If you walk into Krzyzewskiville during the next three weeks you will see a myriad of large tents dotting the horizon. Tenting is a symbol of Duke’s culture and extremely strong school spirit, #DDMF. As a freshman not knowing what to expect, I decided to hold off my first tenting season until sophomore year when I had a better understanding of what the experience would entail and what exactly I would be getting myself into. Here are a few things I’ve observed/heard/learnt about tenting in the last two weeks.
1) There are many different types of tenting – “black tenting” is the longest, followed by “blue” and then “white”. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that this is the only differentiating factor between the tents. If you decide to black tent be forewarned that ten out of the twelve people in a tenting group have to sleep together EVERY night, and during the day six people ALWAYS need to be in the tent.
2) Your average Duke student is extremely busy and almost always has something or other that they should be doing, so scheduling tenting times are usually not that fun and no matter how you arrange it someone will always end up annoyed by a time slot they have been assigned to.
3) The cold isn’t a joke. Sleeping in the cold is a totally new feeling where you need to pretend like you are a caterpillar and bundle yourself into layer after layer to feel safe and warm in your cocoon. Jacket number one, jacket number two, jacket number three, sleeping bag, socks, socks pair two, gloves, blankets. I think you get the picture.
4) People snore.
5) The line monitors cannot possibly be human. Three tent checks in a night when the rain is pouring and no one has an umbrella. Yes, good luck sleeping after that.
6) You will not see your non-tenting friends all that often. Refer to #1: all free time must be spent in said tent and if somebody really wants to hang out it means that they need to hit you up in the tent.
7) The community feeling is intense; sleeping in the outdoors in as low as 26°F might sound crazy to some, but it really does bring the campus together as a whole. Even if you’re just a passerby all you need to do is see the tents lining the quad to know that the hatred for UNC is real, #GTHC.