by Hallie Gleeson and Aelwen Iredale
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Late last semester, as email inboxes filled with reminders to sign up for shuttles to the airport and rubrics for final projects, we received a particularly unfortunate notification: we had been placed into the last time slot for the housing lottery\u2013both of us in our roommate pair shared the sad predicament. Rotten luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What to do? We scoured the housing portal, noting the occasional room in Lamotte-Tyler or Northside, but as each housing timeslot passed, our hopes dwindled with every taken room. As rising sophomores at the very bottom of the pecking order, we resigned ourselves to the truth: we would be bunking in Breckinridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two of us are the painfully optimistic sort, and we decided we wanted as much information as we could about just what a year spent in the building would entail. We\u2019d neglected to befriend any of the current Breck baddies\u2014shoutout to you all, your old work on the blackboards lives on in faint drawings\u2014so we used the resources available to us in lieu of asking for a tour. Our own two feet and the world wide web would have to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We walked the perimeter of the building, gathering reconnaissance on which windows faced west and what views were completely obscured by towering tree branches. We adore sunlight, so trying to get a room with multiple windows was a must. This information was painfully trite and insignificant in the grand scheme of it all, but a girl\u2019s gotta do what she\u2019s gotta do to maximize sunlight for her succulents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After two laps around the 1892 dormitory and confusing comparison to old architectural blueprints, we retired to New Quad (Yerkes, in fact) to discuss what we\u2019d seen. In conclusion: not much. We needed more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luckily, this is the Information Age, and though Centre seems determined to not provide room dimensions to its students, the internet is forever, and the square footage of Breckinridge Hall is freely available. One simply must visit the Centre Ghosts website to be rewarded with the architectural plans of the \u2026 apparently haunted building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Breck gets a bad rap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nearby recently renovated Old Quad dorms have private bathrooms, the Greek houses are emblems of satisfactory residential life, and even Northside and Pearl are comfortable despite their distance from everything important\u2014food and classes. Breckenridge Hall has been left to sit in its checkered history, a veteran decorated with a single functional laundry machine, communal bathrooms, and spotty AC. (We are afraid of what the heating situation will be in winter).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those bits however, are not unique to Breck. Plenty of colleges have dorms where the students know they got the short end of the stick. Even Centre has more than one Breck-esque dorm. (Chevans, anyone? \u201cNasty\u201d Nevin?) The swirling ghost stories that surround ol\u2019 Breck, however, piqued our interest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We read every word on the website. Fires, poltergeists, tragedies, theft: a very torrid series of events have occurred within the stately brick of Breck. And according to the plethora of accounts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most haunted spot of all is the third floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the last lottery time slot rolled around at last, we were not given a wide variety of options. In fact, our choice boiled down to this: we could take the second floor, or the third. Well, why not get our steps in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our selection finalized, we dived back into the chaos that is the last fortnight of term, and said our goodbyes for the summer. One of us\u2014Hallie\u2014remained on Centre\u2019s campus, toiling away in the lab (which is her happy place).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Summer Experience (Hallie Gleeson)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of my summer position, I moved into our semester housing early\u2014I\u2019d be roommate-less for a month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My chief complaint was the daunting task of lugging a minifridge and wardrobe up the flights of stairs. During that first night in my new home, my belongings successfully transported, I discovered a fresh grievance: living alone is rather spooky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wasn\u2019t entirely alone, at least. Some athletes had moved in early, too, so I wasn\u2019t the sole occupant battling the weak air conditioning and leaky washing machine. A few girls on my floor gushed about the creepiness of it all. We jumped when the bathroom stall door opened or someone stomped on the stairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A friend visited me, and remarked: \u201cthis place looks like an asylum.\u201d I frowned, and if I had been wittier, would have replied, \u201cwell, it\u2019s made for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps it\u2019s Stockholm Syndrome, but I like Breck. I like the arches in the hallways, the wide iron staircase, the mostly-tuned piano, the window panes, and yes, the cast of paranormal characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Can I add a tale of my own to the collection of Breck ghost stories?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, sort of. In my first week as a third floor resident, three of my phone chargers went ka-put. A carefully hung painting fell from the wall. Loud thumps from the attic disturbed my sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But perhaps there were more rational explanations. Those chargers were all old, and that painting was rather heavy, and directly above my bed was the crumbling chimney and its deconstruction crew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve no definitive testimony of Peter\u2019s presence in my room, but I am happy to report that my roommate has made an appearance! We are very happy sharing our space, and I suppose we could make room for one more, as long as the decor matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Roommate\u2019s Experience (Aelwen Iredale)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have my own share of less-than-pleasant experiences in Breck. One of my own paintings fell and took down my string lights with it. Again, it was one of my heavier ones, but it is odd to return to a room that is never quite as you left it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not simply the paintings falling on my side of the room. My drawers open frequently on their own, and I have seen them slowly slide out on their own while working at my computer. Now, the rational explanation is, of course, that an air conditioner blows air directly behind my desk, but seeing objects move without a hand remains a disconcerting experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, well. If Breck does have a ghost, Peter seems harmless. Paintings can be put on walls again, and drawers can be pushed in. Thumps in the attic can be slept through. I can imagine worse roommates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until I know for certain whether or not we have a third roommate in Breck, I am content with my single other roommate\u2014she\u2019s free to haunt the room as much as she wants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Hallie Gleeson and Aelwen Iredale Late last semester, as email inboxes filled with reminders to sign up for shuttles to the airport and rubrics for final projects, we received a particularly unfortunate notification: we had been placed into the last time slot for the housing lottery\u2013both of us in our roommate pair shared the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8340,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8339\/revisions\/8340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}