It is an incredibly sunny afternoon. In the dead of what is supposed to be winter, we have somehow hit temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius (close to the 70s in Fahrenheit). This positively balmy weather calls for a leisurely walk around the neighborhood, and many ISH residents have heeded the call. But on this day I curl up by the front desk, writing thank you cards for the people who’ve been a part of my Washington journey. Upstairs, some ISH residents are watching the NFL playoffs between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans, and we can hear their shouts of despair and excitement, alternatingly, from my perch at the lobby.

My phone beside my displays the score. This, if anything, is a sign that ISH has made its mark on me. Not only do I know who is playing in a sports game, I am even slightly invested in the outcome, because of a fellow ISH Resident who is a major Chiefs fan. Occasionally, I look up from my writing to distract my friend at the front desk with random bits of conversation.

Later, I manage to coax a fellow ISH resident away from interminable readings for a walk around the city. We wander past the Masonic Temple, admiring its remarkably symmetrical architecture, discussing the political situations in our countries. Somehow the walk takes us all the way past the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and we start to compare notes on what we both know of these institutions. Arriving back at ISH, we plop down in the dining hall and are joined by a couple of other ISH residents. The conversation quickly turns into a discussion of the benefits and disadvantages of current approaches to international development.

***

This is how I passed my last Sunday at ISH. It is an ISH tradition that at your last Sunday dinner, you stand up and say your goodbyes. But when the announcement came asking if it was anyone’s last Sunday, with the eyes of half of the room on me, I didn’t think I could do it.

So this is my thank you instead. My final Sunday represented what I liked the most about ISH – the quiet, steady feeling of everyone going about their day, but still very much together.

Because even as a US strike kills an Iranian General, even as tragic bush fires rage on in Australia, even as passenger planes are shot down from the sky, even as the globe is threatened by a new epidemic, so many of us from all around the world still find a way to come together, coexist, and thrive. Hours after dinner, you can still witness conversations between residents on the effects of colonization in Africa or the best way of getting involved in international development. You may not know anything about sports, but somehow still get sucked into watching the Superbowl. (As I suspect many ISH residents will be this weekend- there will be a watch party in the Great Hall complete with Pizza, and from what I have seen of the poster it looks like it will be a lot of fun). If you’re too bogged down with work or school, there will always be someone to drag you out of your head in order to explore yet another museum, or art exhibit, or performance.

It is strange to be leaving behind my identity as an ISH resident, but I am already fully embracing being a part of the ISH Alumni, which I am sure will involve many visits to and from other ISH Alumni. This process has already begun– I recently visited a couple of former ISH Residents in Mexico City, and there are plans for more to visit me in Singapore.

So in the meantime, all that is left is a very big thank you to all of the ISH staff, board members, and residents who help to create and preserve the very special melting pot that is ISH.

When I heard that it was a tradition at ISH that students would host Cultural Nights, I was determined I would do one for Australia. A more daunting challenge then you think, whilst Australian is a beautiful, diverse, multicultural country, it is difficult to celebrate one thing that makes Australia, well, Australia. We do not have a singular cultural dress or music or food. But that does not mean we do not have a culture to share with the rest of the world, and so, on 26 January I armed myself with a flag, some Vegemite and an inflatable kangaroo, and was ready to show my fellow house mates the best of Australia I could offer (or at least, the best I could find in Washington, DC).

Here’s how it went down.

Food

As the traditional barbeque (a “sausage sizzle”) would not make much sense in the middle of an American winter, I opted for an array of Australian snacks. With mostly sweets to be found at World Market, I let my house mates know that they could feast on chocolate-covered honeycomb bites, ANZAC biscuits, Darrell Lea liquorice and – most importantly – Tim Tams, if they humoured me and tried some Vegemite first.

I am delighted to say everyone rose to the challenge, and all who came to the cultural night tentatively smeared Vegemite on a cracker and nibbled at one end, unsure of whether they were going to like the famed spread or not. In the end, Vegemite received its usual mixed reception, but Tim Tams and Bundaberg Ginger Beer won the day.

Australia treats to try

Music

Earlier in the week I had procrastinated from my assigned readings and curated a play list of Australian classics that would form the background music for my cultural event. The greatest part of this turned out to be the international knowledge of most songs, but not that they were in fact Australian artists. I am happy to confirm that John Farnham, Tones and I, 5 Seconds of Summer, the Veronicas and Keith Urban are indeed all Australian.

Slang

As a little bonus activity, I had a game ready for the residents, ‘Guess the Australian Slang’ with the promise of a small soft toy kangaroo as a prize to the person who guessed the meaning most slang terms. Many put in their best effort, and whilst terms of British origin such as ‘bloke’ (a man) were frequently guessed correctly, more abstract terms (cark it, fair dinkum, uey and yakka) left many scratching their heads. I’ll leave you to take your best guesses!

Imparting some facts and wisdom

Knowledge

Truly though, the greatest part of the cultural night was how open and willing my fellow house mates were to learn about my country, its history, politics, culture and the ongoing bush fire crisis. Residents asked me serious and thought-provoking questions and many asked if my family were safe from the fires.

It is moments like these that remind me what a treasured community ISH is.

Just me, a happy little Vegemite tearing into a packet of Tim Tams

Studying in the US presents an interesting conundrum: do you stay inside and finish the paper that’s due in only a few days, or do you locate your scarf and gloves and venture outside in search of winter Christmas magic?

Christmas in Australia means a barbeque on the beach. In America, it’s the winter wonderland that Michael Bublé sings about. Sadly still no snow just yet, but when the sun sets early, the lights come on, the warm drinks come out and the Christmas music abounds.

Despite having to study right up until I got on the plane for my little Christmas break in Colorado, I made sure to soak in as much of the DC Christmas spirit as possible. These were a few highlights:

1. Georgetown GLOW: Georgetown encourages DC residents to brave the chilly nights by setting up a number of light installations. You can see all of them within a quick walk around the neighbourhood before you hide from the cold in a bar with a warm cider. Below are two of the Georgetown GLOW installations.

2. Christmas trees out and about: DC is sprinkled with Christmas trees. Of course, there are the famous ones: the National Tree at the White House and the tree at the Capitol building. However, there are others to be spotted too: for example, the red and white tree at the Canadian Embassy or the tree Georgetown put up in the library (presumably to lift the spirits of stressed students). I even attended the lighting of the Christmas tree at City Center! Below are the trees at the Canadian Embassy; the Capitol; and at City Center.

3. Christmas carols at the Kennedy Center: Thanks to a generous ISH friend, there were a number of free tickets provided to Christmas with Choral Arts, a DC choir that put on a program of a number of Christmas carols. Nothing quite gets you in the spirit like being encouraged to sing a long with an auditorium full of your fellow concert-goers.

4. ISH decorations: Of course, there was nothing quite as special as the ISH Christmas decorations. I spent as much time as I could in the Great Hall, soaking up twinkling fairy lights and garlands. We even took a moment to take some ISH family photos, to commemorate those who had been with us for the semester.

Some of the ISH Fall Semester family

I am now on my little Christmas break but I cannot wait to come back in January. From all of us at ISH, happy holidays!

A huge Christmas tree is still up in the Great Hall, there are still Christmas wreathes everywhere, and the entryway of ISH is still draped with Christmas lights. We’re almost at the end of those drowsy days between Christmas and the New Year, a time for quiet self-reflection and contemplation. This pensiveness, I believe, is about 65% due to the proliferation of year-round-up listicles in all forms of media. Jumping on this bandwagon, I’ve rounded some of my favorite moments at ISH.

The Halloween Party
 This was the first time I dressed up for Halloween! My costume was a last minute cobbled together attempt at something resembling a unicorn, but my housemates had far more elaborate interpretations. My favorites included a pretty convincing Bob Ross, a very ingenious Don Lockwood from Singin’ in the Rain, and a wonderfully creative interpretation of “When Life Gives You Lemons”. (Katie wore a name tag that said “Life”, and actually gave out lemons from a basket that she carried around).  All around just a fun night with friends.

Anytime the kitchen serves meatballs. Or lasagna. Or double chocolate chip cookies.
I haven’t written much about food, but it was definitely one of the things I worried about going in. If you’ve never visited ISH before, we have a dining hall where we eat our meals. For dinner, there are usually a variety of hot options, some form of dessert (cakes, cookies, or puddings), and a salad bar. (We also have Fish Fridays and Meatless Mondays, for different reasons, but that’s a whole other article.) It’s always nice not to have to worry about cooking dinner after a whole day at work, but I like meatballs and lasagna because they’re very reliable options.

Quiz time at Africa Night
 I might have written about this before, but the Africa Night organizing committee went high tech and created an interactive quiz for us to test our knowledge about Africa, that we could access on our phones. Specifically, I remember when, in a moment of utter stupidity, I got the capital of South Africa wrong. Because my friend Tebogo (who is from South Africa) scoffed very loudly from second-hand embarrassment and said that we couldn’t be friends anymore. (South Africa actually has three capitals, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town. I had managed to pick the only wrong answer). She was joking, and we are still friends. I like to think about that moment because I think learned a lot about that night.

The second snow day of 2019
 Before I moved into ISH I actually spent a short time living in an apartment nearby. It was fine, but I always hated it when the office closed because I’d be stuck at home with nothing to do. Snow days at ISH were different- and there were many, as I was surprised to find, because DC shuts down with the slightest snow fall. The second snow day of the year was actually my favorite, because most of us found out before hand that we wouldn’t have work/ school the next day. What followed was a very late night playing Pictionary, charades, and even with some play dough that we found around the house. The next day some of us studied together in the Great Hall, interspersed with short breaks to venture outside for lunch and snowball fights. We ended the night with a jam session in the hall. A boring, ordinary snow day, doing fairly normal things, but somehow my mind goes back to that day a lot.

And these are all just moments that happened in ISH. I have many other amazing memories that happened because of ISH. This includes meeting all the people I met through other ISH residents that I otherwise would never have met otherwise. (Shout out here to the very friendly students of the Asan Academy.)

Here’s to another exciting year!

Fall has officially arrived in DC- cue the streets lined with fallen leaves, an abundance of pumpkin-spice-everything in all the stores, and the words “crisp”, “autumn”, and “cozy” being liberally tossed into all text and marketing. This is also my favorite season for exploring DC, because it’s cool enough to walk around without sweating, but warm enough so you aren’t constantly shivering.

In order to take advantage of the fall foliage, a few ISH residents bundled into an Uber XL to make our way to the National Arboretum. We arrived first at the very extensive bonsai collection, which was divided into regions of origins of the plants. My favorites were the whimsical show ones- there was a tree that had been trained into the shape of a trumpet. A couple of people also enjoyed listening to a guide explaining about the history of one of the trees.

After whittling half of the afternoon away amidst the bonsai collection, we saw the National Capitol Columns. An interesting fun fact- the National Capitol Columns are so named because they were part of the former United States Capitol, and were only moved to the National Arboretum in the 1980s. It was the perfect spot to take photos; there were several other professional photoshoots going on besides our very casual ones. Finally, we attempted to see the lake in the Arboretum, past the Chinese Gardens. “Attempted” because we got distracted along the way and ended up sitting by the roadside and enjoying the setting sun.

The other highlight of my month has been trying out different kinds of cuisine. This began one weeknight when, having forgotten to order late dinner, I sat down with my microwaved siew mai (a kind of dumpling) and was soon joined by fellow residents Kaori (from Japan) and Meong (from the Philippines). After a very involved conversation on different food cultures, we made plans to go to a place called Purple Patch to try Filipino food.

So one bright weekend morning, the three of us, joined by our friend Stefan, walked half an hour north to Purple Patch, which turned out to be a very trendy kind of restaurant serving classic Filipino dishes and American comfort food. After Meong explained all the dishes, I ended up having the Sizzling Sisig. The dish included pork belly that was indeed sizzling, served on a hot plate, with a side of garlic fried rice and a very sweet vinegar. Meong also ordered a side of lumpia for us to try. I think Filipino food in general is pretty much in the same ballpark as Singaporean food, being from the same region, so the flavors weren’t completely alien to me. But the combination of everything was very novel (especially the vinegar, which I loved), and I would definitely go back for more if I could.

Our food explorations continued this week, as we headed to Sakana for some Japanese food. Located on P Street, Sakana is just a stone throw away from ISH, and has some good reasonably priced Japanese food. I chose the Sukiyaki, which consisted of beef and vegetables stewed in a clear, sweet broth, on yet another hot place, with a side of white rice. I would also recommend it to anyone looking to try some Japanese food that isn’t sushi.

As a diverse and international city, DC is a great place to try new cuisines, especially if you do some research on where to go. (But sporadically of course, because DC prices aren’t very student friendly and besides, ISH has a great dining hall of its own.) We’ve already picked out the next food exploration: Ramen, which we all happen to love. It will be perfect for transitioning into Winter, which I can already feel is coming.

Also this month at the House, some residents put together a Diwali celebration, which saw the lobby and entrance way bedecked in glittering fairy lights. With snacks set up on either side and a projection screen playing Bollywood dance clips and music videos, residents had fun learning more about the Festival of Lights.

All in all, I’m giving thanks for another season of discovery at ISH.

So one bright weekend morning, the three of us, joined by our friend Stefan, walked half an hour north to Purple Patch, which turned out to be a very trendy kind of restaurant serving classic Filipino dishes and American comfort food. After Meong explained all the dishes, I ended up having the Sizzling Sisig. The dish included pork belly that was indeed sizzling, served on a hot plate, with a side of garlic fried rice and a very sweet vinegar. Meong also ordered a side of lumpia for us to try. I think Filipino food in general is pretty much in the same ballpark as Singaporean food, being from the same region, so the flavors weren’t completely alien to me. But the combination of everything was very novel (especially the vinegar, which I loved), and I would definitely go back for more if I could.

Our food explorations continued this week, as we headed to Sakana for some Japanese food. Located on P Street, Sakana is just a stone throw away from ISH, and has some good reasonably priced Japanese food. I chose the Sukiyaki, which consisted of beef and vegetables stewed in a clear, sweet broth, on yet another hot place, with a side of white rice. I would also recommend it to anyone looking to try some Japanese food that isn’t sushi.

As a diverse and international city, DC is a great place to try new cuisines, especially if you do some research on where to go. (But sporadically of course, because DC prices aren’t very student friendly and besides, ISH has a great dining hall of its own.) We’ve already picked out the next food exploration: Ramen, which we all happen to love. It will be perfect for transitioning into Winter, which I can already feel is coming.

Also this month at the House, some residents put together a Diwali celebration, which saw the lobby and entrance way bedecked in glittering fairy lights. With snacks set up on either side and a projection screen playing Bollywood dance clips and music videos, residents had fun learning more about the Festival of Lights.

All in all, I’m giving thanks for another season of discovery at ISH.