This week, The Argus sat down with three senior housemates, still close friends from their first-year triple in Bennet Hall. Podol, Ellis, and Jenisch discussed the importance of taking space for yourself, the beauty of the mundane, and the joy of active love.
The Argus: Why do you think you were nominated to be WesCelebs?
Hannah Podol: We were random roommates freshman year in a forced triple in Bennet and really connected early on, and we maintained and grew our friendship over the course of college, and now we live together in a senior house.
Emerson Jenisch: The actual experience of being in the forced triple was only experienced by one or two [class] years here. If you weren’t in the forced triple, you don’t get that that was pretty insane. And we faced our own challenges and tests, and [so] the fact that we have this friendship is very special.
Naomi Ellis: We also haven’t all lived together since freshman year, and yet somehow we’re known around campus as roommates, and that just shows how special it really is.
A: You’re all pretty different. What do you think it is about the three of you that makes it work?
NE: I feel like it’s an essence, or like a zest of life. How we approach life seems to be very similar: with a positive and generally excited and enthused energy.
HP: Early on in freshman fall, when we were trying to make other friends and broaden our horizons, we quickly realized that we do move through the world very similarly. It’s cool to be roommates with people that are different than you, but you have that foundation.
A: Do you have recommendations for people trying to live with other people they don’t know?
EJ: Freshman year, there was never any judgment, and that had to be the case, especially at the time when everyone was so out of their element.
NE: I feel so much grace. It was like an extended version of camp, [with] no counselors. We just had to [have] the grace of letting people get away with their weird behaviors. Looking back, there are just so many funny moments. We were children together, but we acted like we were more mature.
A: How does it feel to live together now versus freshman year?
NE: Living together now, I’m just in awe that we were able to live together then, because we have all grown so much and know each other so much more. And now we have our own space. I need alone time. I need personal space. I need my own room, boundaries. I’m so grateful that I get to knock on [Hannah’s] door versus asking if I can open her bed curtain.
EJ: Even though we were absolutely incredibly close freshman year, there’s something about having four years to watch someone evolve and change that just feels like it really brings you closer to them and makes you just so deeply proud.
A: How do you see your friendship evolving postgrad?
NE: A lot of dedication and intentionality. Keeping the love active. Not just, “I love you, and you live far away.” It’s like, “I love you, but you feel very close.”
EJ: I could do the most mundane things with these people, and it would be incredible.
HP: I’m also someone who takes a while to build trust. But I could have told you at the end of freshmen fall that these people would be in my life in a big way forever.
A: Why did it work so well between you three? The small room? The transition period?
HP: It’s a great question. If Emerson and I had a class together, or maybe [if I] met Naomi at High Holidays freshman year, who knows. Then I totally could have seen myself really enjoying their presence. I think the trio, though, is a bit circumstantial and beautiful. It makes so much sense. I don’t know [that] we would have created that out of thin air.
NE: It feels like a sibling, where you’re so glad that you were born as siblings. Emerson and I are very different in how we show up in larger social spaces, and I feel so grateful that I got to know her in this intimate way, where she was forced to see me and I was forced to see her.
HP: Especially freshman year, I feel like I was the abstract bridge between these two.
EJ: In moments of stress, Naomi becomes much more extroverted than I [do]. When we found ourselves going out freshman year, I was so over the whole thing, and Naomi was going up to anyone who walked by and chatting.
NE: I was able to see her from afar, but also up close. Maybe at times it was frustrating, because I was like, “Why aren’t you the same as me?” Through that, I have grown to be able to express the parts of myself that are more like Emmy, and she’s grown to express the parts that are more like me. I’m so grateful that we had our silly little miracle.
A: Do you guys have any awkward early stories?
NE: The first night we were going to sleep. It was a distinctly sleepaway camp vibe—I’m sleeping in a room with strangers! I think I was actually sleeping in a sleeping bag that night. Hannah and I are each on the top bunk. Emerson’s sleeping below me, and Hannah has a loft. Someone’s like, “Goodnight, guys.” I’m like, “Goodnight. Also, crazy story: I came out to my parents as bi today,” and that was me setting the scene that we would be close, that we would be good friends, that we would share our lives, our love, our silly awkward moments together.
HP: It was exactly what we needed. It kickstarted a night of giggling and conversing. The way we were speaking to each other, even from day one, was like, “We know we’re going to be close to each other, so let’s cut to the chase.”
A: What are your favorite things about each other? Have they changed over time?
HP: Emerson and I really gravitated towards each other during orientation. That night of the silent disco: We speak about [that] night as a spiritual moment. We had unspoken eye contact where we were just like, “We both understand this is way out of our comfort zone.”
NE: I was completely oblivious.
HP: Naomi and I’s moment was at High Holidays, which was the first day of freshman year. We sat next to each other, and we met a ton of people who would then become characters and good friends in our college experience. And we hugged.
NE: I think I was crying.
HP: We shared a beautiful, emotional moment.
NE: You were my familial comfort. I think I went to a service the next day, and I was crying again, and there was someone who comforted me who was not you, and that felt distinct.
EJ: These guys just have the most zest for life. The first snow of the year, they will be out dancing. It’s just this present joy, and it’s been such a great reminder for me to stay grounded in the crazy, stressful scene of Wesleyan, because I always have people who really love the little things.
NE: Emerson got really sick one time. She was just sick as a dog laying in her little bed, the bottom bunk, and she said to me, “It’s so funny that you guys are forced to witness me in this state.” And that was true. We just had to witness each other in all the states. If I didn’t want to be seen, I [still] had to be seen.
HP: We would have some pretty epic dance parties in that tiny room.
EJ: [There were] specific Just Dances that we would use if the vibe was just off, as a metaphor for, “Let’s bring this back, guys.”
NE: You could be in a conversation with three people. You could be in a conversation with one person, and the other person gets to check out. We went on a road trip to Canada, and the two people in the front would be chitty-chatting away, and the person in the back got phone time, they got quiet time, they got thinking time. I think it’s great. Cheers to triples.
EJ & HP: Cheers to triples!
Interview by Sophie Jager ’25. Transcribed and edited by Thomas Lyons ’26.
Sophie Jager can be reached at sjager@wesleyan.edu.
Thomas Lyons can be reached at tlyons@wesleyan.edu.
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