04/25/2019
Griffin Sendek | Features Editor
Duquesne campus Friday afternoon, without a single soul in sight.
Easter break is a wondrous time to be away from brain-numbing classes and spend time with family before returning to the unforgiving, unrelenting and ever-approaching tidal wave that is finals.
The five-day weekend is best celebrated surrounded by friends and family, but there are a few unlucky ones, myself included, who were stuck on the Bluff. Unlike Duquesne’s other breaks, thankfully all of the dorm facilities remained open without a need to apply for break housing.
Just because the dorms remained open the entirety of break did not mean that the dining facilities would be available for students at decent hours, nor affordable.
If I was looking to eat at any point this break, the only option for food between Friday and Sunday was The Incline. Lunch was available between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and dinner was served between the hours of 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Anyone that happened to be hungry after 6 o’clock, was forced to find food elsewhere.
For what I must assume is a completely logical and absolutely necessary reason, meal swipes were unavailable to be used for the entirety of break. Campus food could only be purchased with FLEX, PLUS or actual money from your bank account.
Being the end of the semester, my FLEX balance, unsurprising, was dangerously low. No matter how many times Duquesne attempts to convince me to purchase PLUS through its multitude of advertisements and reminder emails, I will be dead in the ground before even considering it once.
Suffice it to say, I did not consume any campus food over the break, electing instead to buy food off campus.
Over break campus basically shuts down. Thursday night it was nearly empty. Come the weekend, Duquesne was an utter ghost town.
My wing in Towers that is perpetually filled with the rowdy cacophony of college boys was dead silent.
If you find yourself in my situation, alone, as what feels like the only person still on campus, my biggest pieces of advice are: 1. Milano’s Pizza is only good until the second day, any longer than that and it should be thrown away immediately. 2. Get out of the dorm as much as possible.
With the goal of avoiding cabin fever like the plague, blessed with absolutely beautiful weather, I found myself walking all across Pittsburgh. I did not wake up each morning with the goal of walking multiple miles everyday, it was just a situation I found myself in. At the culmination of Easter break, according to my activity app, I racked up a total of 61,314 steps.
I’m not saying the only way to stay sane while stuck on campus is to walk an obscene amount, but instead of lying in bed all day long scrolling through your Instagram feed, do the exact same thing, but lying on a blanket underneath the shade of a tree.
Even if you are the biggest hermit, spending the entire break locked inside without the contact of a single other person would result in anyone going absolutely crazy. Going outside and catching some rays is crucial to surviving break alone. Netflix won’t go anywhere, I promise.
This was the first time in my 19 years that I have ever spent the Easter holiday alone, which in many ways felt very strange, but I don’t regret my decision to stay.
Over the course of the break I was able to walk all across Pittsburgh, get a chance to read for fun and not for class, experiment with street photography, get over a bad case of writers block and watch a movie every single night. Basically everything I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t had the chance.
I think everyone should one point in their college career spend a break on campus, it’s one experience you can’t get anywhere else.
