A Weekend in Oberlin

In my last post I mentioned wanting to start a series of posts in which I give long-form answers to questions I receive on campus tours. Although it may seem like I haven't followed up on that, I've actually been working on a post answering some questions about music that's taking some time to put together. In the meantime, here's a post answering a question I get on almost every tour: what is a weekend in Oberlin like? What follows is a breakdown of this weekend, beginning on Friday afternoon and ending on Sunday night aka when I post this. It's not an extraordinary weekend but I'm reluctant to call it a typical one, mostly because I don't know what a typical weekend in Oberlin would be like. It's just this weekend, and it started at 4:30 on Friday, when my last class of the week ended.

FRIDAY
16:30 - I headed to my apartment in Firelands, where I started working on my application for a creative writing class I'd like to take next semester. After working for it a bit, I decided to relax after a long, stressful week that had me feeling like a member of Mr. Ratburn's class.

On this particular day relaxing meant watching the last two episodes of Gilmore Girls season 6, catching up on some journaling, and making myself some mac and cheese for dinner.
20:30 - I realized that I had a short German essay due at midnight that I probably should've already started writing considering I had plans to go out at nine.
21:30 - After finishing the essay I walked to Zoë and Emmi's house, where they were hosting a party for members of Collegium Musicum and some of their other friends. We drank spiced cider, played Cards Against Humanity, and talked about what we're singing in Collegium, John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer, and the difference between science major homework and humanities major homework, among other things. Plus I got to play with Emmi and Zoë's cat, Hugo.

23:45 - The group dispersed after some people went to Mudd for a midnight game of Hide and Seek. I decided to pass on the game and head to bed.

Saturday
8:30 - I woke up and proceeded to hang out in my bed writing in my journal and messing around on my phone for around 2 hours. Like I said, it was a long week and I maintain that I deserved the chill time.
11:00 - I got out of bed, ate a bit, showered, got dressed, and watched The Walking Dead, because every morning is better when it includes zombies. Before heading out for the day I decided to set up my planner for the next week. I love lists and simply do not remember to do things if I don't write them down so this is both an enjoyable activity and an essential one.
12:30 - I finally left my room and walked my bike over to The Local, a coffee shop in town with all of the same brews as Slow Train and the added benefit of the best bagels I've had west of the Hudson. While savoring my bagel I started in on a homework assignment, reading and analyzing a few poems by the German Expressionist Else Lasker-Schüler.
14:00 - I biked over to German House, where there was an informal concert/poetry reading. I got to hear an early Beethoven string quartet, some Lieder by Spohr, and coincidentally, some later poems by Lasker-Schüler. Unfortunately I had to leave after the intermission and missed the Kurt Weill cabaret songs in the second half of the program, but I really enjoyed what I got to hear.
15:00 - Time for Nothing But Treble rehearsal in the conservatory. We worked on our newest song, A Great Big World's "Say Something," and started divvying up the parts for and learning a classic Trebs song that we haven't performed in two years, For Real's "You Don't Know Nothing."
17:00 - I headed back to my apartment and talked to my mom, dad, and little brother on the phone.
19:15 - Conor and I walked to Julia's house, where we had a sort of reunion dinner with Julia, Ronni, Emma, and Tucker. All of us except for Emma's boyfriend Tucker lived in the same hall during our first year and don't get to see each other as often now that we're fourth-years. It was really great to catch up. We reminisced about our days in Kahn, shared some travel stories, and did some readings from this hilarious sexology book (published in 1926) that Julia bought from the public library bookstore this fall.

Plus, between Julia's Thai green curry and Emma and Tucker's pumpkin loaf, we ate pretty darn well.
24:00 - We all headed back to our respective apartments and houses and I went to sleep.

SUNDAY
10:00 - Having decided to let myself sleep in the night before, I woke up on the late side, but decide to start the day with some tidying that I had gotten behind on during the week.
12:00 - I went to Stevie for brunch and did the Times Sunday crossword.
12:30 - I made my way to the library to sort through my e-mail, write another short essay for a German class (I have a lot of those), print out a reading for my lit theory class.
15:00 - After finishing the essay and printing my reading I decided to do said reading back in my apartment, mostly because it's relatively quiet and has snacks. I did the reading, worked on some more homework, and started writing this blog post (very meta).

17:00 - Dinner (leftovers from Friday) and more homework, this time a chapter from Kafka's Der Process or The Trial. If only I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed cuddling with Hugo on Friday night.

And that is pretty much my weekend. I can't honestly say that all of my weekends are like this, but even so, I think this is a pretty good template for how much of the weekend I tend to spend out and about and how much of the weekend I spend holed up in my room. Because my school weeks are really front-loaded--Monday is my busiest day of the week and most of my assignments tend to be due on Mondays and Tuesdays--my schedule necessitates doing a lot of holing up, but I don't really mind spending a lot of time by myself. Next semester I might not even have classes on Mondays, which will likely make my weekends very different. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.