It was Thanksgiving morning in Dascomb lobby, and feathers were flying.
“These two girls got pissed off at each other,” a witness to the dispute said. “One of them was complaining about how nobody told her the food was [only available] at Stevenson. She was like, ‘we already paid for these meals.’ The other one was like, ‘I don’t want to listen to you whining — go away.’”
Although the altercation never came to blows, it was one of the more exciting moments over a sleepy Thanksgiving break at Oberlin College.
The great majority of Oberlin students left campus over Thanksgiving, either visiting their families or going with friends on road trips. Only a few hardy souls decided to remain and rough it out on the mostly-deserted campus.
The campus all but shut down over break. Only a few basic facilities, such as the dorms and Mudd, remained in service. Stevenson was the only dining hall that continued to serve food, albeit with a drastically scaled back schedule.
Students who stayed on campus told the Review that they had had a good time overall. Many formed makeshift families with their friends and prepared their own Thanksgiving dinners.
“I cooked a lot of food,” first-year Meaghan Brown said. “And ate a lot of food.”
“We baked 22 pounds of turkey, 20 pounds of mashed potato, pumpkin pie, stuffing… It was way better than Stevenson,” first-year Samina Ali said, referring to the special Thanksgiving dinner Stevenson offered students.
Several students said that they enjoyed the relative quiet and solitude.
“It was really fun because I got to be in an apartment,” first-year Rachel Weinstein said. “It was nice to be out of the dorm. Most of all, it was nice to just be by myself — to have that time and see Oberlin without everyone else here.”
“I enjoy being alone, and I enjoy there being quiet,” first-year Craig Barnes said. “This was beautiful.”
“I liked being here, how it was really quiet,” first-year Xander Quine said. He added, however, “I wish more of my friends were around.”