Tag Archives: Sleeping

The Castle

Title: The Castle

General Information about Item:

  • Material: Places
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: USA

Informant Data:

Ethan Isaacson lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is currently a student at Dartmouth in the class of 2018. He was born on January 5th, 1996, and is studying chemistry and physics. He went on freshman trips when he was an incoming freshman, was a trip leader his sophomore year, and was on Hanover Croo, known as HCroo, this past fall, so has seen many different aspects of the trips program.

Leigh Steinberg was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was born on April 19, 1996. She is a student at Dartmouth in the class of 2018 and is a history major and plans on going into consulting after graduation. She was a trip leader before her sophomore year of college and was on Hanover Croo, known as HCroo, this past fall.

Contextual Data:

The members of HCroo are thrown into the castle immediately, right when trips starts. It forces them to get close, breaks down any barriers, and they learn to live together very quickly.

Item:

Every year, all of HCroo sleeps in the basement of Mid Fay Hall, on 15 cots all crammed in one room that they call, “The Castle.” There is no personal space, everything is communal, and is as close quarters as it gets. It breaks down any barriers immediately, as they are all thrown into the room together and have to learn to live together.

Transcript of Informant Interview:

We call it “The Castle.” 15 cots in Mid Fay basement. Um so there is thin construction paper taped over the windows that makes the lighting in there all orange and weird. Which reminded us of our mood meter journals. And then there were streamers and posters all around. Very campy. We all had a chair for our closet and under bed space. It was very cramped. It was like camp cots, WWI style living. As close quarters as it gets.

It’s been like this as long as I know. But it’s fun. The barrier is broken down totally immediately. Like you walk in and you are sleeping in a room with like girls and guys, these 15 people I’ve never met. We’re sleeping here, waking up here, all of our clothes are thrown everywhere. We are sharing clothes. Like all of these things that make a group inherently close were all there.

Informant’s Comments:

It was extremely cramped and there was absolutely no personal space the entire time.

Collector’s Comments:

While they both spoke positively about this experience, it seemed like there was some tension they were not talking about. They dropped some hints about some issues that went on behind the scenes, but overall they liked the experience of The Castle.

Collector’s Name: Henry Senkfor

Tags/Keywords:

  • DOC, Trips, Sleeping, Castle