Somerville

It’s 8:15, and I’m on the MBTA’s Red Line doing the morning-commute thing into Boston from Somerville, Mass. Half-asleep in my wrinkled business-casual clothes, I’m on autopilot, mouthing the conductor’s words: “Daaavis”…”Porter”…”Hahvahd”…Doors open on the right.” I plug into my iPod, and the Deansmen’s Fliptop Twister” transports me back to Bates, to my fourth-floor room in Adams where I can hear the Deansmen singing on Olin’s terrace.

Suddenly, one face among the morning commuters strikes a clear note in my head. Read Swita’s story.

Swita Charanasomboon ’04 poses in Somerville’s Davis Square. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Brooklyn

Half a block behind me, American statesman Thomas Jefferson is lost in conversation with Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor-in-chief. In front of me, three members of a dodgeball team, clad in American Apparel’s finest red and white booty shorts, pass a rubber kickball among themselves. The fourth member of the team and I discuss the difficulties of managing our interns at work.

The occasion is Trick or Drink, the Bates Halloween tradition, but instead of visiting a few Bates residences on a chilly Lewiston night, our costumed group — representing Bates classes of 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2002 — walks past tire shops and apartment buildings on Fourth Avenue in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Read Noah’s story.

Noah Davis ’05 hangs out on the fire escape of his Smith Street apartment in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. Photograph by Ryan Heffernan ’05.