Every year, we spend dead week studying for upcoming finals, bidding farewell to new and old friends and wrapping up all the loose ends of the semester. This year has been particularly tumultuous, as we close it out amid a statewide strike for UC academic workers. It isn’t uncommon to feel burnt out after the blur of the last 15 weeks — we all deserve these few days of freedom before finals to rejuvenate our minds and pick up the pieces before heading into this final stretch.
In this issue, we’re giving you the tools to do just that. We hope this collection of puzzles and activities provide you with plenty of distractions between study sessions. You’ll also find personal accounts about how our staff have navigated and solved their own puzzles, both in play and in life. So before you take your finals, take a breather, grab a paper and start solving!
What to do during dead week instead of studying
Dead week is looming over our shoulders, so of course it begs the question: How many different ways can we procrastinate studying for our finals? The answer is infinite, because if UC Berkeley students are good at anything it’s putting off their work until the very last minute.
— Veerle de Jong
Forestry Final by Oski the Bear
To begin, we must travel back in time to ancient grease, where people told stories about trees. Stories were called myths. Myths of the Greek nymphs, who were people who lived in trees but were also the trees themselves. Perchance.
— Christopher Ying
Problems of puzzle perfection
— Rae Wymer
Word Search 2022: Best places to sleep and study in Berkeley
— Aurora Zeng, Defne Karabatur, Christian Yates and Jenny Han
Trading scrolling for puzzling
— Daisy Friedman
5 activities to pick up during dead week
No matter what your destressing habits typically look like, here are some things you can do to take a break during dead week!
— Izza Ahmed
How to finesse your way through life
— Josephine Ng
Self-care is productive
— Lucía Umeki-Martínez
Owners of Berkeley game stores talk inclusivity, community
— Maya Banuelos
5-letter wins: Playing the Wordle everyday
— Defne Karabatur
Mad Libs: A night of studying
— Vani Suresh and Izza Ahmed
What UC Berkeley Minecraft organization Blockeley is planning next
— Carolyn Yu
Crossword 2022: Brain like Berkeley
— Ananya Thyagarajan, Noah Tran, Riya Chopra and Maria Young
The game show of life
— Stella Kotik
5 CBS Game Shows to mindlessly binge watch during dead week
Dead week can be overwhelmingly dull and stressful — there comes a time in the week when you want to just sit and do nothing. But instead of sitting at your desk, blankly staring at your laptop, I propose watching the CBS holy trinity of game shows to relax your brain.
— Harol Guerra
Pieces of my heart
Whenever I play games with my friends and family, a wave of comfort and nostalgia washes over me, and I feel my worries fading away. It feels great to embrace my inner child and to know that at any age, I will always find joy in games and puzzles.
— Caitlin Wang
