The suffocating winter blues of Cornell are in full swing. It’s freezing, prelim season lurks, the sky is grey, the trees are bare, spring break feels impossibly far away and the future looms fearfully. To help you wheeze and blubber your way through campus this dreary season, here are the best places on campus to fall apart (with varying degrees of dignity).
1. The Shower
A classic for a reason. Here, you have guaranteed visual privacy, as well as the convenient instant cleansing of the tears and snot coursing down your face. Unfortunately your wails will echo on the tiled walls, so you will need to choke those back so as to not bother your peers.
2. Your Dorm (or Apartment) Room
Ideal if you have a single. Complete privacy means you can call your mom, writhe around dramatically or ugly-cry into your pillow undisturbed.
If in a double, keep the sobs muffled so as to not disrupt your roommate who will be trying to study, nap and maintain the fragile sense of normalcy one requires while living in a shoe box and can probably only get a maximum of four feet away from you.
3. Botanical Gardens
Nature heals, or so they say. In addition to the botanical garden, you can wander the vegetable garden, wildflower garden and arboretum while questioning your life choices. So bundle up, get your umbrella, and find a dry bench to curl up on! There’s limited visual privacy, but you can make quite the racket without bothering others. Maybe the woodland creatures will emerge to comfort you.
4. Dining Hall of Your Choice
No privacy and extra pathetic looking as your tears drip onto your plate! But, you can eat your emotions away with the greatest of possible ease. For particularly tough funks, I recommend mixing ice cream with chocolate milk for maximum sugar-induced numbness. Top with fruits or cereals if desired. Your mental pain will be replaced by bowel pain soon enough.
5. During a Prelim
This one writes itself, no pun intended. Succumb to your emotions and distract your fellow students with your whimpers and snuffles, helping to bring the curve down. But don’t get any tears on your exam, TAs have enough to deal with.
6. The Barns
There’s something about hundreds of sheep staring at you, full of judgement, that makes one acutely ashamed of their display of weakness. This may spur you to feel better or pull yourself together. If all fails, you can also visit the pot bellied hogs, whose delightful antics may cheer you up.
7. A Random Building You Never Enter
If you’re stuck on campus during a high traffic point of the day and cannot contain your emotions, go into a building you don’t usually go into. Even if you can’t attain privacy, you have anonymity as the tears pour from your eyes. Shame can’t touch you if you have no identity.
8. A Stacks Cubicle
This is perfect for a silent breakdown where you just need a moment, because other than being very peaceful (I find the rows of books calming), you have almost complete privacy. If you have some shame, simply tilt your face away when someone walks by doing the awkward peer down the row of books to see if a spot’s open. A dignified breakdown, if I’ve ever seen one.
9. The Gym
Perhaps don’t go here if you’re actively losing it, but if you’re in a proper funk and can’t get out of it, consider getting some exercise. Turn your despair into gains. If it doesn’t help, at least you’ll be a muscular crying person and not a flabby one. You can open jars of comfort food with greater ease, and can punch your pillow with increased ferocity.
10. Bathroom
I don’t really recommend this myself. It's gross in bathrooms, and with the lack of restrooms here as it is, we need every toilet available just for the prospective porcelain-bus drivers. But I’ve heard enough people doing it to know it’s preferred, perhaps for the veneer of privacy in a chaotic world. Fair enough.
I hope the gloomy multitudes can seek solace and guidance in this list. I also hope we can get some sunlight soon so it won’t be so necessary. Hang in there Cornell. As Punxatawney Phil wisely proclaimed, spring isn’t far away!
Aurora Weirens is a fourth year student in the College of Arts & Sciences. Her fortnightly column The Northern Light illuminates student life. She can be reached at aweirens@cornellsun.com.
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