We all remember when we got the email that final exams were being pushed further into December to make up for time lost during the lockout. Visions of a glorious winter break, home for close to a month, disappeared in an instant. Instead, you’re stuck in Halifax until Dec. 21. Four days before Christmas. 10 days before New Year’s. So deep into December, in fact, that the likelihood of snow and bad weather grounding your plane shoots up exponentially. 

Luckily for you, we’ve concocted some coping mechanisms for those with the misfortune of staying in Halifax well after all of their friends have left. Alone. Desolate. No yuletide cheer to be found … sorry, we’re getting off track.

1. Call your family while you sit alone at the dinner table. Maybe you’re in Prince Hall, eating your fourth bowl of raisin bran to avoid whatever the kitchen has managed to create with an entire semester’s worth of leftover ingredients. Maybe you’re in your apartment, digging into a cup of ramen because you’re trying to eat everything in the house before you leave. Either way, I can guarantee your parents will be on the other end, eating a warm, homecooked meal that has a few more steps than boiling water and pouring it in a styrofoam cup. 
2. Walk alone through the King’s basement. You know who never goes home? The campus ghosts. These spirits can relate to a pale, teary-eyed, depressed student who can’t stand one more second thinking about classic literature. Imagine haunting a school that’s only personality trait is the Foundation Year Program. The ghosts are just as tired as we are. So strike up a conversation! Maybe you’ll learn something.
3. Curse the lockout. Just one more time will do it. I know you’ve done it all semester, every time your homework piled up (more than ever before), but this time you mean it. 
4. Ghost your friends. Especially the one who convinced their professors to give all their exams early so they could go home on the 10th. They do it every year, somehow leaving earlier than anyone else. Exams haven’t even started and they’re already out. You can never hope to match their persuasion skills. 
5. Complain. Tell everyone that the school should have canceled reading week instead of pushing back the semester. No dead horse has been beaten more than this one. It’s likely you’ve brought it up every time you were a little tipsy or smoking at Plato’s. It will haunt you for the rest of your life. If you’re really bored, try and find someone who disagrees! A good argument always brings some colour back to the cheeks.
6. Completely lose your mind as you read over your biology notes for the seventieth time. There comes a certain point during studying where the information loses all meaning, and it is safe to say that you will absolutely surpass this point. The solitude alone would be enough to make you crazy, but reading sentence after sentence about a worm’s cell structure? You never stood a chance. But don’t worry! All of this studying will still get you a mediocre grade on the exam. 
7. Let’s be honest with each other. Through all of this suffering, I know you have gotten a little bit of a superiority complex. There is a little voice in your brain, thinking about how much harder your degree is, how much more difficult your classes are then everyone else. And you know what? Maybe you’re right. But just remember that while you’re stewing in your superiority on Dec. 19, your roommates are sitting around the fireplace with their family, drinking hot cocoa, with no study guides in sight. Not so superior now are you?
8. Revel in being one of the last people left in Halifax. As the days get shorter and the sun starts setting at 4p.m., it often feels like the city is a ghost town. And by late December, are there even any cars on the road? Nobody has ever stayed in the city this far into the year, and now you get an exclusive peak into the absolute silence that encompasses Halifax when students leave for winter break. Do businesses even open? Do streetlights still come on at night? I have a hard time believing anyone else is out and about. It is your responsibility to gather intel, and report back.

I hope this guide serves you well as exams approach. Remember: grades are temporary, but your bitterness is forever.