Woodworking Study Break Goes Awry

          It can be hard coming up with inventive Study Breaks, those hour long weekday events held by House Teams to allow students to blow off some steam and maybe get a little creative. One dorm chose to hold a Woodworking event, where participants would collectively build a set of bird houses to hang around campus. The team thought it would be a good way to get everyone working together, and probably very few had held a hammer since seventh grade shop class. They also thought that, coming right back from spring break, stress would be low and there would be little danger. Unfortunately, stress was high, as few had completed any homework over break. 
          Problems started when the students were asked to use a hammer and nail to combine pieces of wood to make the walls of the miniature houses. Several started crying when they could not line up the edges straight enough, and were led away for an hour of peaceful meditation. One student, Chris Coe '13, commandeered the meeting by suggesting that they combine the houses to make a "bird condo", which was quickly latched onto by the participants, overriding the house teams' cries. Eventually, the student in charge of the event tried to kick out Coe, starting a riot among the students who decried the "censorship of speech" and began chucking handfuls of nails and tools at the house team. In the end, the mishmash of wood, nails, and disconnected roofs was claimed as an "open space" for birds, an idea that many, aside from Coe, seemed happy enough with.