Fort Carmen

All is quiet in the town of Oxford. And the Miami campus..even more so. And except for the students who've left their barricades of a dorm room to wait in the line outside McCrackin Market for some energy food, there is nobody on the streets. Nobody playing basketball on the quarts or laying out in the Quad. The campus is dead.

As you enter the doors of Morris Hall you can tell something is different. The hallways are dark and gloomy. People walk around like shades in the Underworld. Lost. Dazed. Tired. People bear sweatpants instead of collared shirts and only step out of their dismal rooms to use the restroom, where unlike every other weeknight, is empty of students hung over from the night before.

Everyone is safely locked away in their rooms. Studying, writing, drinking coffee, trying to enquire enough caffeine to pull an all nighter, dreading the moment when they have to walk out of this hall and into that exam room, but waiting for that moment of release. Their last final of Miami University's Finals Hell Week.

But there is a different atmosphere as you creep into room 240, where it's occupants are shuffling around and making noise. What could they be doing? Don't they have finals? Don't they have papers to write and tests to study for? Aren't they sleep deprived, just like every other student? Aren't they stressed out of their minds!

Yes. They are. But what's different about these girls is that they know how to make light of a terrible situation. How to bring happiness into this dreadful time. How to take this whole ordeal one day at a time. Also......they procrastinate.

So, why every other student is lost in their Chemistry books and glued to their lap top these girls are building a fort. That's right. Mallory finished her 1500 word paper that we all thought would never end and Marissa typed up her Greek Civ study guide that took 5 hours to make. They even called Katherine from room 257 to come share in this joyment of youth.

It took hard labor. It took strength. It took skill. It took minutes of brainstorming and the risk of injury, but finally it was completed. Beds turned over sideways, mattresses on the floor, sheets overhead. Fort Carmen was founded and oh boy was it a glorious site.

These girls accomplished what no other Miamian had ever accomplished the weekend before finals week and they were proud of what they had done. So, they layed down and took in the pleasure of their handy work. And did they go back to studying? No! They enjoyed this time by talking to people on aim and wasting away hours on facebook. And when they were finally done celebrating their ingeniousness they went to bed.

But they knew that when they woke up the next morning they would turn into those ghosts called college students. They would be bombarded with all the stuff they had put off the day/night before. But it was all worth it for that one night of bliss, for that one youthful dream before the reality of the nightmare that awaited the next day, of the only thing keeping them sane at this time in their life. That one fun night the world stopped for Mallory, Marissa, and Katherine to build Fort Carmen.