How to survive Family weekend

Last weekend was Family Weekend at Calvin. It is a weekend eagerly looked forward to by homesick freshmen, envied by starving upper classmen that wish their parents would come and take them out to eat, and loathed by many who work on campus. Many of these parents are alumni and thus get all nostalgic in the hallways and some are new parents trying to figure out the campus, but whatever catagory they fall into the result is the same: they will block all the doorways they possibly can, clog hallway traffic, take your seat in class and generally make nuisances of themselves.

How to Survive:

1. Go to class early. It’s a freaking pain in the arse, but it must be done if you want your seat and don’t feel like being stuck behind a family of ten from Montana slowly meandering, taking up the entire width of the hall!, through Spoelhoff.
2. DO NOT MAKE EYE-CONTACT. This goes double if the parents/grandparents are without a student of guide. This means that they are lost and will ask you for directions…which they will not understand because it is impossible to given good directions around campus (which everyone who has spent even 15 minutes wandering campus will understand).
3. If you are asked a question speak slowly and w/out acronyms, which is harder than hell for a Calvin student.
4. Always be on the move. If you are the lone kid on your floor sitting there w/out visitors (even if you are quite content to be w/out visitors) the weird kid down the floor’s parents will pity you and drag yout out to eat with them. Extreme awkwardness will ensue as his/her parents tell you waaaaaaay too much info about baby Johanna’s/Matt’s eating habits.  If you were friends with this kid before kiss your friendship goodbye.
5. If your significant other’s folks come up you will be forced to surrender your weekend. But at least they’ll take you out to eat.
6. Stay away from the banquet, I’ve eaten better at Knollcrest.
7. Try not to swear to much at how much your life is being inconvienced, the parents next to you in Johnny’s will not understand that that is simply how dinosaurs communicate.
8. If you are working that weekend on campus, practise your fake smile, you will need it. It also doesn’t hurt to memorize exactly how you will tell people where the nearest bathrooms are, as this will be the most frequent question you will recieve.
9. Buy some earplugs. There will be little kids constantly screaming.