remember when I was in elementary school and everyone would go out for recess. I sure miss recess – it was a cool part of the day. You could forget what you were doing in class, run outside, play kickball, red rover, jump rope, dodge ball, et cetera. It was an awesome release of test anxiety, friend trouble, or fear of cooties. Fifteen minutes every morning and half an hour at lunch, it wasgreat.

So what happened?

It seems that when we get older, we don't need breaks between classes to let go of everything and just scream. Or run. Or get away from everything that bothers us and let us be ourselves. Phys Ed is mandatory in high school and with those corny PE clothes. In college, PE is mandatory for the first year, then whatever you want to do after that for fitness is up to you. Sounds good, right?

I guess it would if I didn't keep myself so busy. There's always something else more important than going over to the Rock or hiking to Rolfs to work out. But that's missing the point. You can work out all you want, and lose weight or build up your muscles, but is that doing anything about your stress?

So when we get ready to DART, do we have a break in the day where nothing goes on? Do we try to fill it with a minor or other electives? I'm guilty as charged on several counts of chalking up my schedule. So when do we have recess?

Most of us don't have recess. We have classes, clubs, sports, student government, but we don't have recess. Okay, so maybe we do. We do have it in the fall semester (and when spring finally hits, we'll see more of it again), especially when people roam the quad throwing footballs, frisbees and baseballs or kicking soccer balls. But during those monotonously grey winter months, what's our recess? What do we do to keep ourselves sane?

We assassinate each other!

You read right. The game called "Assassins" has students sniping each other all across campus. A group gets together, with water pistols (crickets, snipers, pistols, supersoakers or any other variety), they each draw names of someone else in the group. A time is set for a fair start. Then they stalk each other around campus until only one person is left `alive'.

I'm in a game of assassins right now. We play it 24 hours a day. So if you happen to think you're safe in Reckers at 4:30 am, guess again. Some of it edges on pure paranoia, the rest is just like getting together and playing a game of hide 'n go seek, except we seek with water guns, and instead of one it, we're all it and all targets.

It's recess. We do it when we're not in class. We take a break for a bit to stalk our victim or maim our attacker. We're tense cause we're excited, not stressed. It's our stress relief. Just watch your back, don't invite anyone inside, and always have your gun loaded.

Hey ghostbuster, keep it real. You won't find a haunt hiding in the shadows today. Unless the sun is shining, that is.

• Olly Olly Oxen Free!!