War of the Freshman Study Break

Gym shorts versus ascots; ice cream versus English tea; stairwells versus sparkling dorm rooms—a classic case of head-to-head study break smackdown.

When Straus takes on Canaday, one would expect a difference in ambience: colonial elegance takes on bomb-shelter rigidity. But a disparity in study breaks? Unacceptable.

Canaday A holds study breaks fit for kings. “Tea Time” occurs every Sunday at midnight, complete with a fashionably late elite, the “elevator music”, the freshly cleaned room, and a gentleman donning an ascot.

Contrast that with the somewhat less formal “Ambiguous Unnamed Study Break” in Straus A, where boxed ice cream consumed in the stairwell by a meager three students is the norm.

“We’re busy, and our prefect set up the study break [sign-up] list on top of the stairs,” explains Ned D.H. Levin ’08 of Straus. As of yet, no one has made the trek up the stairs to sign up to host.

Tea Time, on the other hand, features consistent attendance as well as ample accoutrements.

“Noel, the philosophy guy, showed up to Tea Time in an ascot. It’s like a puffy tie, a piece of silk, an alternative to a tie that you wear with a suit,” says Silas I. Richelson ’08. “It’s casual. It’s a European thing.”

Noel, however, is not the centerpiece of Tea Time but simply a part of the experience.

“Everyone gets into it. Tea Time has an aura. The aura affects people,” says Richelson. “They’re more polite, more willing to help out. It’s what a study break wants to be.”