A Day in the Life on Midterm Break

So I think anyone you talk to on the Carleton campus will tell you that even an hour of free time is cherished. Breaks are few are really hard to come by. We don’t really observe any holidays and there’s no reason for us to have any days off during the week.

What we do get, however, is a single day in the middle of the term called Mid-Term break.

Now that doesn’t sound like a long time, and to be fair, it’s not, however I think you’ll find that mid term break is a gift that keeps on giving.

For me, I probably will get work done on that day, but that leaves me with Saturday for fun and shenanigans. So let’s walk through today!

7:00* AM

Is when I kind of woke up. That’s the time I opened my eyes and looked at my phone for about a half hour (what can I say? I have not been saved from the screenager epidemic.)

I got ready for the day and looked over what homework I have for the weekend. Not much this weekend! Taking notes on a chapter for Greek, studying for a Greek quiz, doing a couple problems for physics, and a reading for my understanding religion class.

Additionally, it was snowing for one of the first times this term! It probably snows more where I lived in Colorado than it does here so I appreciate it anytime it does snow here. It was so pretty and my view from the Goodhue super lounge may have been a little distracting from my work. But that’s okay! It’s midterm break! I have time.

11:30 AM

BRUNCH. At Carleton, normally breakfast is served starting at 7:30 but on weekends, the language dining center (LDC) opens for brunch at 10:30 and Burton dining opens at 11:30. Even though I live in Goodhue which is probably the dorm furthest away from Burton, I went there for food because they have trays there and I wanted to partake in the Carleton tradition of traying (taking trays from the dining hall and using them as sleds!)

When I got there, I quickly realized that taking trays would be pretty awkward as it’s not an officially approved activity by the school. I ended up deciding not to take the trays and instead opted for the sledding library that was at a house right next to campus!

12:00 PM

Sledding! This was a really fun part of the day. Behind the Evans dorm is an amazing hill for sledding and my friend and I took our sleds up and down the hill for about an hour and it was amazing.

Afterwards, our friend had an indoor track meet so we went for about an hour and a half at the rec to cheer him on. One really nice thing about Carleton is that it’s a relatively small campus but there’s a ton of things happening all of the time so it’s very easy to go from thing to thing and have done a lot of things throughout the day.

2:45 PM

At this point I’m pretty cold and tired. Time for a hot chocolate break! A couple friends and I journeyed across campus to the Sayles Cafe where two of us got hot chocolate and my friend got sushi (yes, you can get that here in the mid-west and from what I’ve heard, it’s not half bad!)

Afterwards, I went back to my dorm and talked to some of my friends back at home and got a little bit of work done before the Mid-Winter Ball that was happening that night!

6:00 PM

I journeyed all the way from Goodhue back to Burton again for dinner. We had dinner for a couple hours, which is definitely abnormal but not entirely uncommon. Afterwards it was time to get ready for Mid-Winter ball!

8:30 PM

Rugby had a pre-ball hang out! Rugby also has a tradition where we all take photos in the laundry room in Burton every Mid-Winter Ball. Getting on top of the machines for the photo in our dresses was definitely an experience, but very fun overall!

10:15 PM

The dance! There was the classic DJ room in Sayles, but there was also a room for Latin dancing (think Salsa) and a different one for classic ball room dances! (think Waltz or Fox Trot) While I’m not a great dancer, I had gone to a couple of social dance club practices and so it was very fun trying to stumble through the dances.

Overall, it was just a very nice time getting dressed up and hanging out with my friends in a very nice and formal setting.

12:25 AM

Debrief time! I will be completely honest, the parties at Carleton are not exactly the most exciting things. For me at least, the most exciting and the parts of parties I remember the most are the debriefs post activity. The people I went to the dance with and I went to one of our dorms and chat and hung out for a few hours