REDC Cafe

I have found a spot!

In the business and engineering department, there is a cafe. It's big and open, and one wall is all windows, from three-story high ceiling to floor. The windows look over campus and down to the lake, and since both wings of the building extend on either side, the view is framed by reflective windows. Overhead is a giant skylight. The coffee bar is in the middle of the room, surrounded by tables chairs, and couches.

It's wonderful. The coffee is good and strong and almost worth the money. The barista gave me a large even though I ordered and paid for a medium, and put an extra espresso shot in it. Deal. I sat under the skylight with natural sunlight falling onto my pages, clouds passing occasionally overhead. I could see the blue, blue lake and all of the leaves changing colors. There was a job fair somewhere in the building, so all of the students milling around were in their best business attire. Nearly as many professors as students visited the cafe, so it wasn't just the same age group of people.

I felt like I was off-campus and in the city again. I felt like I wasn't wasting sunlight. It was bliss to be studying not in my room or the library, but next to a coffee bar, smelling the good coffee smells, listening to good coffee sounds, all with fancy, chocolatey coffee just a couple of inches from my books. Breaking every so often to people-watch, or stare out over the lake. The only thing missing was the usual cafe music, but I can get along without that.

So, every Tuesday for the rest of the semester, I will walk up to the REDC building, and spend a sinful $3 on coffee. I won't listen to doors slam, or gangster rap, or TV's blaring, or high-pitched, over-excited conversation. I'll watch the leaves change, then fall, then wait for snow. I'll have some peace and some quiet, and some away-ness from the school that I live at 24/7.