My Commons Life

News & features about the Vanderbilt Commons from the students who live here

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MCL Top 5 Restaurants in NYC (Vanderbilt Edition)

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Let’s say you find yourself lost in the Big Apple during spring break. In fact, you end up missing your home Vanderbilt, terribly, terribly bad. How do you end up finding bits of your next four in the City that Never Sleeps? Look no further. This will be your guide in finding (superior) substitutes of restaurants that you often enjoyed back in Nashville.

5. Xi’an Famous Foods (Satay)

This absolutely delicious plate of spicy Chinese noodles from Xi’an Famous Foods instantly brought me back to my first time trying Drunken Noodles from Satay. Both of these dishes have wide-glass noodles with varying levels of spices, making this experience one that is personable and tailored to every person’s taste. This restaurant does Asian food especially well with a touch of authentic Chinese food that is bound to well up tears for those who missed their mother’s cooking.

4. Banter (Anzie Blue)

No other restaurant came close in doing Brunch as perfectly as Banter did. With a wonderful selection of dishes to choose from, even the aroma of their coffee was simply a dream. Furthermore, I may even go as far to say the prices were far more manageable for an incredible brunch place with great service. Their signature sourdough bread that compliments almost every dish they serve is truly worthy of your experience in New York City. After doing so, you can take a stroll in Washington Square Park and visit NYU. It’ll be as though you’re walking through Alumni Lawn and back at Vanderbilt all over again!

3. Yi Fan (Banh Mi)

Your New York experience as a college student obsessed with boba couldn’t be complete without a stop by Yi Fan in Chinatown. This will perfectly emulate (or even surpass) your weekly runs to Banh Mi for boba, especially for the Brown Sugar/Tiger Boba experience. It must be noted that the level of boba that was upheld in Yi Fan was superior with a perfect level of chewy and size that cannot be easily forgotten. As the standard for boba has been a low bar for most Nashville students, I can only hope that it can be elevated after their visit to New York.

2. Los Tacos No. 1 (Nada)

Now, this absolutely mind-blowing experience at Los Tacos No. 1 at Chelsea Market for a far cheaper price that what you will see at Nada cannot be easily beaten. The never-ending line that you must first encounter only attests to the superb quality and execution of simple tacos that this place promises as the “number one tacos”. This is a well-deserved name as the freshness of the salsa and guacamole compliments the corn tortilla and carnitas of your choice.

1. Ichiran Ramen (Shokku Ramen)

Nothing comes near the simply divine bowl of heaven that is located heart of New York, Times Square. If you wanted to find a good ramen place like Shokku Ramen in New York, your first stop should be Ichiran Ramen. Not only is this menu very personable like the one Shokku Ramen offers, but also the level of execution and service is simply leagues above any other ramen shops. Diners are placed in their own little booth and minimal interaction is necessary with the server as there is a sheet of bamboo that is placed in front! Perfect for those who would like to be left alone in peace to enjoy their bowl of ramen.

MCL Top 5 Ways to Spend Spring Break

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Hey ‘Dores! It’s t-minus 4 days until the start of spring break. While some of us may have trips planned with friends or going back home, this is a helpful guide for every Vanderbilt student no matter where they are. As we are almost mid-way through the semester, this guide will help you de-stress in preparation for the more and more stressful weeks to come forth.

5. Go Cherry Blossom Sight Seeing

For students who are staying on-campus, take advantage of the cherry blossoms that are happening all around campus! While there are some near the Hank Circle on Commons, you should tread on over to the Student Life Center to get the full, immersive experience. The timing to see these trees are rare, so make haste and hurry on over to see them in full bloom. However, for those of you who live in places where you do not get to celebrate all four seasons, especially spring, I highly encourage you to take a look at these before you head back home. If you want to take it a step further, you could also drive a few hours to the nearest state famous for their cherry blossoms.

4. Watch a Movie at a Theater

Wear a mask! COVID-19 regulations aside, I personally vouch that going in-person to a theater will always beat watching a movie on an online platform. It brings alive the experience of not only watching a movie for the first time, but also the accompaniment of caramel popcorn and cola! While we’re still on the month of Valentine’s Day, it’s never too late to ask your love interest out to a chill, movie night. This may be the beginning of your situationship.

3. Don’t Neglect the Inevitable

Yes…I said it. You should study over spring break. Now, I’m not saying you should be making your 20-page study guide in advance for your upcoming CS exam. I’m simply suggesting that you are completely caught up on the “required” readings that the professor briefly mentioned would be fair game for the exam after spring break. If you’re on campus and find that your next door neighbor happens to be in the same class, definitely knock on their door and ask to share notes! If you want to take it a step further, ask them out to a little study date.

2. Read Up

Now, this is a little different from what I recommended right above. This is the time to satisfy your inner nerd that once drove you to succeed in everything you do. Pick up that book that you momentarily thought about packing up and bringing to campus. If you did bring that book and haven’t touched it since the first day of your move-in, take that book for a nice walk and find a nice patch of grass.

1. SLEEP

Look me in the eye and tell me you got at least 8 hours of sleep every night. Oh what? You can’t. Perfect! Take this wonderful opportunity to actually get into bed by midnight and rest your eyes without constantly refreshing your email or TikTok For You page. I’m sure everyone has learned this in their general psychology class at one point, but let me reiterate. You cannot make up for lost sleep! Do not find yourself in a sleep debt. It’ll become a vigorous cycle.

Squirrel Series part 1: Dissecting Our Neighbors

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For those of you who don’t know, October is squirrel awareness month. Now, I imagine you’re thinking, “Hmm, what is the best way to celebrate such a momentous occasion?” Well, never fear, my friends. Word on the street tells me that a published mini-series on the squirrel is an acceptable form of celebration. Prepare yourself for the first installment of such a series.

This week’s article covers basic anatomy of the squirrel, describing how it scurries the way it does.

A squirrel is able to perform its acrobatics through three primary features: feet, claws, tail.

A squirrel’s back feet (also called paws) are double jointed. This trait allows them to easily and quickly spin to a different direction while in motion. A squirrel’s sharp sharp claws enable purchase on practically any surface. Working in conjunction with the spinning back feet, a squirrel can hang dangle itself down a tree trunk; the double jointed feet allow the animal to maintain an upward facing stance while dangling, and the sharp claws ensure that the animal can remain dangling (White, 2016).

  • Picture 1 (AC Shadowfall)
  • Picture 2 (Alan and Elaine Wilson)
Picture 1 shows the double jointed back feet. Feet stay in a position that allows claws to remain in trunk, while still enabling squirrel to dangle. Picture 2 shows the back feet’s ability to cover wide span.

As is the case for most tails, a squirrel’s tail helps maintain balance. Seeing as squirrels spend lots of their time scampering about on tree branches that have diameters smaller than those of pill bottles, it is understandable that a squirrel’s evolution has decided to keep the tail.

When the squirrel becomes too off balance for the tail to manage, the tail can work to compensate for its failure. As a squirrel falls, its tail acts like a parachute. The hairs separate, catching as much air as possible and slowing the animal’s fall (Wall, 2018).

A couple other notable facts about a squirrel’s anatomy include:

            A squirrel’s teeth never stop growing, which means they can continue eating nuts without worrying about their teeth dulling into nothingness.

            The world’s largest squirrel is considered to be the Indian Giant Squirrel, which weighs about 4 pounds and can reach a length of 18 inches (Bittel, 2019). For more information check out Bittel’s link pasted below.

Return next week to read more about campus’ most prevalent non-human resident.

(Bittel, 2019): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/04/indian-giant-squirrels-colors-camouflage/

(Wall, 2018): https://nuscimag.com/simple-squirrels-or-physics-prodigies-69e6b2ebd70c

(White, 2016): https://asknature.org/strategy/sharp-claws-increase-vertical-agility/#.Wqv3bFnwYsl

Walker and I Get Our Inner Horse Girls On? (or We Visit the Frist)

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With all of the lovely weather that graced us this last week, Walker and I decided to head downtown and get our class on at the Frist Art Museum. With our luck, we planned our trip on the one cloudy and humid day of the entire week, but regardless, the museum was a sight to see. Located near the front of downtown, the Frist is about a 30-minute walk or a seven-minute drive, depending on how you want to get there (10/10 would recommend walking and hitting up McDonald’s for a $1 ice cream cone on the way). As Vandy students we get free admission — you’ll need your Commodore card as proof — and with your sick new wristbands (peep the photos) you’ll have access to the entire museum.

Now normally I’d recommend setting aside an hour or two to experience all of the beautiful art that the place has to offer, but due to an event that was starting soon, Walker and I only had 45 minutes to make it through everything. It was a hard task considering that everything is so regal and beautiful, but we did our best to document the hotspots of the trip (one of which was their insanely classy bathrooms … yes I did take a mirror selfie in it … I am only a little ashamed).

  • classy af
  • whoops…

The lower level exhibits of the museum are currently showcasing Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art, which ended up being a glorified animal painting fest with lots of doggos and cattle painted onto canvases. The best part of the lower exhibits, however, was a multi-room gallery dedicated solely to nineteenth-century horses. I don’t know whether “horse” is the museum’s new theme at the moment, but there were so many of said animal that I felt like I was in a horse girl’s dream and couldn’t find my way out. That being said, I got some bomb.com photos with the paintings and was able to find my way out in a speedy five minutes without hating the overwhelming aura of “stallions” too much (this may be me being a bit dramatic, the paintings are nice, I swear).

  • so. many. good. boys.
  • more horses?

Next, we went up to the second level to walk through the Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing exhibit. This exhibit focused on the documentary photographer, Dorothea Lange, whose breathtaking black and white portraits worked to expose injustice and inequalities in the twentieth century.

After making our way through the photographs, we ended up at my personal favorite place in the museum: the interactive children’s exhibit. We ended up spending 35 minutes of the entire 45 minutes we had at the museum in this area, and I do not regret a single thing. From a stop motion station to light boards and a portrait drawing circle (surprise, surprise, where you could draw horses), this place truly has it all. Now I’ve been waiting to hit up this area of the Frist since I first heard about it, so it might have just been me, but I could have spent hours in there. There was this sick heat motion sensor wall that worked kind of like how an Xbox Kinect does when it detects your body moving and we attempted multiple still shots including spelling out YMCA (Walker forgot how to spell and ruined it) and anchoring down (an even bigger fail).

This took us way more takes than it should’ve.

Walker’s favorite station was a soundwave board that moved sand into different patterns on the board as it changed frequencies, while mine was the stop-motion station where we created a short film. I tried to document it on video for the blog, but we accidentally hit delete instead of replay 🙁 (shoutout to the eight-year-old boy who tried to help us recover it even though we all knew it was too late).

  • we accidentally deleted it

What I love about the art museum is that you can go to appreciate the details and effort behind the paintings and photographs, or you can go to have a fun time making up stories about why each piece was created. Either way, as long as you’re respectful of the people around you, the guards are extremely nice and enjoy seeing people interact with the art. So whether you end up checking out the Frist for the art galleries inside, or just for the architecture of the building itself (which is beautiful and 100% photo-worthy), the Frist Art Museum will not disappoint. If you have a free afternoon or weekend and you are looking for something fun to do downtown, I’d highly recommend checking it out.

Frist Art Museum Hours:https://fristartmuseum.org/visit/hours-directions

McDonald’s Hours: Open 24/7… SO GET THAT CONE!

MCL Top 5: Dorm Room Essentials

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5. Extension Cords:

The worst feeling is plugging your phone in, only to find it’s just barely too short to reach your bed. Thankfully, there’s a simple solution: extension cords! One or two Six-foot-long extension cords will make it easy that no cord is too short.

4. Desk Organizer:

Your desk is bound to get at least a little messy at some point during the semester. To keep your working space from looking like a disaster scene, a desk organizer will be your best friend. Whether you choose one with drawers for your paper clips or one with slots for your pencils and pens, desk organizers will definitely help you tidy up a little bit. There’s a variety of options, so there’s something for everyone!

3. Mementos from home:

Whether you’re from halfway across the country or just a town away, keeping photos and memories of your family, friends, and loved ones in your dorm brings home. Hanging photos on some string lights or framing your favorite pictures are simple ways to make your dorm feel a little more cozy and familiar.

2. Snacks:

If you find yourself staying up late and hearing your stomach growl, you most likely won’t be willing to go out to scavenge for some food. Keeping a stash of food in your drawers can prove to be useful — especially during those emergency midnight moments or when you have friends over!

1. Kitchen Appliances

As a college student, a coffee maker, microwave, and mini fridge will become your best friends. Coffee is an essential for many students’ mornings, and having a coffee maker in your dorm makes it simple to get your daily fix. Of course, no dorm is truly a dorm without a microwave — it makes it incredibly convenient to quickly heat up left overs or make some quick mac ’n’ cheese! The last of the trio is a fridge; it’s an absolute essential for keeping  your drinks cold and left overs fresh.

 

Remember to consult Vanderbilt’s student handbook to ensure that all things brought to dorms follow regulations.