Home, sweet home

18 Jan 2011, Posted by Christine Chen in K-ville, 0 Comments

Tyler Seuc/ The Chronicle

K-ville tents range from big, eight person tents to small, four person tents. Whatever the size, however, your temporary residence in the village of Krzyzewskiville needs to a fortress against the rain and snow.

Some tenters found out the hard way exactly how important it was to ensure that their tents were buffered against wet weather. After last night’s rain, for instance, I was curled up in my sleeping bag trying to sleep when I overheard a girl complaining about how the rainwater had gotten into their tent. Never had I been so glad of being dry.

Common building materials used to bolster tents are wooden planks, tarps, plastic bags, and crates. Freshman Jessica Adimora’s tent, for instance, was set up on plywood and tarp for extra insulation against the rain and snow. Senior Matt Boyle’s tent had large wooden crates his team had gotten from Home Depot before the winter break.

Further amenities inside the tents are also always appreciated. My tent has a shoebox, folding chairs, and several carpets cushioning the floor. I’ve seen plenty of other tents that have the same things, sans carpets. Fortress it may be, but the tents aren’t soundproof. There are some pretty interesting conversations that I’ve accidentally eavesdropped on whilst walking past tents, or lying on the ground trying to sleep.

K-villers. Keep your voices down and the world won’t have to hear your secrets.

No matter how they do it, however, K-villers will always be “Krazy.” Few tenters have had the opportunity to work in their tents yet, but Boyle said he was taking a Kaplan GMAT class online. When his fellow classmates understood the reason why he was video conferencing in a tent, they had only one word to say—“bizarre.”

Settling in and keeping warm

18 Jan 2011, Posted by Christine Chen in K-ville, 0 Comments

It must have been one very confused TSA officer who opened my suitcase on the way to Durham from Shanghai. Why on earth would someone pack roughly a hundred Chinese heat packs?

For K-ville, of course.

Tracy Huang/The Chronicle

I just tented last night, and I’m happy to report that the heat packs worked like a charm. The cold has never been more comfortable. I’m glad I’m well stocked!

Other citizens of K-ville may not have heat packs, but they have plenty of other ways to preserve the heat. Here are some ways K-villers are keeping warm in the long, cold nights:

Warm sleeping bags
Don’t underestimate the benefit of a warm sleeping bag. I stocked up with a 0 degree Fahrenheit, thus contributing greatly to my overall happiness and comfort.

Freshman Victoria Li, a black tenter, said she brought the warmest sleeping bag she had—one that had been previously tested and tried in Michigan. She and her tent mates also brought air mattresses, which they say have gone a long way toward keeping them warm and comfortable.

Senior Matt Boyle, who is also black tenting, said his team’s air mattresses popped because of the extremely cold temperatures. Still, the lessons he learned from his last K-ville experience during his freshman year helped keep him warm. Knowing how cold it was, he went on Amazon and got a new -20 degree Fahrenheit rated sleeping bag.

Meanwhile freshman Jessica Adimora, who is blue tenting, said she got her bag from a physical location. “I asked around Dick’s Sporting Goods and got help choosing the sleeping bag,” she said. It’s a “mummy” sleeping bag, which keeps warmth in because it hugs close to the person’s body.

Tracy Huang/The Chronicle

For more tips about how to choose a proper sleeping bag, go to http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/sleeping+bag+backpacking.html. Or if you’re not planning on getting a sleeping bag, you could always follow the example of one of my tent mates—bringing a sleeping pad and a very, very thick blanket.

To layer or not to layer?
That is the question. Some K-villers said they really padded themselves, while others claimed that less was more.

Li said she wore multiple layers of socks to sleep. Adimora attested that she spent her nights wrapped in “lots of layers.” “I have 8 layers on top,” she said.

Boyle said he encouraged layering on a normal basis. “I told everyone to buy long underwear,” he said. “I’m wearing long underwear, sweats, and jeans right now.” But when it comes to sleeping, Boyle advises, “the fewer the better.”

Rough start

18 Jan 2011, Posted by Ziwen Deng in K-ville, 0 Comments

Our tenting group’s first weekend in K-Ville was about as smooth as the FSU game (too soon?). On Friday, our first night, I felt the full effects of sleeping amongst an eleven-person mass inside our six-person tent. One of the member’s of the group then failed to show for tent check the following evening, meaning we could not miss another for the next few weeks. Naturally, we missed the very next tent check as well, pushing our group into the waiting list. Oh, and I managed to catch a fever too.

People talk about the difficulty in managing everyone’s schedules for tenting,

but nothing prepares you for it until you actually go through several increasingly frustrating hours of discussion.

By the end, individual happiness has less value than that one section of plywood not yet damp with mildew; you just want to curl up in your real bed and forget about all the problems.

But with a new week comes hope, and we are starting up again at #66. Do we make it this time? Stay tuned.