SPW: A Retrospective

So my first return trip to Colgate since my summer of graduation has come and gone…and I don’t regret going for a minute. The experience on the whole was amazing. I not only got to hang around, party, play Frisbee, go to free concerts, and not worry about work, but most importantly I got to see people I’d not seen in near a year. For some it will be the last time I see them, but I hope for others it’s the start (or renewal) of a friendship that will far outlast life at Colgate.

I’m not going to get into all the things I did because quite frankly it would be boring and tire both you and me. I will however hit the highlights. Chief among them was the most relaxing and fantastic Saturday I’ve had in…well as long as I can remember. All morning I spent out in a grassy field moving from spot to spot to talk, play wiffle ball, eat free food, enjoy some fantastic music, and just generally lounge about.

I spent about an hour or so sitting in the grass having an amazing conversation and watching crazy (presumably drunk) college students scurry about playing “Double Dare”. Of course they had no formal course so the natural thing to do was replicate one from normal everyday kid toys and household goods. Slime became jello, pies became some kind of cream in an aluminum pie tray, etc. The highlight—I use this term loosely—of the ‘games’ was a version of flipcup (yes the drinking game) where instead of beer they used all manner of disgusting alternatives: hot mustard, Tabasco sauces…you see where this went. The excitement of the kids though was contagious and I often found myself cheering for them on the inside, and sometimes out loud.

The concert on the field which I mentioned turned out to be OK Go of YouTube fame.

Despite chants from rowdy students of “Where are the treadmills” and “you’re better on YouTube!” I greatly enjoyed their performance. The front man was genuinely funny and made a concerted effort to engage the students. They tossed tambourines into the audience to get them shaking right along with the band. At one point they even moved ‘the stage’ to the center of crowd and performed a few numbers. Perhaps the funny story/line he used revolved around the imposing gong which lived in the center of the stage. After mentioning that ‘he recently acquired it’, he regretfully informed the students that it was of no use as despite his best efforts he was unable to set it afire. And what good, may I ask, is a gong if you can’t set it on fire? Still at one point he allowed a student to come and bang on the gong.

An honorable mention must go out to the opening act Bloodcat Love who did a phenomenal job of pumping up a bunch of hung-over college kids at 2PM in the afternoon.

The presumed best act of the weekend Giants of Science on the other hand was a bit of a letdown. Thanks to a late start and overly intoxicated students many of the songs that they historically played got skipped or interrupted. Rain forced everyone under a tent, that while large enough to hold the audience allowed no room to move or find people once out of visual range or ear shot – both of which were about 3 feet. Luckily the night didn’t end there and instead we went back out to ol’ faithful the Hourglass and hung around till closing. Overall it was a good cap to the evening…or so I thought!

The end of Saturday night / Sunday morning occurred in the apartment of one of the Trialers where we sat, watched some tv and ate food prepared by the apartment’s chef, a soon to be graduated friend of mine. It wasn’t until about 5 am when I decided it was time to wake my friend Bob (who’d fallen asleep long ago) and head back to where we were staying.

So much for me not talking about everything I did. But at least I limited it to a single day rather than talking about all three, right? Right? Well, that about covers off SPW. As you can imagine I feel a little silly about all my worries regarding feeling out of place. Now to contemplate what I’m doing for next year…