Cozy with my green Milstein chair.

Recently, I have been keeping up with the market and consumer spending. I was pleased to learn that Beyoncé Knowles Carter raised $579.8 million in ticket and merchandise sales. Selling 2.8 million tickets, Beyoncé’s world tour played 56 shows across 10 countries and 39 cities throughout Europe and North America. I care very much about the US economy, so in honor of Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour (RWT) having come to a strong end on October 1, I will be listing the top five places at Barnumbia that commuters frequently visit represented as five select songs on the RWT setlist. 

As someone who commutes to campus from midtown, I most certainly do not have time to return home in between classes due to the frequent rain causing subway delays, evening traffic delaying bus routes, and being far too out of shape to walk the four miles that lives between my home and Broadway & 116th Street. 

Dangerously In Love 2

“Dangerously In Love 2” is the song with which Beyoncé opened each show of her tour. A beautifully sung ballad that speaks to the passion of true infatuation. The lower level of Diana, by the Glicker-Milstein Theater, is a space on campus that I am quite dangerously in love with. The low lighting, deep blue walls, and oh-so-comfortable couches is just what I need as someone who lives miles away from campus. My routine is to purchase a cranberry muffin in Liz’s Place and run off into the sunset (down to the lower level) with my laptop and write my discussion posts for my Critical Writing course (shoutout to ENGLBC-3193-04). 

Flaws And All

This semester I am working two jobs as a customer associate at Free People and as an intern with a PR firm. I often have Zoom meetings in-between my classes that I am expected to unmute and speak in, and I more times than not leave myself 10 minutes to quickly find a quiet spot. I used to sit outside on the terraces in Milstein, but after getting violently attacked by bees and lantern flies back in September, I had to find an indoor alternative. I came across the Harry Potter-style-beneath-the-stairs-seating, and I would like to honor Beyoncé’s, “Flaws And All” to this spot. She sings: “I don’t know why you love me / And that’s why I love you / You catch me when I fall / Accept me, flaws and all / And that’s why I love you.” Whenever I think that I have no luck finding a quiet spot, I remember the cushioned seating on the lower level of Milstein, and I rejoice. This spot catches me when I fall, and that’s why I love it. 

COZY 

This song best represents my connection to the green chairs in Milstein, specifically on the third floor in the back corner. This is probably a Barnard commuter’s go-to campus spot to kill time between class, and something about the fuzzy green chairs facing Broadway makes it very, very cozy. 

I’M THAT GIRL

My chronic OCD causes me to be painfully early to every single club meeting that I have. Most of my clubs meet in Lerner, so I give myself 10 minutes to walk from where I usually reside in Diana LL to Lerner. I fear being late, so I will speed walk over to Lerner in less than four minutes and spend the rest of the time acting like I am doing something on my laptop as I sit at the tables on the ramps of Lerner. Putting on my headphones while fiddling around on my laptop has me feeling like I am that girl, as Beyoncé best articulated in this song. 

ENERGY

Possibly Beyoncé’s most celebrated song on the Renaissance album, and most anticipated set during the show, “ENERGY”’s ‘Mute Challenge’ led me to shout out the fourth floor of Butler. Butler Library was originally a daunting location for me to enter, mainly because I could quite literally hear a pin drop from one inch off the ground. As Beyoncé said, “Look around, everybody on mute.” I am a talkative person, and before being on this floor, I used to doubt my ability to stay on mute.

Beyoncé via Wikimedia Commons.