Dead Week

May 12, 2022
Aminah Aliu

Today, I leave my room to go for a walk, and the campus is dead silent. Not like everyone-is-in-class sort of silence, no, more like no-one-is-here sort of silence. 

I go to read a research paper in Firestone library and I have a whole reading room to myself. Strange. I walk down campus to the Wa (Wawa) to buy something for lunch, and I see two people at most. Maybe three. You know, there is a name for this sort of silence on Princeton’s campus. It’s called dead week. 

What’s dead week? Dead week is the week after classes and exams are done and before the start of Reunions (an event where alumni return to celebrate their time at Princeton). During this week, lots of students like to leave campus for short trips. But because we’ll be playing at Reunions, a good amount of the Princeton University Band stay on campus, and host social events so everyone feels connected.

I want to share some of the memorable moments with the band.

The band leadership put a lot of thought into the events they created, and they were all pretty creative. This year, all of the events were created around the theme of holes! Is that theme very random? Yes! But that was also kind of the point hehe.

Some of the social events included a scavenger hunt to find the hole-related locations of the campus, a pool day (pool = a hole in the ground), a Powerpoint party and plenty of band meals (since the dining halls were closed).

Image
A veggie burger with onions and lettuce sits on a paper plate next to some potato chips.
The food was delicious and meeting the band alumni was an amazing experience.

The next event was an alumni barbeque we had towards the end of the week. The food was delicious and I got to meet all of the band alumni going back decades. I also met three couples who had met through the band and are now dating, and it was super sweet to hear their stories.

Image
 A fleet of white golf carts.
A fleet of golf carts around campus in preparation for Reunions. I just had to snap a pic!

When students stay for Reunions they typically help the Reunions committee with various event set-up responsibilities and the members of the band were given the task of hanging posters around campus. I got to use my months of poster-hanging skills from back when I worked in the Office for Religious Life, and I got all of my posters up in what could be considered "record time".

Image
White lettering on a door reads “Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall.”
The whole band met in front of Richardson to get our instruments before walking over to our gig!

The last event was actually a gig we played in an alumni tent near Richardson Auditorium. It was nice to see how happy our performance made alumni, and any opportunity I have to execute well-timed cymbal crashes is a win for me!

I am super grateful that I got to spend this week bonding with the band. It was a way better than staying in my room alone all day, that’s for sure. What sorts of things do you like to do the week after school ends?