Sometimes, the familiar is comforting. After a long day, a homey dorm room or your favorite Starbucks drink might be just what you need to settle in for the night. Still, redundancy is often the “oh no! I forget salt!” of life. Luckily, spicing up life at NSU is plausible with a sense of adventure and the knowledge of a few secret spaces on campus.
Plant Your Feet in New Soils
For a new source of serenity, let your feet carry you to the campus NSU Native Narrows Wildflower Garden and onto the Healing and Medical Garden beyond maintained by NSU’s Nature Club. Here, you can sit back at the salt stone seating areas that branch off from a trail lined with wildflowers and exotic plants. Search hard enough, and you will find a partially concealed pathway leading to a wooden gazebo decorated in years worth of student graffiti. When you are done feeding your soul handwritten etchings of love, loss, and late night adventures or adding your own verse, you can nourish your soles walking over the Reflexology Pathway, inspired by principles of wellness in Eastern culture.
Talk to Yourself
Some people love hearing themselves speak, but even if you are a bit meeker than those, you will appreciate NSU’s feat of architectural acoustics — an audiological parallel to Narcissus’s lake. Just outside the Sports Medicine Clinic, bricks spiral around to the center of the pavement leading to a light circle marked with a shark. Stand on his fin and pray to the heavens, and you will hear a voice from the sky: your own! The circle is designed to bounce back any sound captured. You can use it to practice pronunciation for your language class, to hear yourself give a monologue, or on nights when you just want to hang out with “me, myself, and I.”
Read Your Sources at the Source
NSU moved its bookstore to campus last semester, and some students do not yet know to take advantage of the nice cement stretch between the Parker Building and the UC. Several tables and chairs lay waiting for students determined to do all of their readings, and luckily, if you forget a pen, a highlighter, or even your mascara, you can walk into the air conditioned building to stock up on school supplies. Going here later in the day or early in the morning to catch the sun rise or set might make your studying a little less stressful.
Bask in the Sun ft. Iguanas
Sometimes you have to create your own heaven! But palm trees and the Florida sky sure do help. Invest in a hammock or lawn chair and appreciate the beauty of NSU’s lake while jamming to your favorite tunes or meditating. You are bound to have campus critters like iguanas or ducks join you in sunbathing during the day, and at night, all the company you will need is the constellations glowing down on you and perhaps a toad or two.
Get As High As the Sky
While some might prefer to avoid anything more to do with parking, the NSU Library and Student Parking Garage always has a space on the roof for you to lean over the rail and enjoy our stunning campus. Whether you want to look at the exquisite architecture, ample greenery or pattering people, the top of the garage will feel like the top of the world. You make even want to bring a friend along to enjoy the view or a camera to snap some pictures for your Instagram.
