Fika - Life's Simple Pleasure by Jonathan

Fika - Life's Simple Pleasure by Jonathan - January 2018 Scholarship Essay

Another night. Another all-nighter ushered in by yet another 5-page paper assignment. Another sunrise viewed from your chair in the library through puffy eye-lids, blood-shot eyes and a semi-conscious mind.

While procrastination and all-night cramming remain two universal habits of nearly all college students, the following morning’s inevitable grogginess doesn't necessarily have to follow in its place. In fact, what got me, personally, through many of these nights was the promise of fika that the morning would bring.

The word fika hails from Sweden, and refers to the communion of friends and family over hot coffee and freshly baked pastries. As an undergraduate, my home for fika was the Dirt Cowboy Café - a simple yet meaningful establishment to the students of Hanover, N.H. Opening promptly at 7am each morning and coinciding with the end of my customary all-nighter, I would make my way across the college green and through the front of the small café, opening the double-doors and inhaling the crisp aroma of newly ground coffee. Often I would rendezvous with other students who had also endured a night of studying. Over steaming, single-origin coffee selections and fresh pastries we would gather and share this time of fika.

Where there remains a gap in the English language for such an activity as I’ve described above, fika fills its place quite handily. Thus, as I enter Law School this coming Fall, I look forward to this renewed experience of fika, and the encouragement and motivation it will provide me in pressing through any future all-nighters .