Ah, Winter Carnival, another glorious excuse to party. As if we need an excuse to party. I am reminded at this moment of something my friend back home used to say whenever we ignored our school work and went partying. She said, "You can always make up tests and papers, but you can never make up a party!" Now that should be our college motto. While other Ivies may beat us in academia, I'd like to see them throw tons of parties and consume the countless kegs of beer that we go through in one weekend. And have the College sanction it.
My friends from Cambridge came up a week ago, to have some fun and relax from their dreary lives in that academic prison they call Harvard. We spent the three days without wasting a single minute. Besides sledding, skiing, skating and hitting three frats in one night, we saw Oliver Stone, and two of them managed to hook up with some sketchy frat boys. Although one of them threw up in my room, and they were taken advantage of by a frat guy, all in all, it was a very good weekend.
I managed to coax my friends to come back and visit during Winter Carnival. I promised them campus-wide drunken orgies, beer flowing from every fraternity and stupid yet entertaining things that Dartmouth students do -- such as the polar bear swim and the keg jump. I definitely piqued their curiosities and interests.
During weekends like Winter Carnival, I am glad to be a Dartmouth student. I remember seeing one of my friends at Harvard. He was one of the most decorated students in our county and had a perfect score on his SAT to boot. He was so full of life and energy that you couldn't help but like him. When I met him at Harvard, he was such a listless, tired and weary person that I hardly recognized him. This brilliant person who vowed to major in Physics turned into a Philosophy major. He had a blank look in his eyes. I realized that this was the effect of Harvard on a person.
When my friends first arrived here, they pointed to a mound of snow on the Green and asked me what we were doing. I told them that we were sculpting something for Winter Carnival. Then I heard them ask themselves whether they had a Winter Carnival or something equivalent to that. I told them about Homecoming Weekend and Green Key Weekend and rambled on about my experience in the Freshmen Mob and running around a huge bonfire. They looked at me enviously for a moment and then boasted that Harvard is ranked first in a recent survey just to put me back in my place.
The only thing that I am worried about this weekend is seeing Safety and Security officers hanging out in fraternity basements patrolling our every move. With the new policy, I am not sure Winter Carnivals will ever be the same again. I can almost see the drunken students brawling with the campus police when Safety and Security tries to take away the kegs. I don't think the students will just stop at throwing snowballs at Hanover Po or those Safety and Security vans. Maybe I'll have an opportunity to write about the National Guard being deployed to stop a small riot here in Hanover.
I know that there are many "displaced Harvard students" here at Dartmouth, and I used to count myself as one of them. Sure, Harvard may have a better reputation, more creative loners and more culture surrounding it. But I would never trade my memories of running around the bonfire, learning to Salty Dog or sneaking into my first frat party for all that Harvard may have to offer. I know that my college experience is more enriching here.
It is my goal to drag my friends from Harvard as often as possible. Maybe I can lessen the evil effect of Harvard. As far as I'm concerned, they are not from Harvard. When my friends get here this weekend, I intend to teach them the fine art of playing pong. Dry pong of course (hey Dean Pelton, you reading this?)
