#cushing house

[tales-of-a-senior-smithie]

What I’ve been up to so far this semester

Hey lovely people! I’m sorry that I haven’t blogged yet this semester. This semester has been very busy but now I’m back and I’m gonna try to be blogging more regularly. 

So What Have I been up to???

1. I Moved to Cushing House!!!! So last semester I decided that I wanted to switch houses and leave Scales House so I submitted a House/Room Change form that added me to the waitlist to change houses and started the process for changing houses. After some waiting I found out over J-Term that I would be able to move to my first choice house, Cushing House. After moving in, everyone has been so welcoming towards me and has embraced me into the house community! There is sooooo much love in Cushing House and I am so happy to be in this house and be living with my wonderful fellow bunnies. 

2. I’ve been taking some really awesome classes!! (I’ll make a separate post about this soon)

3.The Internship Hunt is ON- So far I’ve applied to a couple of internships that have to do with diversity and inclusion (I will elaborate on this if I get one of these internships) and hopefully I will get at least one of them. Fingers Crossed!

4. I got Selected to be a Bridge Leader!!! On Tuesday I found out that I am going to be a Bridge Leader for this years Bridge Program. Bridge is this amazing pre-orientation program for students of color which I did as an incoming first year. I am so excited to be able to give back to this program that has been so important during my time at Smith. 

5. Goodbye Dance major, Hello Africana Studies minor- A lot of things factored into this decision and I am extremely to have made this switch 

Cush Love <3 

Bri Barrett ‘19

[smithbysmithies]

Smith Cribs // Cushing House // Hannah ‘18

Hannah and her roommates made one of the rare triples on campus extra cozy, especially around the holidays when they hung their stockings by the fireplace with care.

Is your room worth showing off to prospective students? Of course it is! Email me a photo or two or three, your house, and your class year to [email protected] to see it featured here.

[smithbysmithies]

Smith Cribs // Cushing House // Tegan ‘17

Is your room worth showing off to prospective students? Of course it is! Email me a photo or two or three, your house, and your class year to [email protected] to see it featured here.

[smithbysmithies]

Meet the Smithie: Idia Irele ‘16

House: Cushing House Major: Government and Spanish Double Major Hometown: Cambridge, MA Activities/Clubs/Orgs: SGA Secretary, Office of International Study Peer Adviser/Office Assistant, Social Justice and Equity Committee, Chief Diversity Officer’s Student Advisory Board

What did you do this summer?

This summer I interned at Fulbright Spain where I helped Spanish students prepare for study in the U.S. by translating letters of recommendation and editing statements of grant purpose to be sent to U.S. universities. I also created the website for Fulbright Valencia and got to attend a lot of cool events! After that, I returned to Smith for my job as the House Manager for the Bridge Program, Smith’s multicultural pre-orientation program.

What’s been your favorite class at Smith and why?

My first year, I took a writing roundtable on global poverty. I learned a lot about why some countries experience poverty at such high rates, how international aid works – or doesn’t in most situations, and the various innovations around the world with the goal of eradicating poverty. It was really refreshing to learn about different perspectives on poverty that don’t just repeat the usual narrative, and my writing improved a lot!

What’s your favorite Smith tradition and why (aside from Mountain Day…)?

In my house our housekeeper, Linda, bakes a giant cake every month for all of the people who have birthdays that month. We usually sing Happy Birthday then hang out for a little bit in the living room to eat the cake together. It’s really nice to get together to celebrate my fellow housemates and to be celebrated during my birthday month. Also, the cake is ~delicious~.

Have you gone abroad? Where/when?

Before coming to Smith I took a gap year and lived in Bilbao, Spain for a semester. I fell in love with Spain while I was there and knew that I wanted to return during my time at Smith. The summer after my first year, I interned at a travel website called Party Earth in Madrid, and then I returned to Madrid for JYA and the following summer as Smith’s 2014-15 Anita Volz Wien Scholar. Studying abroad was one of my most rewarding experiences and I think everyone should study or work abroad at some point during their Smith career!

What jobs have you had at Smith?

My first year I was the student assistant in the Resource Center for Gender and Sexuality, and now I am one of the Peer Adviser and Office Assistants in the Office of International Study.

Favorite Place to eat downtown?

There are few things in this world that are better than Osaka’s Hibachi dinners.

[smith-at-smith-blog]

I turned eighteen on Monday! I went to Lucky’s to get my auricle pierced (something I’ve wanted for over a year!), my friend sent me some beautiful flowers, and the door deserves more than a little blurb. 

My house, Cushing, has a wonderful part of House Council/house tradition known as “birthday bunnies.” These are house residents who are elected to find out what different people like, and decorate their doors on their birthday! It’s really sweet and a wonderful thing to walk into after a long day of classes and work. The little bag is full of candy, and the birthday bunnies actually put candy into the balloon, too. 

[smithiesmithsmith-blog]

“CAKEEEE NIGHT 2NITE!!!” When I saw that email subject line pop into my inbox, I couldn’t help but to grin. Cake night has long been a tradition in the hallowed halls of Cushing, thanks to our one and only, dear housekeeper Linda. Linda is at the heart and soul of Cushing House, and every month, she buys wonderful gourmet cakes (plural) from local bakeries to celebrate all the Cushing birthdays that month. The whole house gathers around to sing happy birthday on the monthly evening of Cake Night and eat yummy cake! It’s especially generous because Linda buys the cakes with her own money- it’s not a college-sponsored event- and does this because she deeply cares. It’s a really sweet tradition because it brings everyone together and we get to recognize as a house the people who have birthdays that month! Cushing also has something called “birthday bunnies”, or several elected house members who decorate the doors of any house member (who chooses to participate) on their special day. Other houses have some variation of “birthday bunnies” as well, coming under the names of “birthday faries”, or “birthday buddies”, etc, which are really fun positions to be a part of! I imagine it can be time consuming- after all, houses at Smith range from about 10 people to almost 110 at the largest, and everyone has a birthday to decorate for!- but I can personally vouch that the spirit and kindness is much appreciated:) There was also a chocolate cake with a heaven-sent ganache, but it was already in my tummy before I’d thought to snap a picture! This post goes out to Linda- an incredibly kind, core part of what makes Cushing home<3 

[smithwithsophia]

I got Cushing!! Which was my first choice! I'm so happy! I had a question about the bathroom. Are there private stalls where you shower or how do they work? Also, do you have any pictures of the rooms? ☺️ if you do, that would be awesome!

Yay I’m so happy for you that you got your first choice!! Yes, there are private stalls within the communal bathroom. Usually they have an outer door that has a rack for your towel, and then within there is a curtain and the actual shower stall. This goes for most Smith houses. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of rooms in Cushing :/ Quad rooms are generally very spacious, though!

Read more about Cushing here!

[smithwithsophia]

Cushing House by Dorie Klein ‘17, Cushing House Senator

Cushing is the best. Period. Comma. Not only is that one of Cushing’s House cheers (we have a lot of house pride), but in my humble opinion, it’s true! Cushing is part of East Quad and it has its own kick-butt dining hall that usually serves American-style food. We are the “bunny house,” meaning it is house tradition to wear bunny ears to just about every event. We have an amazing house keeper, Linda, who is unquestionably the greatest human being alive. She decorates the house for every holiday and brings in cake for birthdays once a month on “Cake Night” (I know I personally would perish without the monthly sugar rush and singing). We have 79 residents, with one triple on the first floor, and some doubles on the third and fourth floors, but mostly singles (first years usually take up the doubles, then upperclassmen live in the singles). There is also a pool room (not swimming, the other kind) where you can sometimes find bunnies hanging during breaks from studying.

This past year, a lot of exciting things happened for the house. In the fall, we won the campus-wide soccer tournament, and in the spring, we married Wilder House! In a beautiful outdoor ceremony (detailed by Mohona before me in her Wilder post), our houses tied the knot, with house councils from each participating in the ceremony.

Everyone says this about their house, but Cushing has a truly wonderful house community.  Our house council and reslife are integral to making the Cushing family what it is, and we take our fun very seriously. We are so thrilled to have new students join the house, and continue on the legacy of Eleanor Cushing.

(photos courtesy of Dorie and Dorie’s Facebook and Googling skills except the first one)

This is one post in a series about all the different Smith Houses! I’m determined to do all of them before I leave for Denmark next month. Which house should I do next?