To people who don’t experience it for themselves, January Term at St. Thomas can be a hard thing to explain.

J-Term can be a time when there are fewer people on campus but closer friends are made. The month can be a time when it seems a student might have an enormous amount of class to go along with an awkward amount of free time.

Most of all, J-Term is a time where a person who doesn’t have much to do might just go insane. Lucky for St. Thomas’ J-Term students, there was just enough going this past J-Term to keep them busy.

“I expected it to be really boring but it turned out to be really fun,” freshman Pierce Lubinski said. “I was lucky to have five friends on my floor, and other friends who lived nearby that came and hung out.”

Junior Dani Blackowiak found most of her time consumed by class and dance practice. Blackowiak is on St. Thomas’ dance team that just won the national championship. But she also made sure to enjoy simple things in life too.

“Since nationals have been over, I have been celebrating with the dance girls and hanging out with my family,” Blackowiak said.

While simply relaxing was on most students minds, on-campus construction took away some of the more active pastimes, such as J-Term traditions like pick-up basketball games and anything going on in O’Shaughnessy Hall in general.

“It would have been better if we had a rec center,” freshman Ayo Idowu said. “That was the only thing wrong with J-Term.”

Despite the lack of facilities, most students still found unique ways to spend their time. Junior Emily Molin said that when she’s not in class, she and her family are hunting for treasure as part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival’s medallion hunt.

And others found a slightly less adventurous ways to stay “busy.”

“If I wasn’t napping during the day I was playing my Game Boy Pocket, practicing my Dance Dance Revolution skills, and watching Pixar movies,” Lubinski said.

Ben Katzner can be reached at bekatzner@stthomas.edu