TWINS

Cabot House these days is a bit like a Shakespearean play.

In the Bard's A Comedy of Errors, one set of twins serves another set of twins on the island of Ephesus. At the beginning of the play, however, the city's people do not realize that there are two identical master-servant pairs, for one long-lost pair has just arrived on the island.

Predictable mishaps ensue: One of the servant twins mislays a bag of gold he never received and is nearly killed because of it; one of the master twins does not appear for dinner and nearly loses his wife. Luckily, at the end of the play, the twins realize their mistakes and all ends well.

In Cabot House, the stakes are not so high as in the Shakespearean comedy. There is no gold to be carried and there are no marriages to be destroyed. But there are two pairs of female identical twins in the house, each pair with the same major, and both in each pair living next door to each other.

The twins say that sometimes people confuse them for each other, which may have comic results. But all four make sure to emphasize one thing: no matter how much they may look like their sisters, they are very different people.

Nyala and Nyasha

Nyala S. Ward '96 and Nyasha A. Ward '96 live side-by-side in the Cabot E entryway, in rooms 303 and 302, and both sisters concentrate in statistics. The two say they were housed in separate dorms their first year at Harvard, but not by choice.

According to Nyasha, the two requested that they live together in the Yard. Unbeknownst to them, however, their mother also contacted the Freshman Dean's Office with a request--that the twins not live together. But the separate housing worked out fine, says Nyasha.

"[Nyala] was always in Canaday with me anyway," Nyasha says. They blocked together and ended up in Cabot.

When Nyala is asked how much time she and Nyasha spend together, she laughs. "How much time do we spend together? A lot."

They basically have the same circle of friends, Nyala says, eat breakfast together and take the same concentration classes.

But although they live a stone's throw from each other and spend many hours together, both emphasize that they are not at all the same person.

"We're so different," Nyala says. "It's not like our friends say, 'I just talked to Nyasha, [so] I don't have to talk to Nyala now."

Nyasha agrees: "We're together a lot, but we have very distinct personalities."

"I'm older [by eight minutes], but she tends to be the more motherly figure," Nyasha observes. "I'm more out-going than she is...In a group of people, I'll be the one talking."

Nyala says Nyasha's characterization is accurate: "I'm much more reserved. In a group of people I'll be observing, and she'll be doing most of the talking...In certain situations, Nyasha might be quicker to tell people what she thinks."

Nyasha also says that Nyala helps motivate her.

"She's not hard on me, but she motivates me," Nyasha says. "She's the calm one, and I'm the out-there' one. When people meet us, they think she's older."

And Nyala points out that her twin likes sweets more than she does. "She has a sweeter tooth than I do. She likes chocolate a lot," Nyala says.

Although both now concentrate in statistics, they started out at Harvard concentrating in mathematics.

"I didn't like math. It was too the-oretical," Nyala says. "It was starting to get on my nerves."

Because they both started getting tired of math, they decided to change concentrations at the same time.

"She said, 'I don't want to do that,' and I said, 'I didn't want to do that,' so we switched," Nyasha says.

Both say they are interested in business consulting or maybe actuarial work after college.

Ironically, both sisters work in libraries: Nyasha at Lamont and Nyala at the Radcliffe Career Services library.

This summer, they are both working in New York, Nyala at Nynex and Nyasha at Chemical Bank. While working in New York City, the sisters will be just a short trip from home; they have lived in Long Island for 13 years. Prior to that, the Canadian born twins lived in Jamaica.

Nyala recalls a funny story about mistaken identities when they were young:

"I remember when we were little and lived in Jamaica, we had a nanny," Nyala says. "For the longest time, she called us both Nyasha, and I responded to both names."

Finally, she says, her father realized that Nyala was answering to both names and told her that her name was Nyala, not Nyasha. Ever since, she has responded to her own name and not her sister's, she says.

People at Harvard sometimes confuse the two of them, especially those who do not know them that well, they say. Their friends can tell them apart, however.

But Nyala says despite her experience with living with a look-alike sister, it is still difficult for her to distinguish between Cabot's other set of twins.

"To me, they seem more alike than Nyasha and I do, but that's probably because I don't know them that well," she says.

Nyasha says she gets many questions about being a twin.

"I think it's funny when people ask what it's like being a twin. It's all I've known," she says.

Jennifer and Jocelyn

Cabot's other pair of twins live in rooms 400 and 402 in Cabot House entry H.

Jennifer Lynne Bush '97 and Jocelyn Lynne Bush '97 seem strikingly similar in both appearance and activities.

Both are taking the same four classes, both are biology concentrators, both have wanted to be doctors ever since they can remember, both want to go to medical school together and both are doing research in the same Indianapolis hospital this summer (although for two different doctors).

"Everybody always teases us, saying, "You are all the same person, you share the same brain,"' Jocelyn says. "That is completely annoying."

Jennifer says that although she and Jocelyn were not brought up like traditional twins, they are still nearly inseparable. "For the greater part of the day, we are always together," Jennifer says.

"My parents didn't raise us like we were twins," says Jennifer, who is two minutes older than Jocelyn. They said, "Jennifer, you are the middle child; you are older than your sister," Jennifer says.

Both sisters say they enjoy community service work at Phillips Brooks House, and both like reggae. One difference, however, is that Jocelyn is a vegetarian, and Jennifer is not.

The two say they enjoy roller-blading together, despite their lack of experience.

"We're both bad, so it's doesn't matter if we look bad in front of others--we have each other," Jennifer says.

And they both mentioned the advantages of having a "ready-made" study partner in every class.

They do have two "birthmarks" that enable others to tell them apart: Jocelyn has a scar next to her right eye from a fall when she was two years old and Jennifer has a mole on her chin from a childhood bout with chicken pox.

But Jennifer says that people at Harvard tell them apart in the most "unique" ways she has ever seen.

"They will say, 'Jocelyn walks differently, Jocelyn walks bigger, Jocelyn smiles more'" and not even pay attention to the birthmarks, Jennifer says.

Jocelyn and Jennifer say these clever identification techniques should not be necessary; they don't think they look alike at all.

"Everyone asks, 'How do people tell you apart?"' Jocelyn says. "My common response is, 'We don't look alike.'"

Jennifer agrees.

"I don't think we look alike," she says. "When I look at her, I don't see myself."

Their personalities are also different, the sisters say.

"She's a little bit more outgoing than I am," Jennifer says. "I'm a little shy sometimes. She's a little bit more feisty than I am. She's definitely going to make sure her point is heard."

And Jocelyn says she generally agrees with people who say she is the more aggressive and open twin. She also says that Jennifer mothers her: "She's very concerned about how I am, and she makes sure I do everything that's good for me."

Although people who do not know them well some-times confuse them, men who are interested in one or the other can easily tell them apart, both twins say.

"In the beginning, if they just started going out and he doesn't know how she talks, I can confuse him a little," Jocelyn says.

But "guys, when they see twins, they look beyond that, and find the difference," says Jennifer.

The two say they differ in more than looks. For example, this year the pair did have different preferences in the housing lottery.

"Jocelyn wanted to be in Currier. I wanted to be in North. So they stuck us in Cabot," Jennifer says.

They both knew they wanted to go to the same college, "but it was with the understanding that you could choose the school you wanted to," Jocelyn says.

Both say Harvard was their top choice, and their alumni interviewers told them in advance that they would receive the same fate, Jocelyn says.

"During our first interview at Harvard, they said that if you guys both have the same grades, either you'll both get in, you'll both get wait-listed or you'll both get rejected," Jocelyn says.

But Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons says twins are treated no differently from any other two applicants to Harvard.

"We really treat twins or triplets or quadruplets or quintuplets really the way we would treat any individual applicant," Fitzsimmons says. "We literally evaluate our applications one at a time."

The Long and Short of It

However much the twins may be different, however, all four are the same in their love and respect for their sisters.

Each of the sisters says her sister is her best friend. And both pairs say they will remain close emotionally, if not physically.

"If we're not in the same city, we'll just call each other every day," Jocelyn says, and Nyasha agrees.

"I think even if I lived across the country, I'd still talk to her a lot," Nyasha says.

None of them knows why all four ended up in Cabot, but they all say they think it is fun for two sets of twins to be in the same house.

"I thought it was really ironic--and female twins at that," Nyala says.

Maybe it's just chance or a comedy of errors--or maybe the gods of the housing lottery have a peculiarly literary bent. Stranger things have happened.