SENIOR Name: Jennifer Singleterry Age: 21 Hometown: Coos Bay, Wash. Ideal friday night: Avoiding homework.
It's 7:30 Tuesday morning. Jennifer Singleterry wakes up, gets dressed, leaves her Tenleytown apartment and heads to the Metro. She travels to the McPherson Square stop on the orange and blue lines and arrives at her paid internship in the advocacy department at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids by 9 a.m. Singleterry works until 4:30 p.m., then heads straight back to campus for pep band practice and an 8:10 p.m. class. She finally arrives back home around 11 p.m.
"Sometimes I long for the more carefree days of freshman year. Sometimes I complain about how busy I am and how stressful it is being a senior, but I am also glad I have come this far in my life," the political science and CLEG double major said.
Singleterry loves being in the thick of everything political and always having something to do in D.C. Coming from a much smaller hometown, she finds living in a big city enjoyable. She loves AU for its location, the Department of Government and its great professors. She is currently involved in Circle K, Christmas in Kampala (a fundraising campaign she's running at AU) and the Baptist Fellowship group, and is interested in music, religion, literature, law and politics.
Singleterry has interned at Opinion Leader Research, a polling and consulting firm in London, where she spent last semester abroad. The past two summers she worked for the National Young Leaders Conference in D.C.
Among Singleterry's favorite college memories are her semester in London and "TDR Trains" to the Vagina Room (named so for its Georgia O'Keefe decor, for ignorant readers). The blizzard of 2003 is another highlight.
"One of my friends went online and looked at the weather forecast, and the website said that at precisely midnight that night, we would have a blizzard. A group of us went outside at exactly midnight to play in the snow," Singleterry said. "The quad was waist-high in snow, it was such an amazing sight."
Clubbing in Barcelona and running into Bob Dole at the Pentagon City Mall were also crazy, she said.
"There are real benefits to being a senior: not having to take dumb Gen Ed classes anymore, really enjoying your classes, having established relationships with professors, knowing your way around campus and just academic life in general," Singleterry said.
She enjoys having a job where she does meaningful, interesting things as opposed to work-study jobs and clerical work, and having a trustworthy network of friends and colleagues.
"Maybe I had more fun as a freshman, but I think that my life now has a lot more meaning. And when I do get to kick back and have some unstressed fun, I appreciate it a lot more," Singleterry said. "That's life in the adult world."
-Jennifer Shuman
FRESHMAN Name: Alain Duroseau Age: 18 Hometown: Queens & Brooklyn, N.Y. Pastime: Napping.
Alain Duroseau wakes up every weekday at 7:30 a.m. Even though he didn't schedule it on purpose, he says he doesn't mind that he has an 8:30 a.m. class every day - he likes getting it over with early.
He says he gets about four and a half hours of sleep each night, and makes up for it with afternoon naps.
Duroseau, a center on an intramural football team, says most people can tell he's a freshman by looking at him. "I have young features and my skin isn't wrinkled," he said.
His demeanor isn't likely to prematurely age him, either. He says his friends are jealous that he's so laid back.
"Stress isn't a word in my vocabulary. I don't stress about things - I just take care of my business, relax and I sometimes meditate."
If something in his life conflicts with this style of living, he eliminates it, like his previous job at the on-campus Subway. Duroseau said he "stopped showing up" because of scheduling conflicts, and because he "didn't like smelling like onions."
Food isn't a big deal to Duroseau anyway. In possibly the most ambivalent review of the Terrace Dining Room ever, Duroseau said, "TDR is good, but after awhile they run out of variety. I don't care - I eat to stay alive, to keep my body running."
For fall break, Duroseau caught a ride home to New York with his uncle, who lives in Baltimore, to spend time with his family and friends. So far, Duroseau says he thinks D.C. is "all right" in comparison to New York, although he wishes the Metro was open later - all night, every night, to be exact.
As for his prediction of what his senior year might be like, Duroseau said, "I live my life day by day, hour by hour, so I really don't think about the future much."
According to Duroseau, being a freshman isn't that great, but it isn't all that bad, either: "It's just life, you know?"
- Erie Meyer
