We’ve all experienced boredom in quarantine, and we have all been forced to find new ways to alleviate it. For two students living in the UMass Boston dormitory, that has meant creating a slip and slide and using it in the hallway of their dorms—keeping masks on all the while for safety, of course. 

“What can I say?” One of the students said. “We’re so bored. We don’t do anything these days, except watch lectures on our computers and take walks just to see the sun. So we did the only logical thing we could do—make a slip and slide course in our dorm hallway.”

“If you’re wondering if there was water spillage—yes, there was,” the other student said. “Quite a lot. Quite a big problem, actually. We may get sued.”

The students described the task of getting the slip and slide up and running as being “very difficult.”

“Well, first we had to hook a pipe up to one of the communal sink faucets, obviously, in order to provide water for the slip and slide. Then we had to fashion the actual slide out a tarp. It was all very complicated, but at least it kept us busy.”

Another student, living in a nearby room, witnessed this spectacle and shared her opinion: “I was alarmed, honestly. Normally I keep six feet away from my fellow dorm dwellers, but I kept sixty feet away from these guys. They’re wild.”

Another student in the dorm expressed envy: “I wish I’d thought of doing a slip and slide!” They added, “My current hobby is counting the dots on my ceiling. I got up to six thousand dots yesterday!” 

Other students within the dormitory were similarly very happy to share their new hobbies with me (it seemed they were happy to just talk to a new person). This poll represents some of the most popular hobbies for students living in the dorms this semester:

• 23 percent of students are spending significant amounts of time learning how to juggle.

• 14 percent of students are learning tightrope walking on a rope strung between the East dorm and West dorm.

• 6 percent of students are learning how to make “prison food.” They have plenty of access to normal food, it’s just “fun”. 

• One interesting student is learning the art of glass sculpting. She shared pictures with Mass Media of her room, full to the ceiling with beautiful glass structures. She said, “It’s difficult to find a place to sleep, the glass is everywhere. But I can’t stop.”

• 53 percent of students are attempting to learn mind control. None of them have been successful, except for one fascinating student who is now being pursued by Princeton University for research purposes. 

The two students who built the homemade slide in the hallway of their dorm may not be living in the dorm for much longer, but at least they gave me an interesting story. The students in the dorms are not the only ones suffering from boredom in quarantine. To paint you a better picture, dear reader, I am currently making candles with my feet while I write. I may have to take a page out of these students’ books. I’d love to try glass-making or prison snacks, but mind-control seems a bit too difficult. Motivation is not my strong suit these days.