Fête's inviting lounge area

Once upon a time, Starbucks was revolutionary, but in true New York fashion, the coffeehouse has modernized once again into the independent and artisanal third-wave Fête Coffee. This beautiful little café in the Gramercy Park area is the perfect relaxing hangout, whether you want to bring your laptop and get some work done using their free Wi-Fi or if you want to spend an hour sipping a cappuccino on the couch in their welcoming lounge area. If dining in, they even offer a collection of designer mugs for your use, ranging from cute to gimmicky and created by artists and architects.

Once you’ve picked yourself a mug, bring it up to the counter and order your drink. Unlike chain coffeehouses, Fête takes the time and utmost care to make each cup of coffee and espresso perfectly and with great attention to detail. One of the baristas told me, “We want to get coffee-making down to a science. This is why all of our baristas are specially trained. Third-wave coffee shops like ours emphasize quality.” Not only do they grind the beans for each espresso drink as they are ordered, but they also do the beautiful latte art with steamed milk that one sees in pictures from upscale coffeehouses.

Fête Coffee also provides gourmet breakfast and lunch items, delivered daily from local businesses like Ceci Cela. Pair one of their croissants with a latte, or try one of their fresh tea creations like their Ginger Lemon Iced Tea alongside their fruity frozen yogurt. Definitely the prize item on their menu, the frozen yogurt is blended to order with real fruits of your choice and then topped with whatever crunchy additions you like. It is a must-try!

Located near Baruch, SVA, and the NYU 26th St. dorm, Fête Coffee is the perfect place to spend some time alone to study or hang out with friends over lattes. In fact, the entire lounge room in the back is available to rent out to private parties and events like club meetings, and Fête will even cater a menu to your budget. So skip the pizza party this month and try gathering your club at this spacious and inviting café, where everything is fresh, delicious, and artfully made for you.

Come back each week for new dessert flavors!

-Avia Dell’Oste
@Hunter College

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I have been inside my university’s chapel three times: once for opening exercises freshman year, once for a chapel choir concert (and I had a massive crush on someone in chapel choir), and once for a senior thesis performance of a passion play that my friend was stage managing.  It’s a beautiful building, all gray sandstone on the outside and dark wood pews inside.  Alumni get married there every weekend in the spring.  I pass by it almost every day on my way from the library to the late night café that serves free cookies (which is right under the Office of Religious Life).

I was not raised in a religious household, and I’m still very nonreligious in college.  But religion happens to be a large part in the lives of some of my friends, and contrary to conventional thought, college is not quite a Bastion of Sin and Depravity.  I’m not lying and saying that college is a tame, sleepy educational institution.  But faith does have a place in a college campus.

The physically imposing presence of a university chapel aside, there are plenty of places on a campus to find people of your own faith—often through student-run groups.  On my campus, there are several Christian groups of varying involvement and denominations, for those whose other extracurriculars might take precedent (or might not).  Mission trips over breaks are planned for several, while others just involve a weekly Saturday night dinner.  We have a Center for Jewish Life that serves kosher food every day—it’s available to the entire student body, as well, and the building itself offers great study rooms (and it has a printer, too, so I can print out my labs on my way to class after lunch).  The CJL also holds a range of services for various movements (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform are the main three denominations), and it often presents its own cultural events to accommodate certain restrictions.  For example, there is a yearly CJL-produced play (the play does not have to be about anything Jewish) that does not perform on Shabbat, unlike most of the other theatrical productions on campus.

Furthermore, the university administration isn’t the only source of religious needs for students.  There are many student groups on campus who offer support and resources in varying capacities, again depending on your personal commitment.  On my campus, there are several Hindu and Muslim groups, some which provide services and some which simply provide a social group for its students on religious customs (such as navigating the dining hall offerings or leaving bags of treats outside its members’ dorm rooms on holidays).

My high school history teacher once described colleges as the Bastion of Liberalism and Secular Thought.  And while there is certainly a lot of freedom and hedonism, if you’re looking for people who share your faith, to whatever degree—you’ll find them.  There’s often a large activities fair at the beginning of the school year where you can add your name to a group’s mailing list, but if you don’t sign up in September, it’s not a big deal—groups will publicize their activities throughout the year, and it only takes a minute to show up and talk to the people already involved about involving yourself.

Naturally, most of these groups will throw study breaks and other large free food events (free food in college is always dependable).  When you become involved in them, it’s probably good to scope out a food venue that gives student discounts or bulk discounts.  Fuji Sushi, for example, has this great deal for 20% off catering college events.  And college students, of whatever faith, love sushi.

x

Robin Yang (Princeton Univeristy)

I tweet while I’m at work.  I’ve yet to master the hashtag.
My blog of hedonism and liberalism and other college mainstays.

Photo from Wikipedia

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I’ve been on a Scandinavian music kick lately.  Not the ABBA/Roxette wave of the 80s, but more recent bands, like Jonsi or Veronica Maggio—poppy, top 40 hits from Northern Europe as well as more indie-cred artists.  I like the un-ironic umlauts over the vowels.  I like the combination of English and Swedish/Icelandic/Norwegian that peppers the lyrics.  And regardless of whether I actually understand the language, the songs are still catchy as hell.  In the same way that a lot of my friends have loads of K-pop and J-pop on their iPods, one friend and I are collecting the popular music stylings of a more pale-blonde inclination.

scandinavian stylings

I wouldn’t classify my core friend group as “diverse” in that statistical way that colleges like to quantify.  We’re all American citizens, all but one from East Coast suburbs, Anglophiles with soft spots for Paris or Rome, Diet Coke addicts, and inexplicably almost all English majors (I promise I didn’t plan that one).  We have our fair share of personal drama and “real world” problems, but on paper, we’re culturally monotonous.  It’s only in the things that we do and consume that cause us to become “diverse.”

“Diversity” has become some quantifiable commodity in college, where the statistics of so many different races and social classes and sexual orientations have some high number to hit in the demographics.  Which is, of course, nice, but it doesn’t quite tell the story of these people’s cultural interest differences.  Especially in a city like New York, where authentic recreations of different cultures are condensed and immediately available, the statistical “diversity” can be overshadowed by the culture that the students want to embrace.  For example, I count as several minorities in the eyes of my univeristy, but realtalk: I could just as well have been a suburban daughter of the vast whitewashed-collar South.  I wouldn’t count myself diverse if we’re talking about my origins.  I’d count myself diverse only in my current experiences.

I’ve lived in London and Shanghai.  I’ve visited Edinburgh, Paris, and Amsterdam.  I’ve seen both coasts of continental America.  I’ve hand-made croissants, climbed up a waterfall, read Hemingway at his café, haggled for pirated DVDs in Chinese black markets, trespassed multiple times to get good views of a city, bummed at a beach house for a week, taken a power shower on a fire escape.

It’s important to keep in touch with your roots.  I won’t deny that.  There’s a host of literature (and literary analysis) on the personal destruction that ensues when protagonists attempt to erase their origins.  But there’s also something to be said for personal exploration once we’ve reconciled ourselves with our past.  There’s no point in being diverse if you’re just going to be the same diverse your entire life.  That’s a huge disservice to all the people who do come from obscure backgrounds.  They have to carry that culture on their own.  There are no questionnaires on our diverse experiences once we get into college, which is really what should be encouraged.  It’s nice that there’s been such an effort to surround me with different people, but that’s no true incentive.  More direct exposure, more real opportunities to study abroad, less insular summer programs.  Less expensive cultural experiences.

I’ve never taken a Scandinavian class.  Historically, I’ve been a Western European kind of lady.  But I’m super into this music coming from a lot of Swedish artists (Miike Snow and The Knife are also Swedish.  True facts), I’ve begun writing some fiction with German characters, and there’s a $1.50 student special on Brazilian coffee at the O Cafe (Brazilian coffee ≠ Colombian coffee ≠ New Zealand coffee. Try them all!)… so…

Adjö, ses nästa vecka.

x
Robin (Princeton University)

I tweet while I’m at work.  I’ve yet to master the hashtag.
My blog, where I post all my European interests and more.

Photo from flickr, creative commons license.

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http://www.theminimalists.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Happiness-Hands1.jpg

My mother has always told me to take care of myself; told me I had to look beautiful and dressed up in order to truly feel beautiful. My mother is the old fashion type that wears diamonds and red lipstick.  She was a trend-setter in the 80s and wore the sparkles and electric blue dresses with no shame. My mother has never been cheap when it comes to beauty. My sisters have gotten their hair colored and straightened and perfected since middle school and I have been wearing makeup since I was 14. My mother always had the best intention for my sisters and I, but somehow in the middle, beauty became an unattainable dream. For me going through puberty, the worst years of ALL teenager’s lives, was like being told: “this is what beautiful is, and kid, you just don’t got it.” Instead I had acne and sudden stretch marks (fries and junk food were immediately cut after those appeared). I had self-consciousness that would control my life for the following 5 years. I would get facials and new clothes and my hair done and nails done all the time; but I still wasn’t happy. My mother did everything she could but no matter what I still felt ugly. The last straw came when a boy talking to me said, “she’s really hot but she’s got acne everywhere, you would know what that was like. She’s kind of like you.” That day I went home and told my mom I wanted to go on Accutane, the powerful prescription drug that eliminates acne from the inside out. It’s a pill you take everyday that has a side effects list that’s two pages long.  I took the pill for six months and luckily only got the most common side effects of bloody noses, extreme chapped lips, and paper thin skin. I had to get blood tests done every month to make sure my liver wasn’t shutting down and to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. It was a very serious medicine and taking it was the biggest medical risk I’ve ever taken. Once I got off the medicine I was healthy and had flawless glowing skin. The only lasting side effects was my skin being drier and needing to be heavily moisturized (very manageable, no complains) and that I was still self conscious, only this time it was another issue. Instead of my skin being the problem it was my weight or my hair or my teeth. I realized rather quickly that no matter what I changed, I would never be happy. I was just unhappy. So the summer before going into college I decided that I was beautiful. As simple as that. I worked hard, people genuinely liked me and I was off to start a brand new life in college. I realized at that point in my life, I was the only one bringing me down. When the boy said that nasty comment to me years earlier, it should have registered in my brain that he was also saying something really mean about that other girl with acne. I realize now that that kid was just a jerk and just one of the reasons why high school is so hard (another reason being that nobody skips out on the awkward phase of teenage life and we’re all full of raging hormones and awkward conversation). He didn’t have to say anything at all but instead he hurt not one, but two people. You have to remember that high school isn’t meant to be enjoyed; it’s meant to be endured. And who you were then isn’t who you are now. You are stronger, smarter and better than you ever were back then. The most important lesson I learned going into college was to leave your troubles behind you, leave all those nasty remarks and all those negative feelings of self doubt behind because its not only that you have to look good to feel good, its actually more that you have to feel good to look good.

-Jackie Aqel

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