Bard College, the liberal arts school located 120 miles north in Annandale-on-Hudson, "puts the 'liberal' in 'liberal arts,'" according to the 'Princeton Review.' It has a 600-acre campus and nearly 1500 undergrads. This is their story—as told by a student who would like to be known as Stephan K. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, the day that America shops. Students that hail from small liberal arts colleges like Bard have little need for purchasing marked-down trinkets and gym memberships. Instead, the majority of Bard students gather in New York, and observe one another in their natural habitats.

At a party hosted by a friend (we'll call her Saint Dee) at her penthouse apartment, there was Adrian. She leaned against a large silver sculpture and, manifesting a somewhat accidental Southern accent, asked me if "this was what private school parties were like."

I said that I thought so. Adrian and I went to the same public high school, recently compared (in light of the various scandals associated with the report cards given out by the city to public high schools) by none-other-than Bard president Leon Botstein himself, to a vegetarian restaurant that doesn't serve the meat the Department of Education is looking for. Keep yours eyes on the New York Times for new and improved metaphors from He-Who-Shall-Be-Named-Repeatedly-As-Often-As-Possible.

Anyway, the apartment, by no means anything less than gorgeous, was packed with kids from, as Saint Dee put it, "around the world." They were all equipped with brand new wine glasses, the labels of which Saint Dee's mother was graciously removing from the glasses as she wandered about.

The mother, who said of herself that she was "supposed to be locked in my room, not talking to anyone," also told us that she had "dreamed of going to Bard" and so she was "overjoyed" that her daughter was able to attend such a wonderful college where we would be "meeting the most amazing people you'll meet in your entire lives."

She then inspected a nearby kid's joint-rolling skills, gave him a few pointers, and said goodnight.

Paul, decidedly lost on the East Coast, exclaimed that he wanted "a mother just like that" which prompted many people around us to agree vehemently.

Praising Bard College was a theme for the night, I realized, while outside talking to a sophomore I had never seen before (a rare occurrence in such a small community, probably caused by the fact that she was barely tall enough to reach the counter). She told me that Bard was "paradise" and "the only good place left on earth, or at least in America."

"New York," she said, "is a wasteland. New York is dead. It's over, New York is over, and all that's left is Bard."

"Can I write about you in my column?" I asked, thirsting for material. "I write a column for Gawk—"

She held up her hand to my face. Her wineglass shivered a little in her other hand. She closed her eyes and exhaled. Then she opened them again, stepped back and shoved my shoulder.

"NARC!" she screamed. "It's you! You're the NARC! I've been looking for you!"

I laughed.

"You're the one who's been reporting on us! Why—Why would you do that?"

"Wait," I interrupted her. "You're kidding, right? You read Gawker?"

"Of course I read Gawker, I'm from the city, what the fuck else would I read?" she responded and then whipped out her phone.

She insisted on taking my number, telling me that she wanted to "remember me" and that we would "discuss this later." The event prompted some discussion between me and my friend, CC Mellows, who had seen the whole thing.

"What would my pseudonym be?" she asked.

"I don't know, what do you want it to be?"

"CC Mellows! Oh, but don't be mean if you write about me!" she said.

"No, no, never, of course not... What would I say, that you don't smoke pot, that you're British, that you smoke Capri's...."

"Well, that's fine," she said. "But you know those people on Gawker, not matter what you say, they'll be like 'CC MELLOWS IS A CUNT!'"

Another girl I spoke to about being depicted in the column, an Australian (Saint Dee clearly wasn't kidding when she said "kids from all around the world") told me I could put her in the column, but added: "Don't be too harsh."

"I wouldn't dream of it!" I tried to reassure her.

"Oh, but don't worry," she said. "You can be a little mean, just not too much, I mean, I used to write for 'Vice Australia,' so I know how to spell cynicism!"

And so it seems that Bard students are little bit more on edge when they arrive back in the city. The next night a group of us partied at the apartment of a friend. The girl lived in New Jersey, but the apartment, in Battery Park City, was a place her parents owned for weekend trips into the city.

It didn't take long for one of us to discover a cabinet with buckets of porn, the majority of which featured a character named "Big Omar."

After someone let the gerbil they had found in a parking lot with half a tail out of its portable cage, and we wandered over to Bowling Green to find a cell phone-less friend, we began to discuss the return trips plans for Sunday.

"If you guys come to Jersey with me in the afternoon, I'll drive you home," GG Trance offered to me and Lips.

"What are we going to do in Jersey?"

"Go to an All-You-Can-Eat Mongolian Grill and then drive really fast over speed bumps near the L'Oreal factory."

There was silence. Adrian twirled her hair with one hand and fixed her tights with the other. She looked around, giggled a little, and then smiled.

"I miss Bard," she said.


Previously: The Day David Bowie Died