Campus Life and Staff Reporters

Dorm life during winter break could be compared to Stephen King’s “The Shining.” However, students didn’t go crazy with chainsaws like Jack Nicholson’s character, who was left alone in a hotel with only his family.

But a few NIU students did get the creeps from the lonely halls.

“There are a lot of weird noises the dorms make when there isn’t anybody here,” said Kasey Ruth, a freshman early childhood education major. “It’s scary by yourself, especially at night. I wouldn’t recommend staying here [over break].”

Junior undecided major Noelle Rodgers said her mind played games on her, and even though the halls were dead silent, she heard scary noises in the shower or felt like she was being followed.

Despite bad experiences, students passed time by working, eating and being with friends.

Ruth chose to remain in the dorms over break to keep both her job at Ruby Tuesday’s and her paycheck.

“There wasn’t much to do, so I worked a lot of doubles most days,” Ruth said.

Ruth said if she would have gone home, she probably would have worked, but she wouldn’t have made nearly as much money. She said each day wasn’t very exciting, except for one morning when she woke up at 8 a.m. to an obnoxious hammering sound.

“It was bouncing off of every wall,” Ruth said. “I called the front desk, and they said it was the janitors. They couldn’t do much about it.”

She found out later that the hammering came from an outside construction site.

After eating days’ worth of microwaveable food, Ruth found it harder to eat. After time passed without talking to people, she also found it to be lonely.

Staying in Douglas Hall from Christmas Day on, Senior accounting major Phil Cruz said there was no choice when it came to where to spend his break.

“The alternative was worse than staying on an empty campus — four weeks with my family?” Cruz said. “I think that would’ve been unhealthy for me.”

“There’s not much to do here in DeKalb,” he said. “You could do everything all in one day, so I had to pace myself.”

Cruz said on a typical day he’d wake up at 1 p.m., call some friends, watch a movie, hang out with two people who stayed on his floor, talk on the Internet and order food.

“I knew the cafeterias were going to be closed, so I stocked up on food before break,” he said. “I ate a lot of fast food, [mostly] Chinese and pizza.”

Once a day Cruz would leave the dorms.

“I had to get out, or I’d go stir crazy,” he said. “Sometimes I’d drive over to my friend’s house.”

Despite the downs of vacant dorm life, Cruz said he found a few ups.

“I was happy when I could park wherever I wanted,” he said. “With everyone gone, there wasn’t much to do. On the other hand, the peace and quiet gave me time to kick back, relax and read.”

As a Lincoln D-Wing CA, Rodgers didn’t have a choice. With too many hours in the day, Rodgers found ways to keep herself busy on top of working. She said she finished all of her door decorations for her hall, updated bulletin boards, talked with friends and spent time with her boyfriend.

“I was either on duty, which my hall checks went by rather quickly, or I was in training,” she said. “It was nice to be by yourself and be able to get stuff done.”

Among the two people that stayed on her floor over break, she had no problems on duty as a CA. However, Rodgers is glad to see everyone return.

“Break has been too long,” she said. “It’s dead up here — you’re better off going home.”