College students are busy. However, there may be times during your first year at Iowa State that your classes will be done, your homework will be finished and you don’t have any club meetings or activities. At that point, you may find yourself in your dorm room with nothing to do.

To ward off boredom, here are five activities you can do in or near your dorm room.

Start a parade in your hallway

At the beginning of the school year, the people living on your floor will generally be more likely to have their doors open. This is the perfect opportunity to start an impromptu parade in your hallway.

All you need to start a parade is a little creativity. First, you need to choose a theme for your parade. The theme can be anything. For instance, you can have a parade to commemorate the fifth-month anniversary of the first time you rode on CyRide, or to celebrate the fact that you ate an entire pizza from Jeff’s Pizza Shop.

Second, you will need to decide what you want to do during your parade. Whatever you do should relate to your theme. I recommend singing, rapping or doing some sort of chant. Dancing is also always a good idea. Essentially, the more embarrassing the activity is the better.

Next, you will need to grab some candy, or any other food item. To keep with tradition, you may want to stick with throwing candy. But if you are adventurous, you can throw things like cheese or sardines. Just remember though: the item you choose to throw may affect how much your floor mates like you.

Finally, begin your parade. If you choose to sing — which, again, I highly recommend — do so loudly to make sure everyone on your floor hears you. As you walk or dance your way down the hall, throw your food items in the open rooms you pass. Make sure to really chuck it in there, preferably at whomever is in the room.

End your parade with an over-the-top finale, and walk back to your room. In the end, just remember that the quality of your parade may affect your popularity on your floor. If your popularity doesn’t matter to you, I recommend singing Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and throwing cabbage as you celebrate the fact that it’s 8 a.m. on Monday.

Pretend to be your roommate

Pretending to be other people is fun. That’s why so many people participate in some form of acting in their lives. And this is also a reason for there being so many struggling actors and actresses in the world.

But, you don’t have to be interested in joining the entertainment industry to participate in acting. In fact, you don’t even have to be in a movie, play or musical to act. All you need to act is some creativity and the willingness to possibly embarrass yourself.

To hone your acting skills and prevent boredom, try pretending to be your roommate. This works best if your roommate isn’t in the room — it offers you a bit more creative freedom.

The first step in the process is kind of a long one. You will need to really, almost invasively, observe your roommate. All of his or her idiosyncrasies need to be written down or at least put in a safe spot in your mind for you to remember. The more you observe, the better you will be at imitating your roommate.

Next, put on your roommate’s clothes. Again, this may work better if your roommate is not in the room. But it’s really at your discretion.

Then, go to a place in your room where your roommate spends a lot of time. This may be at his or her desk or maybe in his or her bed. When you get there, really focus on being your roommate. Think about his or her hopes and dreams or his or her likes and dislikes.

You want to make yourself believe that you are your roommate. Depending upon who your roommate is, just be prepared to suffer the psychological effects of being him or her.

Finally, begin talking and acting like your roommate. Again, the more you observe your roommate, the better your performance will be. Also, acting is all about paying attention to the little things, the things no one really consciously notices. Doing those actions will make your performance better.

When you’re done acting, make sure to put everything away and tidy-up a bit — if you don’t want your roommate to find out about your hobby. If you want to test your acting ability, wait for your roommate to come back to your dorm room and demonstrate what you’ve been practicing. If he or she kicks you out of the room or requests a different roommate, you’ll know that your acting ability is top-notch.

Make May baskets

You don’t have to wait for May to make May Day baskets. In fact, they should be called “any day” baskets because they are appropriate and fun to make for any day of the year. May Day baskets are actually more fun to make when it’s not May Day because when people find the baskets, they are even more surprised than they would have been if it was May Day.

If you’re not familiar with May Day baskets, they are little baskets of goodies that you leave at people’s doorsteps. When you leave the basket, you have to run away before the person sees you. If that person sees you, he or she is supposed to give you a kiss.

Making May Day baskets is the perfect activity to do in your dorm room because the end project serves three purposes: 1) it helps prevent boredom, 2) it causes you to have an adrenaline rush and 3.) it offers you a chance to get kissed.

The first thing you have to do when making a May Day basket is to decide who you want to give a basket to. For instance, if there’s someone you like on the floor, you may want to give that person candy or, if you want to spend a little more money, maybe some diamonds. If you want to give a basket to someone you don’t like on your floor, put rotten vegetables or a cockroach in the basket.

Depending upon who you want the receivers of the baskets to be, begin putting appropriate items in the baskets. Remember, a good May Day basket is one that is specially tailored for a person. Make them personal.

When you finish making the baskets, set them individually in front of their corresponding rooms. After you place one, knock on the person’s door, and then run quickly back to your room. If you want to be kissed, just knock and stand there. But beware: rejection is tough. Just be prepared for that outcome.

Build a fort

The best way to prevent boredom is to revert to your childhood. Children are always able to find things to entertain themselves. That’s because they have amazing imaginations. As we grow up, most of us tend to lose our ability to make-believe. However, you can regain your powers of imagination by building a fort.

Forts have been around for centuries, and have been constructed by a diverse set of people. The benefit of having such a wide range of fort constructors is that it enables you to fully explore your imagination.

For example, you can build a fort and pretend you’re in the Middle Ages fighting against knights from another country, or that you’re a World War II soldier taking refuge from oncoming Axis forces. If you’re really imaginative, you can pretend you’re a unicorn trying to escape from an onslaught of Chuck Norris’ roundhouse kicks. But that may be too much for your first imaginary fort session.

The first thing you must do when building a fort is gather materials, such as sheets, pillows, blankets, mattresses, chairs, desks, tables and such. The more materials you gather, the better. If you need to, ask your roommate to borrow some of his or her things. If your roommate isn’t around, you can just take her things. But if you do this, she may get mad at you. However, you will have a fort to protect you.

Next, begin constructing your fort. You should first build the outline of the fort. You can do this by setting chairs, tables and other pieces of furniture a few feet away from one another.

After building the outline, begin throwing blankets over the furniture. You should place enough blankets on the furniture to cover the area between different pieces of furniture. If your fort is large enough, you may have to put a chair in the middle.

Once the blankets are on, your fort is almost complete. The final thing you need to do is to get all the props you need to make your vision become a reality.

For instance, I like to pretend I’m an alien fighting off a band of humans. I get a laser pointer, and whenever someone approaches my fort, I yell, “Stop human! I will evaporate you with my laser!” But, I’m a pretty serious fort builder. You may want to start off smaller — by pretending to be a human, for instance.

Have a séance

It’s a little past midnight, and you just can’t seem to fall asleep. Your dorm room is pitch black, and your roommate is snoring loudly from the other side of the room. Suddenly, you hear a noise from somewhere in the distance. You wave it off, telling yourself that it was probably just your noisy neighbor.

But something deep inside of you is making you uneasy. You begin thinking of how old your residence hall is, and how many people in the past have slept in your room. You begin to wonder if maybe a ghost is also occupying your room.

The best way to find out if there’s a ghost in your room is to have a séance. The first thing to do is to buy an Ouija board. From personal experience, I can tell you that Walmart does not sell Ouija boards. In fact, when I went in there and asked for an Ouija board, the store manager scolded me for even thinking about using one.

The best place to find an Ouija board is online, from a source such as eBay or Amazon. And, when you buy online, you don’t have to deal with any judgmental looks.

Next, you need to grab a few of your friends who are interested in talking to the dead. Don’t invite the skeptics because they’ll just be annoying.

To work the Ouija board, you need at least one more person to join you. If you want to have an intimate date, nothing says romance like having a little ménage a trois with a ghost. But again, just remember that rejection hurts, especially when it’s from the dead.

When you’re ready to begin the séance, dim the lights. Then, make your friends gather in a circle and place the Ouija board in the center of the circle. Designate one person as the medium or questioner. With another person, place your hands on the pointer (the triangle thing).

Then begin asking questions. Don’t ask stupid questions like, “Who has a crush on me?” or “What will I do when I grow up?” Those questions are just going to insult the ghost. Ask questions about the ghost or about the afterlife. Essentially, if you have seen the question you are about to ask in Seventeen magazine, don’t ask that question. 

Finally, slide the point to “Goodbye,” and close the board. Hopefully, during your séance, you will find out some useful information. Maybe you will work out a deal with the ghost under which it pays its share for living in your room. I mean, we all know that room and board is expensive. The last thing you need is a freeloading ghost.