I finally wake up after hitting snooze one too many times on my phone and rush to gather my stuff before almost missing the bus. It’s eight in the morning and I feel my eyelids begin to close as I roll into my lecture. It will be a pure miracle if I survive Friday with no motivation and no caffeine. My emergency energy drink I always keep in my backpack was used last night for my math exam and I am running on empty after cramming a week’s worth of homework into one night and yet there is still a long day ahead.
The never-ending cycle that I and so many engineering students put themselves through week after week is taking its toll this far into the semester and I need something to look forward to or the little motivation I have to get myself to class with disappear. But as I contemplate for the millionth time about switching my major to something with even one class without calculus, the smell of hope slowly fills my nose. I follow the trail right up to Wilsdorf where my new favorite spot on Grounds has made its home once again. Greenberry’s. I immediately pull out my phone and get excited. A large mocha sits in my Grubhub app and I hit order. It only takes a few minutes because the devil works fast (my lack of motivation and temptation to go back home and sleep the day away) but the ladies at Greenberry’s work faster. They call out my name and I rush forward like a dog who hasn’t eaten in weeks. I say a quick thank you and I swear my body becomes lighter with the wonderful taste that is a warm coffee on an autumn morning. The angel that is the barista gives me a warm smile and tells me to have a good day. That little interaction (and the coffee) gives me the adrenaline rush I needed to complete the rest of my day.
College is exhausting and being an engineering student makes it no better, but the one thing we have that the rest of the grounds don’t, is those wonderful ladies who make our days a little brighter with their smiles. They care about each student who grabs their lunch or coffee from them, and it truly brightens my day each time I see them.
They’re keeping E-way caffeinated and no one appreciates that more than a brain-dead aerospace engineering student.
When I was making my debut as a first-year engineering student, nothing fuelled me more than the daily bagels I got from the Einstein Bagels in Rice Hall. Like clockwork I would order my asiago bagel with an egg and a large hazelnut coffee and I would be greeted with the rush of people like myself waiting for their number to be called. It was always a madhouse trying to get your bagel, fighting through the crowd of people filling up their coffees and mindlessly standing right in the way of you getting your bagel. Now I know everyone raves about Bodo’s Bagels and I will be the first to say they are absolutely delicious, during my first semester, when the dining halls just weren’t hitting and Bodo’s was just some far off restaurant I’d have to walk miles out of my way to go to, Einstein’s Bagels was the place. I’m just lucky the saying ‘you are what you eat’ isnt real because I’m pretty sure the entirety of first years at E-way would just be walking bagels.
Ultimately I feel as though, E-way, within itself is a whole tiny ecosystem within the greater UVa grounds and is as vital as the college and the people who keep it running as it should are the sweet ladies at Greenberry’s and the hard workers, keeping all those first years fed at Einstein’s Bagels. So I highly recommend you pop in sometime and say hello, order a bagel or a coffee, your day will be so much better because of it.