As I write this it is a beautiful fall day in Portland and the leaves on the trees are just beginning to turn yellows, reds and oranges. Fall on the LC campus is my favorite season because it captures the most amazing vibes.
Today is the third day of Fall break, and honestly this break was incredibly necessary. This semester has been incredibly taxing so far. There are so many nuances to resuming life with some semblance of normalcy after a year and a half of online classes and essentially a virtual college experience. Not to mention that something about sophomore year is in itself challenging as most sophomores that I know are getting pretty deep into a major or potential major and the coursework is stacking up. The beginning of the semester always starts so quickly and the momentum of the constantly cycling assignments, papers and exams never seems to cease. There always inevitably seems to be something to do for school even when you’ve been continuously working on assignments and staying on schedule. It was a rollercoaster week and a half leading up to this break, as I had to take three midterms for three of my classes.
But at last, it was break time! And thus begins the subject of this post; self-care to cure the ever-building stress from the last seven weeks of classes.
After spending every waking moment on campus, doing school work, my friends and I wanted to find a little escape. That in conjunction with our painfully obvious lack of knowledge about the fun places to explore in Portland, the city we’ve called a second home for a year now. So we decided to venture off the quaint LC campus to the Paramount hotel in the bustling heart of downtown Portland.
We headed downtown, and walked around peering into shops and checking out the wonders Portland has to offer. Our first stop was Powell's, the holy grail of bookstores. I had never been, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. Coming from Colorado Springs I had never set foot into a bookstore quite like Powell’s and the vibes were truly immaculate. I found myself lost in shelves of women’s health books, and books about practicing medicine amidst a global pandemic (how very pre-med of me!)
Next, we headed to Buffalo Exchange, a store where I have found many good thrift finds in the past. The Buffalo Exchange generally can be a toss up in terms of finding good thrift items, and unfortunately I struck out this time around. Though, I still had a blast wandering around and browsing in the company of my friends.
By this point we were all absolutely famished so we headed to Luc Lak, an absolutely delicious Vietnamese restaurant. We feasted like we were royalty and walked back to our hotel when we were finished.
Back at the hotel we laid on our beds taking in the adventures of the day, and digesting the immense amount of food we had just gorged ourselves on. We chatted for hours about the semester, and our plans for the semesters going forward, and we really got some time to connect with each other without the impending stress of homework and classes. We also got to shower outside of dorm showers, a seemingly small victory but nevertheless a victory. At last we drifted off to sleep with our minds free and clear of the usual college stress.
The next morning we woke up and checked out of our hotel room. We walked to Cheryl’s on 12th street where we ate an absolutely delicious brunch. I had some decadent blueberry and lemon curd pancakes, paired with a pumpkin spice latte. The bustling of the city and the beauty of the color changing leaves made for the most lovely fall break vibe.
I returned to campus feeling recharged and ready to tackle the next few weeks of the semester. Though I’m sure the stress of college coursework will return, I am grateful for this moment in time, where I don’t have to worry about midterms, quizzes, homework or anything else and can just focus on the delicious food, my amazing friends, and the immaculate Portland vibes.
So that's the end of my first post, thanks for reading to the end! Hope everyone reading also got in some good self-care time this fall break!
-Priyanka