1. Last year, I was able to experience the best living situation possible - the Hamilton College Woollcott Cooperative, or the CoOp.  Here, twenty students gathered, lived, and prepared food together based on some common principles of food as well as community. Perhaps we sound like a hippie commune, but it really wasn’t the case - sure, we were a bizarre group of individuals, but each of us was bizarre in a very unique way. 

    Anyway, this year was truly the pinnacle of my Hamilton experience.  I didn’t know many of the people I lived with prior to us moving in to the house, but they became some of my best friends at Hamilton.  Living with nineteen other people has its trials and tribulations, especially at Sunday night meeting, but for the most part I had some of best memories with them, whether it was sledding in a dress or decorating the CoOp as a haunted house for some of the local children or preparing a Thanksgiving feast for 70+ people or sitting on the porch with a beer playing Apples to Apples or throwing theme parties the likes of New Kids on the Eastern Bloc(k) Party or starting our own IM soccer team or…   We were, and are, a family.

    Needless to say, the CoOp is one of the things I miss the most being here.  Of course, I’ve graduated and moved out, so no matter where in the world I may be, I wouldn’t be living there.  But I remember all the alumni who came back and slept in the common room and shared all of our food and got to reminisce back to his or her times in the CoOp, and sometimes I want that, especially since a lot of people living there this year are my friends from last year.

    But it’s really nice to know I still live on in memory, and while I may not be able to eat the fried coconut covered tofu that they prepared, I am not forgotten.  Firstly, I got to Skype with many of this year’s CoOpers last night.  I almost felt like I was sitting at the kitchen table with them as we chatted about Hamilton drama and as they ate their eggs and hummus sandwiches.  And secondly, a few weeks ago, the CoOp honored me with a Moldova night!  The pictures above are some of the Moldovan foods that they prepared.  And they listened to some Moldovan music and even announced the names in Romanian.  It’s nice to feel so loved, even 5000 miles away.

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