Tale of a River House Nomad

“It’s like transferring from Gryffindor to Ravenclaw to Slytherin,” a friend told me once. “You just don’t do it.” I swear I’m not a psycho. I get along fairly well with others. I’m not a serial sexile-er. But when I tell people that I am currently living in my third Harvard House in as many years, you can imagine the puzzled reaction. What’s worse is that when faced with the inevitable question that follows—an emphatic “Why?”—I still have trouble coming up with a good reason. It all began on Housing Day 2007. Blocking group 226 had valiantly participated in all of the requisite River Run shenanigans (back in the days when HUPD stayed on the sidelines). We were hunkered down in a cold Hollis room, slap happy and looking rather disheveled from staying up all night when the letter finally arrived. We tore open the envelope to learn that we were Matherites. Now, naïve freshman that I was, I hadn’t so much as laid eyes upon Mather House until the previous night’s housing revelry and didn’t have much of an opinion about it. I happily rummaged through my goodie bag to find my “Singles for Life!” condoms and decided that it was going to be a good House. The first of many. That fall, I settled in to the concrete jungle without much fanfare. The shuttle and I became very close friends; by the end of the year I’d learned how to wake up at 9:45 and be sitting in Sever before the Mem Church bells even stopped ringing. My single was glorious. The dining hall was amazing. My fellow Matherites were wild and crazy in the best of ways. In hindsight, there was obviously no reason to leave, but I decided to throw caution to the wind (hey, this was the pre-financial-crisis era, everyone was doing it) and transferred. I had no specific direction, and only cursorily ranked my preferences on the transfer application. Is experiencing the uncertainty of Housing Day for a second time cheating the system? Maybe. But was it worth it? You betcha.Junior year found me in Lowell. Ah, the model House of the entire system. As a transfer, I had the luck of ending up in a senior double (while my fellow natural-born Lowellian juniors still languished in maze-like walkthroughs). Once again I quickly adjusted to the quirks of a new home. In no time I had made friends with scuttling critters and mastered the art of sleeping through Sunday morning’s bells. I was spoiled with Master’s teas, lavish formals, and a dining-hall-turned-Opera-house. As spring semester rolled around, however, I found myself sans blockmates and with the prospect of losing senior status in the upcoming rooming lottery. What’s a floater to do? Transfer again, naturally.Transferring a second time seemed easier than getting a party form signed, and just like that I was destined for Kirkland. Moving in this fall was admittedly ridiculous. My storage boxes were plastered with three separate Houses’ identification stickers. I assumed my fourth and final mailing address of my college career. For the first time since freshman year, I was living in a common room. But re-adjusting yet another time was beyond worth it. Kirkland welcomed me, as the other Houses had, with open arms, and by now I feel like I’ve lived there forever. Any Matherites reading this are probably scandalized at this point, but Jerk-land honestly isn’t half bad. Harvard housing made me realize once and for all that I’m an experience addict. Many have said that since randomization went into effect, the Houses no longer each have a distinct character. If you are inclined to believe this, then perhaps you haven’t lived in three of them. Looking back, each House felt in a certain sense like going to a separate school—the differences were that noticeable. People often point out that I will have missed out on a core element of the Harvard experience—that of fully embracing one’s House community. But in reality, I think I’ve just experienced three times as much of it. When it comes to being apart from my biological blockmates, it’s tough. But there’s something to be said for having to make an effort—I can’t just count on the ease of them being in proximity by default. And my ever-growing consortium of adopted blockmates and linkmates makes this campus seem to be continually shrinking. Living in every River neighborhood was something I would repeat again without a doubt, if only for the sake of experience. Abbott Lawrence Lowell is probably spinning in his grave (I think I’ve violated every ideal of his House system brainchild), but I make no apologies. Look out Quad, you might be next. —James A. McFadden ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a government concentrator in Mather House Lowell House Kirkland House.