I first encountered the Kerrytown neighborhood when I came to Ann Arbor for freshman orientation in July of 2018. My partner had driven me up to Michigan, and we found a current student to stay with for the night. The house was a mustard color with large curvy windows, as if it were inspired by a funhouse. It had a huge attic and was shaped like no other home I’d ever seen. Many of the rooms looked like they were closets or huge study spaces renovated into bedrooms. Our room for the night had a twin sized bed with hundreds of theatre posters lining on the wall. We had to squish together in that bed so as not to fall off, and the Ann Arbor air was muggy — we immediately wet the bed with our sweat, but it was kind of fun. It was a little adventure — coming to a new town and staying in an eclectic house, in an odd little room. In the morning, I stepped outside onto the porch to take a deep breath of the Michigan air. A college student on a bike flew past while a girl in a co-op across the street was swinging on a swing. I found the scene exhilarating: seeing so much commotion in one neighborhood. The people who surrounded me at that moment seemed grounded, and that they might take me in and give me a cup of tea. They seemed like the kind of people who would take me to Burning Man and help me home if I found myself in a K-Hole. Although the connection was immediate, I had no idea that Kerrytown would be my home for the next three years of my college career. As a theatre major myself, it was natural to live in a house with other theatre majors for my sophomore year of college. The entire theatre department seemed to live in Kerrytown, and thus my residence began. We moved into the big artsy house that I had always longed for: there was a huge attic and a very spacious basement, perfect for playing beer pong or setting up a little lounge area. My friends and I lived it up in our little residential neighborhood. Bands played at houses on the weekend, people used chalk to draw on the street and yard sales with blaring music frequented our lawns. It was a happy, wonderful environment, and it barely ever registered with me that I could be living elsewhere, that there was an entire other region of campus with its own distinct culture. I came to South Campus for the S T A T E M E N T The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Wednesday, April 20, 2022 — 7 Read more at MichiganDaily.com VALERIJA MALASHEVICH Statement Columnist DRAKE GEORGE Statement Correspondent Kerrytown versus South Campus: Home is where the vibe is You might just be surprised: Locking my phone away for three days I hate my phone. I hate that I can’t resist looking at it every time it beeps, and I hate how the empty seconds of my life are filled with screen time. I’m not doing anything worthwhile on it — just cluelessly scrolling through digital voids that are meaningless to me. When I’m on my phone, I miss out on everything important, I think. So in the midst of my anti-phone spite, my roommate and I devised a plan to put our phones away, all day. From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., we agreed we couldn’t have them on our person. That meant no Apple Watch, no music on the way to class and absolutely no way to tune out the rest of the world. I already carry a virtually bare-bones phone on me anyway: my Snapchat best friends list is empty, my Facebook has long been deactivated, Twitter is gone and my daily screen time hovers around the three or four hour mark. Still, I can’t seem to shake its grasp, or the way I cling to it when an ad interrupts my movie, or my instilled reliance on Google-knowing. One morning, I placed my phone into a cranny in my bedroom and I headed off to my classes. It was, initially, less than pleasant. The walk to my first class was boring, but I realized that I paid more attention to my surroundings (and even enjoyed them more) when I didn’t have an AirPod blaring in my ear. Uninvited noises became hard to ignore, as drills hammered into the ground down State Street and I became more attuned to the flux of cars swirling around me. Yet, I was blissfully aware of the more mundane things we often take for granted, like the synchronized melodies of birds in the Diag and the chalk sidewalk doodles that sprang up overnight. My 11:30 a.m. class came and went generally unaffected, mostly because I still insist on taking paper notes. Around 1 p.m. I headed off to the Modern Languages Building to meet with my friend before our psychology exam. Uh-oh. Once I shut my laptop, I had no way of constantly updating my friend on where I was, nor could she track my location through Find My iPhone. Instead, I puttered around the MLB for what seemed like five or so minutes, and then hesitantly pulled out my iPad to send a text. It was wonky and inconvenient — my thumbs struggling to stretch across the oversized screen. But, alas, the job was done and I found her. I returned home by sunset, and my evening was spent lazing on the couch with an open textbook next to me. Yet, I felt anxious at the thought of the clock striking nine — I didn’t want my phone, did I? I know I didn’t need it, at least not then and there. My work for the day had been completed, my eyelids were struggling to hold their weight and I felt no pressing urge to invite a technological nuisance back into my life. In the absence of instant gratification, I instead spent a whole day immersed in my own reality. No more worrying about unwanted emails showing up at an unfriendly moment, or checking the time every two minutes on my way to class as I fret showing up late. I was in control of everything, from what I felt to what I focused on. It was intoxicating but it was short-lived, and I felt like I had failed to test the boundaries of my limits: naturally, I extended my experiment by three more days. (Officially) Day 1 9:02 a.m. Just arrived at my first class of the day, and when I go to open Canvas, I get prompted to send a Duo notification. Great. That’s fine, I didn’t need to access Canvas anyway. 9:56 a.m. Walking across the Diag with no headphones is f**king weird. Voter registration people please don’t come up to me, I am busy dissociating. 12:35 p.m. I heard a ring so I picked up my phone and it was actually a really important phone call about my apartment. Please don’t hate me, I put it away right after — I swear. 2:13 p.m. So no one was gonna tell me it’s literally pouring outside? It’s a good thing I carry my umbrella any Read more at MichiganDaily.com Design by Serena Shen // Page Design by Sarah Chung Design byTamara Turner // Page Design by Sarah Chung Send us an email at UMCU@UMCU.ORG with the subject line, “2022 Grad” to learn more about these exclusive offers or visit UMCU.ORG. You’re going places! CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2022 Rates as low as: 1.49% APR on Auto Loans New to UMCU* 8.00% APR Personal “My Choice” Loan Special To celebrate your achievements, UMCU has special rates available for graduating students. Insured by NCUA Special rates valid for one year from date of graduation from an accredited university. Subject to credit approval. Additional limitations, terms and conditions apply, and are subject to change without notice. *Rates as low as 1.49% APR. Actual rate based on creditworthiness. NOT A MEMBER? JOIN TODAY AT UMCU.ORG.