I was enjoying a cup of espresso macchiato with conference-provided sandwiches next to the Danube river while you, my fellow schoolmates, were being crushed under the heavy burden of midterms. Before you start feeling jealous of my one-week privilege, let me clarify two things: The conference was busy enough that we were not able to
TagBard College
Contradiction; On Death, Love and Family Portraits
I am writing this because last week I had to write a letter to the mother of my dead best friend. I am writing this, because it has almost been a year, and I am still trying to process life, and lack thereof, and what it means when 18 year-olds die. I got an email
Student profiles: Indira Bisram
A first-year student at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, Indira “Indy” Bisram decided to spend her first semester with us in Berlin. By the time we sit down for the interview, I have already gotten to know her through the beginner Spanish class that consists only of the two of us. After class on a Monday
Bard Takes Berlin: A Collaborative Poem
How can one convey a complete upheaval of comfort and routine, a loss of language and comprehension and direction? Is it possible to put into words the magic of discovering a new place for the first time? So have we, the Bard in Berlin cohort, experienced a complete cycle of disorientation and reorientation in moving
The Beautiful Things in the Snow
My first winter in the snow at Bard College. Two red berries had been smashed beneath each footstep that led up to the window. The juice had bled into the ridges of the prints and small spots dotted the length of each step where the berries had been carried with the forward momentum. Everything else
A Letter from Annandale: A Letter of Goodbye
“Every ending marks a new beginning” Dear ECLA, It has been two months since the close of the fall semester. My fellow first year classmates and I departed on a brisk day in December from the Tegel International Airport bound for the States. Despite my preparation, I could not evade the initial shock of returning
Bard to Berlin
After a year of living a “choose your own adventure” lifestyle (highlights include but are not limited to: learning the proper way to slaughter a chicken in the south of France, running from a wild boar, catching a swarm of honeybees in the 19th district of Paris, and the serendipitous meeting of a member of