. Be very excited.

We’ll start with a view of my room’s door from the hallway. You might notice that there are decorations and name tags on my door; this is because every house or floor of an on-campus residence is decorated according to a theme chosen by that house’s or floor’s RA. The RA of the house in AMR I where I live chose to decorate our house with a superhero theme. Anyway, open my door, and voila! The second photo is a view of the room that my roommate and I share through our doorway; the left side of the room is mine, and the right side of my room–which is partly visible–is my roommate’s. While you can’t see most of her side of the room, keep in mind that our sides of the room mirror each other in terms of furniture arrangement. In the second photo, you can see that my roommate and I have our wardrobes and dressers placed back-to-back. This not only helps to create a clear division of our room so that we know which side is whose, but also gives us some privacy. While we’re lying on our beds, our wardrobes and dressers prevent us from seeing each other sleeping–and drooling in our sleep. In addition, we can change while we’re both in the room without worrying about being seen by the other person. All that we need to do is to change while standing behind our wardrobes. To maximize our privacy, we open the wardrobe door closest to our bedroom’s entrance and change while standing behind the open wardrobe door. Isn’t that dandy?

On to the third photo. While the second photo gives you a glimpse of my cork-covered wall, the third photo gives you a wonderful view of it! At least one wall in each room of AMR I and Buildings A and B is covered with cork. In our room, two out of four walls are covered with cork: the wall next to my bed and behind my desk and the wall next to my roommate’s bed and behind her desk. The fourth photo gives you a view of my desk and part of the non-cork-covered wall to the left of my desk. You might notice in the fourth photo that there’s a telephone on my desk; every room comes with one telephone that can receive calls from any telephone number at no cost, and from which calls can be made to any campus telephone number at no cost. There’s a fee, however, for using the room telephone to make calls to non-campus telephone numbers; therefore, like many other freshmen, my roommate and I hardly use the telephone in our room and use our own cell phones instead. The fifth photo is of the wall to the left of my desk. At the left side of the photo is the MicroFridge that my roommate and I share, with my roommate’s water pitcher adorning it. A MicroFridge–which is rented out by a local company called King Metro Rentals (fliers about the MicroFridge were mailed to us freshmen in the summer before we came to Hopkins)–is an appliance that has a microwave, freezer, and refrigerator combined. For residents of the AMRs and Buildings A and B, renting a MicroFridge is the only way to have a microwave in one’s room; residents of those buildings aren’t allowed to bring microwaves, although refrigerators of a certain wattage are allowed. Towards the center of the photo are my posters of Salvador Dali’s Exploding Clock and Edvard Munch’s The Scream accompanied by captions of my own typing. The sixth and seventh photos are views of our room door (a) closed and (b) open. As you can see in the photo in which our door is closed, there are two towel racks screwed onto the door.

Now that you have a general view of a lovely AMR I room (a.k.a. the room that my roommate and I share), here are some photos with some details of the aforementioned room. The eighth photo in this entry shows the window ledge behind my bed, which is a cute nook on which I have some books, my alarm clock, a wonderful brain wind-up toy (courtesy of one of the neuroscience program’s information sessions), a crab stuffed animal (the Chesapeake Bay is known for its crabs), a lamp, and a Patrick the Starfish “Beanie Baby.” Shown in the ninth photograph is a large postcard with a modern take on the “see no evil, hear no evil, talk no evil” monkeys that’s on my cork-covered wall. The last two photos show our ceiling and carpet respectively.

Tra-la-la, there you go! Thanks for embarking on this tour of an AMR I room. I hope that it has helped you realize that AMR I is a very liveable dorm at Hopkins. Have a nice day!