Winter term at UO is infamous for its difficulty. The sun barely comes out, classes drone on and many students have a more difficult time.

According to Oregon Medical Group, one in 20 people in the Pacific Northwest suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Especially at UO, this is a difficulty that plagues many students, resulting in fewer students attending class, lower grades and isolation throughout the winter.

There are ways to avoid this, however, or at least make the winter term feel a bit more bearable and exciting. Some tried and true methods can help with SAD symptoms, and there are some exciting things to do on campus and in downtown Eugene to wait out the winter in Eugene.

Combat Seasonal Depression

One way to stave off the seasonal depression is by getting a light box. The box mimics outdoor sunlight, which can improve moods and allow students to get through the almost sunless winter here in Eugene. Sitting in front of it for 30 minutes or so while doing homework or another activity can help trick your body into thinking that it’s getting sunlight, resulting in improved symptoms.

Getting more vitamin D in your diet can also help with sun deficiencies. Without sun, your body doesn’t get as much vitamin D, as sunlight stimulates its production. Eating foods high in vitamin D like salmon, orange juice and mushrooms can help supplement your body with the right vitamins that can make you feel a bit better. You can also take vitamin D gummies for the same effect.

Ceramics Studio

As for activities to endure the rainy days, visiting the ceramics studio on campus is a great indoor activity to pass the time. Located in the craft center in the EMU, it is a far underrated activity for students on campus. The studio is free for students to visit with a student ID, and offers throwing wheels, slab rollers, food-safe glazes and kilns on-site for firing ceramic pieces. Students just pay for the clay and have access to the entire studio.

Athena Rosen, a third-year student studying sociology, often attends the ceramics studio in between classes. She gets to channel her creativity through the studio.

“Getting through winter in Eugene can be rough, but the studio has really helped me the past two years,” Rosen said. “I get to be creative with my friends and make things I can use around the house.”

Thrifting

Another great activity is thrifting or secondhand shopping. Putting together new outfits for the winter is a great way to generate excitement for an otherwise dull season. Students can visit spots close to campus like Eugene Jeans or Ghost Town Outfitters to pick up cozy sweaters, scarves and other winter pieces.

For students that own cars, stop by Goodwill or St. Vinnie’s to thrift. This can be an affordable way for students to find new looks without contributing to fast fashion or harming the environment.

Winter in Eugene can seem hard to get through, but my best tip is leaning on the people around you for support. Spend time with your close friends and make sure to take breaks from studying. People are here to support you and watch your back, especially during these tough times.

Now that finals are over and the holidays quickly approach, many students find themselves home for the holidays, hoping to celebrate with friends and family. This week, I’ve channeled my inner Martha Stewart and put together a guide to throwing an elegant holiday party, complete with food and drink, fun activities and a playlist to get your guests in the spirit.

Food

To curate the perfect holiday menu, I would suggest putting together a charcuterie board. Charcuterie boards are a classic crowd-pleaser, great for parties due to their casual nature — everyone can dive in whenever they want. My go-to place for charcuterie ingredients is Trader Joe’s. As a college student, they have some more affordable picks that are great for putting together a beautiful board. Throw all of the following together on your favorite cheese board and dig in!

Unexpected Cheddar Cheese

Fig and Olive Crisps

Spicy Uncured Charcuterie Selection – comes with coppa, sopressa salame, and capocolla

Truffle Marcona Almonds

Double Cream Brie Wheel

Dark and Milk Chocolate Covered Almonds

Granny Smith Apple Fruit Spread

Rosemary Sprigs — to add color and freshness to the board

Drinks

For drinks, the viral snow globe cocktail/mocktail provides a festive look that is sure to please partygoers. The cocktail requires a bit of prep but it’s well worth it. The final product is a cocktail resembling a snow globe, complete with a rosemary spring Christmas tree in the center.

Instructions:

Add water to the bottom of a glass, and once slightly frozen, insert a rosemary sprig. This will be your “Christmas tree.”

Add frozen cranberries to the glass and freeze for about 45 minutes.

Remove from the freezer. Add a sparkling water of your choice, white rum and a dash of cranberry juice. For mocktails, you can exclude the white rum.

Add a few more frozen cranberries on top and serve!

Activities

To keep your guests entertained, White Elephant is a great pick to inspire holiday spirit and maybe a few lighthearted arguments. For this game, each person brings a gift to put in the pile. The first person picks a gift from the pile and unwraps it, and the next person can choose to either steal the first person’s gift or unwrap a new gift.

This chaotic holiday party game is a bit more exciting than Secret Santa and can bring a fun energy to your holiday party.

Tip: Before the party, set a gift price limit. That way, everyone ends up with something of similar value and there are no hard feelings.

Another great activity option is decorating gingerbread houses. You can find inexpensive gingerbread house kits at WinCo. I would suggest getting a few extra candy options and frostings for an easy time decorating. This is a great option for more crafty partygoers and can be a relaxing way to enjoy the holidays with friends and family.

Music

What’s a holiday party without music? Here’s a playlist sure to inspire all of the cozy and festive feels surrounding the holidays.

O Tannenbaum – Vince Guaraldi Trio

Last Christmas – Wham!

I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas – Kacey Musgraves

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee

Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt

Frosty the Snowman – Fiona Apple

Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney

Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley

Sleigh Ride – The Ronettes

Winter Wonderland – Tony Bennett

Mele Kalikimaka – Bing Crosby, The Andrews Sisters

Happy holidays from the Daily Emerald!

As the fall term comes to an end, students present their term-long projects. On Dec. 5 in the EMU Ballroom, two of UO’s First-Year Interest Groups, Hip-Hop and the Politics of Race, and Remixing Media, Critiquing Culture, held their annual end-of-term events, the UO Hip Hop Jam and the UO Critical Art Show.

The events, open to all students and Eugene community members, aim to bring together music, culture and art in an engaging way, with an art show on the outside and local performers and dancers inside.

FIGs are programs for first-year students at the University of Oregon. These classes aim to build community among incoming students looking to meet peers with similar interests. The small student groups take the same classes surrounding a specific topic of interest.

Both FIGs, taught by Andre Sirois, allow first-year students to work together over the course of the term to eventually hold this two-part event. According to the online description, Hip-Hop and the Politics of Race, “encourages students to explore artistic practices of hip hop and learn how to produce and promote a hip hop music/art event.” The students discuss race, gender and sexuality in relation to hip-hop and rap music within the 21st century.

The Hip-Hop FIG students put together the Instagram account @uohiphopjam to promote the event, designing colorful graphics and interesting posts. They made t-shirts and stickers and reached out to local performers and dance groups for the event.

Lucie Leblanc, first-year student in charge of social media outreach, said, “I wanted to do something fun, a class I enjoyed while learning and getting my credits out of the way. It was really cool putting the event together this term. It’s gonna be a fun night.”

Local performers and dance groups Duck Street Dance Crew, Flock Rock, Vursatyl, Coloxho and many others took the stage as lights flashed and the crowd danced along to the music. While the show went on inside the ballroom, on the outside, the Art Show was just as vivacious.

Many mixed media pieces and digital art pieces were on display at the Critical Art Show. This FIG aims to encourage students to produce pieces of cultural critique, remixing existing pop culture imagery with commentary on social and political issues.

Student pieces produced remixed art on vaping, environmental harm, animal testing, large corporations and many other important social issues.

Sarada Cooper, first year student, took the FIG because she needed an art credit. For her piece, she redesigned the packaging of popular menstrual products to comment on their true ingredients and misleading marketing.

“It’s a critique on the ingredients in tampons and how they’re toxic, but they’re not really marketed that way,” Cooper said. “Most of the tampons and pads in the grocery store have carcinogens or toxic metals or plastics in them. For some reason, the government doesn’t really put a lot of regulation on them and it’s really harmful to people, so I wanted to do my project about that.”

The art pieces, produced by FIG students, as well as faculty and community members, produced insightful commentary about the world we live in in an engaging and interesting way. Andre Sirois, a first-year seminar instructor at the UO, encapsulated the event perfectly, saying, “These events by nature, they are inclusive. They are diverse. They are activist. It’s important to have that on campus.”

Sirois has been a part of the dual event since its inception. When asked about the FIGs, he said, “For so many students, they come to UO for four years and just take classes and party. They don’t get involved in the campus community. With the FIGs, I wanted to inspire first-year students to get out there and put these kinds of events together, for both the campus and student communities.”

The Hip-Hop Jam and Art Show events did exactly this, encouraging first-year students to come together and showcase exactly what being a Duck is all about.