Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many students have not been able to visit and admire each other’s dorm rooms and houses. Thus Assistant Arts & Culture Editor Talia Zitner ’23 created the series “Wesleyan, Welcome to My Crib” to showcase the creativity and ingenuity of student interior design. This week, Tim White ’23 shares his vibrant and purposefully curated room in Music House.

c/o Tim White

Generally, I am picky about lighting and try to avoid using the lights that our rooms come with because they’re too harsh. Here, I have my beloved string lights and partly hidden multicolor LED strip, which is a highly underrated move. This side of the room is the “hangout” side (meaning I never spend any time there). On this wall, I have two drawings made by my four-year-old sister and a calendar of Russian art to really fuel the homesickness.

The centerpiece of the room is the red “half-couch, half-monster.’’ I got it from WesAdmits, where it was advertised as a lawn chair. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the few guests I’ve had in these COVID-19 semesters really like it. Next to it is a small chair that has been honored to serve as my clothes chair. For some reason I keep thinking I don’t need one, but every week I realize how wrong I am.

The desk is where I spend most of my time, so I put a bunch of lights here. Starting from the left, I have a paper binder that hasn’t been touched since before the pandemic, a collection of totally legal scented candles, an “old-lady” painting, a whiteboard, a French painting to let people know I’m pretentious, a map of Moscow (my home city) consisting of poetry about the place, my laptop setup that has saved my old-man back, junk drawers, and my mini-kitchen. I went into such excruciating detail ’cause this is really all I interact with in my room.

The whiteboard is not functional, but is sort of sentimental. I rarely use the actual whiteboard part (the list is from December and I’m not planning on replacing it soon). Starting from the top left, I have a photo from a concert I played back home, toilet paper merch from a Russian band, wishes from a package, a photo of me with a friend, and a figure of Gogol, whose books I’ve at least started. On the bottom, we have an academic calendar that gets filled out a month into the semester. This calendar is pure magic, and I cannot recommend it more. The cards surrounding the calendar are a birthday card from a friend from Wes and a going away card from a friend from home. I look at this whiteboard a lot, and even though the things on it are a little random, they bring me joy during my Zoom classes.

Tim White can be reached at twhite01@wesleyan.edu.