By 5 a.m., I had been up most of the night to work on my trend story, due in seven hours.
I flopped onto the couch for a brief nap before the dreaded Spit List, the 6 a.m. Sunday ritual for cherubs who had broken a rule in the previous week. We had misremembered a lecture start time and, despite a valiant sprint from the dining hall, arrived seven minutes late.
I had just pulled up my blanket when I heard the clicking of flip-flops and hushed laughter. I looked up to see Maya Daniels of Los Angeles and Sophia Du of Lexington, Massachusetts, jogging down the hallway.
“We’re going to the beach to watch the sunrise!” Maya said. “You should come.”
I considered. Half an hour with my eyes closed likely wouldn’t do much for me. And as Maya said, if we were going to be up early for the Spit List anyway, we might as well take advantage of it.
Two more people joined us: Iris Mrosovsky of Queens, New York, my partner in sleep-deprived shenanigans, and Pepper Chai of Alameda, California, a new friend who, like me, lived in the Bay Area.
We tiptoed down the stairs, my phone abandoned somewhere on the couch.
We missed the sunrise, but as the sky lightened into a pastel blue, we laughed, took photos and gazed at the horizon as if we were on the set of a sunrise movie scene.
I felt like a little kid again as I skipped down to the water, hand in hand with Iris. The beach was deserted. The air was quiet and fresh. The lake was wild and glistening. Cool water lapped against my feet. My eyes were heavy, but I didn’t want to sleep.
Then, fighting yawns, we trudged back to the dorm to do some more bonding — Spit List bonding, but bonding nonetheless.
