I never imagined a single summer program would completely rewrite my lifelong morning habits. Back home, I was definitively not an a.m. person, routinely skipping breakfast.<\/p>\n
So when my friends Arden Li of Highland Park, New Jersey, and Emmeline Chan of Los Angeles dragged me out of bed at 7 a.m. on the first day to go for coffee and pastries, I was groggy, skeptical and confused. Food before noon? Me?<\/p>\n
We walked to Colectivo Coffee, a cozy cafe tucked into Evanston\u2019s sleepy streets. I stared at my cold brew and Emmeline\u2019s matcha croissant like they held the answers to life. But as we sat there, sipping and chewing, we started trading book recommendations.<\/p>\n
Arden pitched a novel I\u2019d never heard of \u2014 “Something to Do with Paying Attention” by David Foster Wallace. \u201cYou have to read it,\u201d they said. \u201cIt\u2019s completely underrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emmeline raised an eyebrow. \u201cNever heard of it.\u201d She pulled out her phone and shoved the cover of \u201cMe Before You\u201d by Jojo Moyes into our faces. \u201cThis is the best book I\u2019ve read all year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arden leaned in, squinted at the cover, then leaned back so fast they nearly spilled their latte. \u201cYou must be kidding. That book? Really?\u201d We all burst out laughing. And somehow we ended up talking about Supreme Court cases covered by The New York Times. Growing up in Beijing, I rarely followed U.S. current events, but listening to my friends’ conversations made them feel accessible. Interesting, even. And it later became a habit of my own.<\/p>\n
Every day became a different breakfast adventure. Newport Coffee House for pastries. Einstein Bros. for bagels, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside \u2014 Emmeline and I even interviewed customers there for an assignment on whether to lower the voting age, between bites.<\/p>\n
Some mornings, we even went to Allison Dining Commons, where I discovered American breakfast: scrambled eggs, chocolate chip pancakes and strawberry Greek yogurt. Back in Beijing, people eat fried buns and soy milk. This fluffy, sweet and tangy meal felt like dessert disguised as breakfast. I didn\u2019t expect to love it. But I did. That sweetness was rich, indulgent, yet strangely refreshing.<\/p>\n
No lie: I\u2019ll also miss Allison\u2019s chaotic breakfast \u201clines.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the end of the second week, I found myself telling friends back home: \u201dI\u2019m actually excited for breakfast tomorrow.\u201d I\u2019d text my friends at night, already planning where we\u2019d go next.<\/p>\n
My friends in Beijing were shocked. They sent back screenshots of old conversations with me saying, \u201cbreakfast is overrated,\u201d swearing I\u2019d never be a morning person. They didn\u2019t believe it. Honestly, neither did I.<\/p>\n
Walking to new spots, talking about books and politics, laughing over spilled coffee. I got to know my friends in ways texts never could capture. And somehow between that first reluctant sip and my last bagel bite, I stopped skipping breakfast. I started waking up at 6:30 a.m. on purpose.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t missed a single morning meal since I got here. Evanston feels like home now, not because of the town itself, but because I explored it with my fellow cherubs, one sunrise at a time. My body still doesn\u2019t love it. But honestly? I\u2019m starting to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How early morning outings brought cherubs closer and changed sleep-in tendencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":368,"featured_media":11888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[710],"class_list":["post-12002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":710,"user_id":368,"is_guest":0,"slug":"xiao26","display_name":"Huiting Xiao","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f97f402a2de3d4c5041803fde407c9f33ce304a6140bf86f65e02a4f60569886?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Xiao","first_name":"Huiting","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12002"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13083,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12002\/revisions\/13083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12002"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=12002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}