Ada Potter

Let’s play a game! Read the following statement and guess the context: “A little rain never hurt anybody.” Is this a message directed to students to try and motivate them to go outside and do manual labor? Or is it a quote from the Bowdoin Student Government trying to rally support for students to have fun and party? You guessed it (or maybe not) … it’s the second one!

Welcome to this week’s column: all about the age-old Bowdoin tradition of Ivies! The weekend of the year that gets hyped up all year long, but officially consists of four sanctioned hours to let loose and pretend that we don’t have piles of work waiting for us.

The weekend began at Harps Quad, and upon approaching the premises, some things became immediately distinct. It feels like there’s an invisible barrier between the line of food trucks and the quad itself, a sharp divide between those who just want tacos (including, somehow, a group of middle schoolers who snuck in) and those whose only meals of the day were five shots and a blueberry muffin from Moulton. Everyone is dressed up in their cutest outfits, the weather is nicely overcast and the music … well, the music is definitely playing. As you look around, you realize that maybe you don’t recognize everyone at the College—and also that you’re very much being watched when you glance up and see ten pairs of eyes looking straight at you from the apartment windows. At this point, why don’t we just livestream the event?

Question addressed to a first-year Ivies attendee: “What’s the most surprising thing you saw at Harps?”

Answer: “Well, I saw my proctor getting really, reallllyyyy into it with another girl. It was super chill and all, except I’m almost positive she said she has a boyfriend.”

For further context, the dartying officially begins at 2 p.m. Unless, of course, you’re on the frisbee team, who start their competitive “training” (also known as drinking as much as possible, as early and as quickly as possible) at the crack of dawn like the true athletes they are.

Day two of Ivies took place at Bruns Quad. While the rain may have deterred some on-the-fence attendees, it didn’t stop others from throwing on bikinis and sprinting toward the slip ’n slide. Watching from the sidelines is arguably more fun, though you will inevitably experience intense secondhand embarrassment when someone takes a dramatic running start only to bellyflop and barely slide an inch.

As Ivies winds down by the late hour of 6 p.m., everyone heads over to the dining hall. Shoutout to the dining hall workers, who scan you up and down with practiced precision, visibly calculating how many drinks you’ve had based on how long it takes you to swipe your OneCard.

Question addressed to diner who sat nearby two guys who spoke of having 12 beers each during the day: “What was the craziest thing you heard in the dining hall this past weekend?”

Answer: “I overheard two friends talking, and one of the guys mentioned that he liked cheesecake,… and his friend asked what kind. He just said, ‘I like the feeling of trying hard to swallow.’ To each their own.”

Of course, no Ivies recap would be complete without a peek at the chaos that is YikYak. You know you’re at Bowdoin when someone on YikYak suggests we could have Ivies every weekend, and instead of agreeing, people immediately come at them for having a “free major” and spiral into a debate about who actually has time to have fun. But, hey, in their defense, I think we could all benefit from carving out a bit more time to have some fun, even if the only card you end up losing is your OneCard.