By Kim-Vi Sweetman
Elm Staff Writer
So what’s the big deal about Homecoming? Isn’t it just another obnoxious party? Oh, wait: it’s a public display of obnoxiousness, too. Which is probably the worst part, because then the noise gets to reach everywhere on campus. At least, everywhere around wherever it is Washington College decides to dump the event. There’s no sentimentality behind the occasion, either.
For the second year in a row – which, admittedly, is the same amount of years I’ve been here – I had the joy of feeling obnoxiously loud bass beats in my dorm room. Now, maybe if they had actually originated from said dorm, it wouldn’t be so bad. Although, if the noise had been coming from my dorm, Public Safety probably would have been over in a flash to kick everyone out and quiet things down. Anyone else see a problem here? Even the tactic of leaving campus during the day probably only spared me the clatter of high heels clicking and clacking their way across the bricks. Truly, it is a wondrous greeting to hear on the return from a day in downtown Annapolis: bone-shaking bass of some over-produced pop song.
Hey WC! Are you ever going to hold an event where you say you will? Far as I know, Homecoming was supposed to be on the Green. I’ll cut them some slack this year, because the Green was the Brown for a long time, but yeesh. The Hodson Green? Really? Homecoming probably would have been more appealing if everyone who went hadn’t been smushed together like a bag of marshmallows. Actually, marshmallows probably look better than what I’m going to guess a lot of people wore. Maybe they just don’t know any better, and it probably is easier to just re-wear that same skimpy little dress you wore to the last party, too. I’d like to retract my earlier statement about everyone smushing together: they would do the exact same thing on the Green. We eat too many magnets in our food to not be glued together when we congregate publicly.
Question for the masses who actually care about others: how many people got hurt? Not just “oh man, these heels are killing me,” but “sent to the hospital for alcohol poisoning,” -type hurt. The only advantage I see in this situation is that at least it was public, so there was (hopefully) someone around who could recognize the symptoms of alcohol poisoning. Those include stupidity and being a teenager, right? (Also, the symptoms of being as high as a kite.) I wonder how much broken glass and trash is left around after the Homecoming dance? Does anyone even care? Obviously not, or else they would have picked up after themselves.
For those of you who are saying the Homecoming has a sentimental value of some sort: where is your head stuck? Birthday Ball has value: it celebrates George Washington, who we are named after. Homecoming is that semi-half-way-almost-there dance from high school. It’s that first one you can go to as a freshman. In high school. Hooray. Apparently we are stuck in high school now. Personally, I’d rather graduate and go to college. We’ve only been doing this thing for two years: where’s the fuss coming from?