Twenty-Something Tuesday
Oh, darlings, it’s graduation season! Many of us at LD will be donning our caps and collecting our symbolic diplomas in the next few weeks, if we haven’t already. While graduations do mean the end of college, those wild years of all nighters, sketchy parties, and more final exams than anyone really needs, they also mean the beginnings of adulthood and grown-up badassery. On that note, we look back to remember what made college so damn great.
The Naked Flat
In my first year of university, I lived in a flat with 12 other people, and collectively we were a bit crazy. Actually, we were known as “the naked flat” due to one particularly drunk night in which our most notorious flatmate roamed the building sans clothing, while we ran around hiding and locking each other out of our rooms. We spent a lot of the year orchestrating elaborate pranks, whipping each other with towels, getting into water/food fights, and using the narrow corridor to practice bowling or play with toy race cars. As for the photo, all I remember is that I was given some paint for Christmas, and that we decided this would be a really great way to use it. I can’t say I would choose to relive the year of insanity now, but I’m thankful I started off my adulthood in such an uninhibited, lively way with fun people.
– Jodie
Fangirling Over a Cover Band
So this didn’t happen at my graduation, but at the afterparty celebrations of a close friend’s. We went bar-hopping on the Strip, the main drag just off our college campus, and ended up (many, many drinks later) at this pretty famous sports bar called The Houndstooth. Anyway, there was a cover band playing one of my favorite artists, so I promptly pulled up a stool right in front of the stage and sat there for like, an hour and a half. To make it worse, I’d commandeered my graduating friend’s closest friend, who was in town to celebrate, and made him stay with me the entire time while everyone else got pizza. It wasn’t my best move.
– Haley
Spandex Bar Crawl
My junior year I lived off campus with some of my best friends in a 4/4 house (so there were no bathroom arguments, which is key for girls). There were all kinds of shenanigans in the house, but one of the most memorable is that for some reason they all got really excited about spandex. They wore it all the time around the house but I refused to partake (because spandex is terrible). I came home one day and they decided it was time for me to be converted to spandex, so they made me put on spandex and heels and do this photoshoot (we were all 100% sober, sadly). Afterwards, they all went to the on-campus pub, still in spandex, and I stayed home to study or something. They called me and begged, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeerin, come to pub!” Being easily swayed and thinking that I could go dressed like a normal person, I joined them, only to find that they had brought an extra pair of spandex for me to change into at pub. Thanks, ladies.
– Erin
The Chamber of Secrets formerly known as Club Med
This was the name of the apartment where I lived with my three best friends during our senior year. We earned the nickname “The Hive,” because apparently that insinuated that we were never apart. We ate dinner together every night, gathering around the TV to watch “Friends” and terrible reality shows. When one person had a rough day, we’d all sit around with a bottle of wine at the end of the night. We hid a dog in the apartment for a week once. We had a massive Galentine’s Day celebration. We learned and subsequently performed the “Thriller” dance. Perhaps my favorite memory of The Chamber was that every weekend morning, we’d gather in the living room, hungover, to discuss the previous night’s events. It was undoubtedly the greatest year of my life.
– Nicole
The Party Moose
My friend Nicholas used to like to dress up as a moose and roam around campus. He’d dubbed himself the Party Moose and would make guest appearances at whatever party we were throwing or attending. This picture is me and the Party Moose at my 21st birthday party. The following year for Halloween, the Party Moose accompanied me to our Halloween bash where I dressed as Sarah Palin and called myself Caribou Barbie.
– Liz
The Mowbray Crew Goes Cray
In my junior and senior years of college, I lived in a very old (think 1930s), very homey-esque house called Mowbray The Sustainability House on campus. The group stayed about the same from each year, and we all grew rather close. Sometime around the end of my senior year—the exact date escapes me—we all went a little more crazy than was usual. Beginning innocently enough with a round of truth-or-dare, the night ended up with cars being flashed, unsuspecting pizza delivery guys being sexually harassed, skinny dipping in the college lake, a couple of us licking earthworms and jumping out of trees at random passersby. Oh, and I think at one point, we all posed in our bras, panties, and boxers to re-create a Calvin Klein underwear ad. Unluckily, or maybe luckily, I cannot find this infamous photo. Oddly, Campus Safety usually made rounds every hour or so in each residential hall to make sure all was safe, but they didn’t pass through that night, ensuring that our craziness went unchecked.
If you all are really bored and want to see one of my other fondest college memories, you can watch this short movie filmed at Mowbray, written and directed by, and starring The Mowbray Crew. It has amazing acting. And yes, that is my voice cracking with “hello.”
– Kristin U.
Stealing Chip Baskets From The Mexican Restaurant
Some friends and I were out at the local Mexican restaurant while I was in grad school, and naturally we ordered some margaritas. Of course, I ordered one that was larger than anticipated and swiftly entered the tipsy land of dreams where inhibitions take flight, klepto tendencies come out to play, and I sloppily flirt with our waiter. Typical stuff. But it seems that, since I’m a fairly cautious and inhibited person normally, when I get some alcohol in me, anything can happen. Apparently that includes attempting to steal the chip basket, cups, and salt and pepper shakers (my friends removed these from my purse prior to leaving, alas). It also includes me studiously discussing my IUD with one of my guy friends sitting next to me who, bless his soul, kept a brave face on even when I accidentally whacked him in a characteristically clumsy moment. Margaritas during grad school might seem the norm, but not for us (we usually stuck with demolishing a pan of brownies), and that made it all the more fun. It’s one of my very best memories during that chaotic and stressful period of my life.
– Kelsey
What are some of your best college memories? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @litdarling!
