Rosary is the home to many different types of students from many different places. Some parents, students, and even staff can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to drive to Rosary.

Let’s be honest: we all can indulge in a few extra minutes of sleep from time to time. Maybe that means pressing snooze on your alarm six times before you actually wake up or risking the inevitable stressful power walk to your first class. Either way, this is a universal experience. We all love the truest form of comfort in our own beds.

Luckily for Sydney Rosario ’23 and me (Kathleen Martinez ’23), we don’t have that problem. We love our beds. You can practically roll Sydney into a ball and push her from her house five minutes before school starts, and she will still be in her first class in the nick of time. The only thing stopping her from doing this is getting her hair messed up. Other than that, she’s all in.

Here are some of the perks of living less than five minutes away from school.

When we do wake up on time:

Kathleen: If I am feeling energized, I’ll wake up around 7 a.m. to make my lunch, get ready, and have breakfast before school. I find it calming to look out my windows with a hot cup of coffee as I prepare myself for a full day of learning. It’s very nice because the sun is shining, and it always puts a smile on my face.

Sydney: My day starts at 7:05 a.m. sharp. I get ready, which sometimes includes a slick-back hairdo, mostly because I have time to, pack all of my fifteen different snacks in numerous ZipLoc bags, eat a hearty breakfast, and I am out the door.

At this point, both of us are very calm and ultimately cheerful people. We might flash a smile to you in the hallways, compliment your uniform that looks exactly like our own, or you may even catch us mid-heel-click at the end of the hallway. If you have experienced this, just know we woke up on time.

When we wake up late:

Kathleen: However, on the days I wake up late, it’s always a close call. I usually roll out of bed and frantically grab my phone only to realize that it’s 7:40 a.m. when school starts at 7:55 a.m. At this moment I go into panic mode and struggle to tie my shoes and wash my face. These mornings I skip breakfast and somehow make it out of the house by 7:50 a.m. and arrive at school at 7:54 a.m.

Sydney: My morning routine goes a little something like this: I wake up at 7:30 am to get ready to go to school. In my mind, there is not that much I have to do to get ready. I awake, wash my face (splash cold water to calm the puffy eyes), brush my pearly whites for 1.25 minutes instead of a full 2, and throw on my uniform. There is no time for snacks. Occasionally, I would eat my breakfast at home, but lately, I have had to have my breaky to go. If I’m really feeling frisky, I’d wake up at 7:45 a.m. and make it just in time before the first period. On those days, I sacrificed my mood, which will affect every person I will encounter for the rest of the day but hear me out. It was worth it.

While being close to school comes with many perks, it also is a disadvantage. Both our parents used to make us walk home from school. Imagine a 5 ‘2 girls walking for around 10 to 15 minutes carrying a heavy backpack full of books, a lunch pail, and a hydro flask. The worst feeling was when we would see other friends from school drive past as we pathetically walked home.

Although walking was a great disadvantage, there is something worse. There’s no Starbucks on my way to school. Starbucks in the mornings is almost like an unwritten Rosary rule. I always longed to be one of those girls with a pink drink in their hand rushing to make it to class on time. But I cannot be one and there’s no point in driving to a Starbucks that is out of the way. It just isn’t the same.

Overall, Sydney and I love living close to school. But whether we lived close or far, Rosary is our true home.