Second deposit paid and looking forward to the fall a lot a lot a lot

Hope to spend the rest of the summer traveling and reading for leisure and look forward to starting school well-rested and read-up!
Quick question: I was just looking through the course offerings and saw that Lawyering was "no s/u grading" -- and to my understanding, s/u is sort of equivalent to pass/fail... Does that mean the writing course is actually graded?

And if graded, how strict are they on minor grammatical errors?? Thanks a lot!
Also, I asked a current student this question via PM before, but wanted to ask more of y'all that are living/planning to live in Hughes: They kick us out for about a month during winter break (19 Dec - 16 Jan if I recall correctly). I was kind of hoping to stay in the area and do research or something + travel locally. 1Ls, what did you do (in terms of housing) over the winter? 0Ls, what do you plan on doing?