First of course, catching up on sleep is a safe bet. Most college students are sleep deprived on a consistent basis and a rainy day may provide the perfect excuse to sleep in. Further, many people find the soothing sound of the rain to be the best way to get a good night sleep or even an afternoon nap.
After getting well over the eight hours of required sleep, many agree that the best way to spend the day inside is by watching movies and listening to music.
“I like listening to surf music because rainy days are ugly but when you listen to beach music, it’s more beautiful,” said junior chemistry major Justin Lopez.
With Netflix, Hulu and iTunes, there are plenty of great movies to watch without ever having to leave your room to rent or buy one. But, with the Academy Awards coming up, there are also great movies playing at local movie theatres — just as long as you don’t mind getting a little wet on the way over.
Shalini Majumdar, a first-year biomedical engineering major, said watching movies is her favorite way to pass time on a rainy, overcast day.
“I love to stay in and watch as many movies as I can because on a rainy day I want to be inside where it’s warm and dry,” Majumdar said.
But, if you find yourself sick of lounging around in your dorm room or apartment, the UC Davis Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) has a number of fun and, most importantly, indoor activities. During Winter quarter, the ARC offers three intramural (IM) league sports: basketball, racquetball and indoor soccer.
In addition, the ARC offers a number of “Paloozas” — typically 48-hour continuous tournaments. “Paloozas” offered this quarter include a Poker Palooza, which is currently taking entries and begins this Friday, as well as dodgeball, team handball and table tennis Paloozas. Times for these tournaments can be found on the ARC website.
Kyle Urban, customer service coordinator for IM sports at the ARC, said these tournaments are very popular among students.
“Basketball is our most popular league in the winter. Meanwhile, Dodgeball Palooza is definitely our most popular Palooza or tournament. We are always looking for more participants, however, so all students are encouraged to apply,” said Urban, in an e-mail interview.
Although registration for the five-week leagues has ended, the Palooza tournaments are still open for entries.
An alternative option to a rainy day is to avoid it. That is, get out of Davis and the surrounding rainy area — Outdoor Adventures can help with that. During Winter quarter, Outdoor Adventures (OA), located next to the Silo, offers a number of weekend day and overnight trips allowing the rain to be completely avoided.
Every weekend, OA offers cross-country skiing day trips as well as various backpacking and rock climbing trips. They also offer special weekend and three-day weekend trips. Eva Dwyer, a student manager at the rental center at OA, said many of these trips are very popular among students and she highly recommends them.
“The most popular is the snow cave and Igloo building trip as well as the Yosemite Car Camping Trip and Mt. Lassen Cross-Country Skiing trip,” Dwyer said.
Both the car camping and the Mt. Lassen trip will be from Feb. 18 to 20 and are currently open for registration. All trips include transportation and students can sign up in person at OA or by calling its office at (530) 752-1995.
Further, Dwyer said students could go on their own trips and rent equipment, such as tents, sleeping bags, skis, kayaks and more from OA for a very low price.
“Students get a good discount from us and we have plenty of equipment,” Dwyer said.
More information about trips, sign-ups and rentals can be found on OA’s official website, or you can stop by OA in between or after class.
With these resources and activities so easily accessible, hopefully the rainy day blues won’t be so terribly draining. And still, for some select few, the rain can actually brighten their day. Just ask first-year political science major Ryan Wonders.
“I like to get dressed up on a rainy day and go for a walk because it doesn’t rain that often and I want to enjoy it when it does,” Wonders said.
CLAIRE MALDARELLI can be reached at features@theaggie.org.
