Not every day in the Valley is a day of glory. Anybody who lived through the 2020-2021 academic year has stories of the anomalous POM tracers, the industrial dining hall tent, or the weekly spit-tube sessions. Still, as I reflect on my time as a new sophomore during the Covid era, I keep returning to one common thread: Field II.
(Some context for those who weren’t at Deerfield two years ago: freshmen didn’t have roommates due to the pandemic, so housing had to be moved around. Field and Mac were sophomore dorms that year. Cross-hall visitation, even in the same dorm, was prohibited.)
Living in Field could be described by many things. In this article, I’ve compiled a non-exhaustive list of memories that made my sophomore year one of the most confusing times of my life.
Move-in Day: Late August 2020
I arrived at Deerfield excited and nervous to move in and meet my new neighbors in the dorm. With my mask fully on and properly distanced, my two proctors helped move all my stuff into room 210 on the second floor, and I said goodbye to my parents, all within about five minutes. That was the last time I was allowed outside for many hours. I was told, “Okay, you can unpack your things now, but don’t leave your room under any circumstances until we tell you!” Nobody even told me where the bathroom was. So there I was, standing before a mountain of stuff to unpack, wholly disoriented in a new environment. I remember hearing my dorm neighbors yelling in the hallway, reuniting after the online school the year before. A short while later, the hall resident, Mr. Wu, knocked on my door to tell me that I was late to join the hall introduction Zoom call. I was unaware that there was a Zoom call to be late for. On the call, Mr. Wu was explaining a new spreadsheet so that we could make “shower appointments” in the bathroom, and in the midst of all this, I got a bloody nose that spewed blood all over my partially-unpacked room and onto my white rug. Awesome start!
Fan Theft: September 2020
The only Deerfield student I knew coming in was a senior girl from my hometown in Minnesota. She had asked me to bring a box fan for her since she had forgotten one. Her advisor, Mr. Barbato, had arranged for me to leave the fan outside my door, and he would deliver it to her. I set the fan outside, and it disappeared the next day. Great. The following week I heard a loud knocking on my door from Mr. Barbato, who asked me where the fan went. I told him I had set it outside my door. The next thing I know, he’s going door-to-door in the hallway asking everybody if they had taken a fan from outside my door. I would have preferred for my hallmates’ first impression of me to be more positive than an interrogation from Mr. Barbato about the whereabouts of this box fan. But, we don’t always have control over these things… evidently.
Red Bull: Late September 2020
The Covid year was partitioned into social “phases” to avoid virus transmission. There was the quarantine phase, during which nobody was to leave their rooms; the quiet phase, which entailed designated tracts of time for specific halls to leave their dorm; and the emerging phase, during which in-person classes would resume, and students were granted limited access to campus. At the end of the quiet phase, my next-door neighbor was so moved by the moment that he opted to shotgun a Red Bull in his room. Around this moment, I realized that I had been placed in a hall with thirteen kids whom I would not have opted to socialize with under normal circumstances. Worse, the Covid-based restrictions prevented me from pursuing friendships with people in other halls, so I officially found myself in a social pickle. I hope he enjoyed that Red Bull.
Ceiling Coffee: A Thursday in February 2021
I awoke to the sound of dripping and the scent of coffee. I thought I had been dreaming about it, but I looked down and noticed a small brown puddle soaking into my rug. Coffee had leaked out of my overhead light (photo proof below). Now that my rug had both my blood and my coffee on it, I moved my trash can under the light to contain any further damage and went to Mr. Wu’s apartment, asking to file a work order. He was used to this by now; this was my third work order, the previous ones concerned a faulty electrical outlet and my window curtain breaking altogether. Note that I haven’t had to make any work orders since I moved out of Field.
I had heard a rumor that Field has sewage pipes that run through the ceilings, so I want to dispel any doubts that this brown liquid was indeed coffee by adding that while replacing the light, the physical plant employee spotted coffee grounds in the ceiling. Also, I’m fairly sure that the resident in the room above me was Morgan Haisman ’23.
Infestation: May 2021
One thing that New England and Minnesota have in common is that after a long, cold winter, summer is warm and humid. Mosquitoes and other critters thrive in these environments, so copious bug bites always accompany the summers. One evening in my dorm room, I noticed a flying gnat. Odd, I thought, considering that a bilayer of glass and screen blocked my window, and I had been disposing of all of my food with aplomb. I squashed the gnat and moved on. Later, I noticed three gnats flying around, so I also dealt with them. Then another appeared. And another. I looked under my bed and saw an array of bugs climbing and flying around my wall. Soon after, there was a swarm of gnats flying around my room. Thankfully, they didn’t bite, but I still got the heebie-jeebies every time one of them would land on me. I called security and placed my fourth (and final) work order with Mr. Wu to try and have them removed. Security told me that nothing immediate could be done and offered that I could sleep in the Health Center. I promptly evacuated the building and slept that night bug-free. When I returned the following morning to prepare for class, all the bugs had vanished. I’m not sure if the physical plant had gotten to exterminating the bugs, but they were later gone and never returned.
Hello Kitty: May 2021
This tale isn’t as much of a horror story as it is a ray of hope at the end of my year. It was my first Spring Day, and I was all dressed and ready in my purple swimsuit with orange dinosaurs. After the long Spring Athletic Awards, we all moved down to the lower fields where there were inflatable pools, food trucks, and Spikeball; but best of all was the ice cream truck. There was a classic assortment of options: SpongeBob popsicles, oreo bars, ice cream drumsticks, strawberry shortcake bars—the whole shebang. What stood out to me, though, was the Hello Kitty ice cream bar. It was pink, red, and yummy. I took it back to my dorm and ate it, knowing I had made it through a truly rough year. The next year I was assigned to OBC, and this year I’m living happily in Simmons. I’m calling that placement divine intervention for the disaster that was my residence in Field.
To anybody reading this article, know that your time at Deerfield will often stray from the brochure. Initially drawn by the promise of unforgettable memories and lifelong friendships, I started my Days of Glory in isolation and confusion. I didn’t experience Deerfield until my Junior year, and even then, I still struggled to get my footing. Your rugs will likely be stained with more than one undesirable fluid. You will feel the same dizziness I felt on move-in day. You will sometimes feel out of place among the people around you. But at the end of it all, there will be a Hello Kitty ice cream bar waiting for you.