It probably will not surprise anyone to hear that a school as old as Dartmouth has accumulated quite a few traditions over the years. Some of them are sanctioned by the College, while others are, shall we say, more "free-spirited." But the bottom line is that you can't make it through four years here without encountering a few well-worn Dartmouth College rituals.
It's just as likely, however, that you've also encountered numerous complaints about said traditions. Maybe you've even been the source of them. I understand. I love a good gripe sesh just as much as the next person. But let's have a little perspective here: Dartmouth traditions aren't all that bad.
Let's start with the recent stuff. You and I both know that you thought the cupcake snow sculpture was lame or, at least, you said that you did in order to conform. I know this because this was my go-to conversation starter for the second half of Winter term. When a conversation at a tails event was starting to get stale. I would whip out my last-ditch attempt at a social interaction: "So ... What's going on with this cupcake, right?"
But let's be honest. If you're like me, the last thing you made that remotely resembled a snow sculpture was a snowman. It was only two snowballs tall because you got lazy halfway through building it. Meanwhile, the cupcake sculpture was probably 20 feet tall even though there was no other snow on the Green by the time Winter Carnival started. That's way more impressive than your stunted Frosty, who turned into a sad, slushy pile as soon as the thermometer hit 40 degrees. Who's lame now?
Speaking of warmer weather, spring's here! Dimensions! Green Key! Nice weather! We deserve it after a long Hanover winter, right? We may deserve it, but that doesn't mean it will actually happen. We all know that weather is fickle and predicting it is tricky. But we also know that if Green Key weekend isn't 70 degrees and sunny, we will all sulk as if the universe and the administration have conspired to do us a great personal injustice. Never mind the fact that the odds are pretty good you will be drunk for at least a significant portion of the weekend. No, it is crucial that the weather be nice so we can all stand crammed together in a frat basement as the temperature approaches 120 degrees. If that doesn't say spring, I don't know what does!
As we all know, though, incredibly uncomfortable heat waves are not limited to frat basements. Being in Hanover during the summer is like being stuck in the hottest, sweatiest dance party ever with no way of escaping. Once upon a time, you could cool off with Tubestock, but those days are no more. I know, I know, I'm still a little bit outraged, too. I mean, it's drunk people floating on homemade rafts down a body of moving water surrounded by other drunk people! What could possibly go wrong? I know people get Good Sammed walking from Frat Row to, say, Gold Coast, but really a river is totally different from a relatively level, well-lit street, right? It's murky, it's got a fairly strong current, it ends in a giant dam ... oh, wait. I see what you did there, Dartmouth. Potentially the right call potentially.
Regardless, I'm always going to be a bit miffed that a weekend devoted to lazily floating down a river was replaced by one whose main event is building chariots. I'm a lazy person. I think that, deep down, most of us are, especially once the temperature hits 90 degrees and the humidity level is 100 percent. Why couldn't we have replaced Tubestock with something similar in spirit, like a giant ice cream eating party (no contests they require too much effort) or a colossal Slip 'n Slide? Let's be honest, drunk people negotiating a Slip 'n Slide is probably no more dangerous than drunk people trying to build and maneuver homemade chariots.
But there I go, complaining about a Dartmouth tradition again. It's just so easy! But I suppose we need to remember that some schools don't have any traditions at all. Some schools have terrible academics, ugly buildings, no history and iffy accreditation. Dartmouth's not looking so bad now, is it?
But seriously. How lame was that cupcake?
