I stand in front of 300 people at age 16 at an open mic in a Chicago jazz club. Dusty stools are overturned on the tables like dead spiders as a crowd of my friends, my pre-college teachers, and, more notably at the moment, strangers, jostle in the sort of dance standing that you associate with a slight euphoria. The mic squeaks in flourishing ring as I look down at my sweaty paper with a love story set in the past. I...

I begin my day’s trek clomping to my Romantic Sublime Literature class through the crunching foliage: the product of real Pennsylvania seasons. My day progresses through my Renaissance Sexuality class, getting coffee with friends and then perhaps going to a Multi club meeting. Here in the ever tepid Los Angeles, the city always seems to be expanding. Swarthmore on the other hand, fluctuates and stays lovably cramped. You can’t progress without bumping into yourself a little bit. At...