The sky was still dark—but it was almost dawn. I tightened my sweat-sticky headscarf. Watching the men circumambulating the sacred black stone of the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, I could not help but envy their ehrams, white towels that draped around their waists like airy togas.

Last November, I taught my friend Madeleine how to tone. We entered the cavernous stone interior of Dwight Chapel. No choir stood poised to sing its first note; no audience murmured in the wooden pews.

It’s 6:53 on a Monday evening. My three-hour shift at Vanderbilt’s Writing Studio starts in seven minutes. As I set my backpack down at my favorite table, I hope for a few minutes to sit, to check my e-mail, to relax.

I wake up to a call from the Student Life office at two in the morning and start my walk across campus. Fifteen minutes later and I’m ready to go, cup of coffee in hand.

It had never occurred to me to learn to box, let alone in Cairo. But the Russian Cultural Center, a converted villa with a small boxing gym, had always been an intriguing sight on my way to Arabic class.

Ben had just turned eleven when he was found in a state park holding a bag of marijuana. It was 9:30 on a Wednesday night in May.

Alison Chase is an innovator in modern dance. Artistic director and choreographer of Pilobolus —a world-renowned dance company known for its intertwining of dance, acrobatics, and spectacle — Alison Chase has had a profound impact on the aesthetic development of modern dance.

Like any turning point in life, senior year involves soul-searching, and I have spent many evenings reflecting on my memories at Penn. Inevitably, my mind turns to Mary.