Party like there's no homework tomorrow

It was Friday night, and Kunkle Lounge was hoppin’.

Kunkle Lounge, the glass-walled enclosure on the edge of Hammond Building, traditionally houses studious engineering students interrupted only by the occasional science lecture.
But Friday night was no ordinary night.

Friday night was the Schreyer Honors College semi-formal — the one night when all the cool people who scored a 1350 or above on the SATs put down their books, dress to the nines, and party down in the engineering building like they don’t have a test on Monday.

This year’s theme was Mardi Gras, but the over-supply of free beads next to the door effectively eliminated any incentive for the honors girls to remove anything other than their glasses.

The sign on the way into the lounge read something like “It’s OK to drink on the street,” so I thought this event might be a little more inebriated than last year’s formal. I found out I was only half right when I strolled up to the “bar,” where a bunch of students where chugging cups of sparkling grape juice.

I checked upstairs, where a few guys in suits were in an intense game of beer pong — root beer pong, that is.

But as they told us at honors college orientation, you don’t need alcohol to have a good time. And the dance floor didn’t disappoint.

Outfitted in Mardi-Gras masks, crazy sunglasses and paper crowns, the honors students were taking awkward group dancing to a whole new level of awesome-ness. The ballroom dance club veterans were twirling, the break-dancers were windmill-ing and everyone else was doing the generic honors-college grove.

There were a few exceptions. Some girls who brought their non-honors-college boyfriends were dancing in a manner unbecoming of their GPA. Some people who memorized hip-hop songs as a reprieve from their upper-level science classes were showing off their practiced choreography. And a few drunk freshman who didn’t get the “not a good idea to pre-game for the honors college formal” memo were stumbling around in the hallway.

Overall, though, the general merriment of sober group dancing prevailed, and I happily cavorted along to such classics as “Miss New Booty,” “The Electric Slide,” “Do the Locomotion,” and “Bye bye bye.”

But then 11 o’clock arrived, and it was time to leave. The kids who were cool enough to party afterwards but for some reason still enjoyed the formal headed out to their late evening engagements. Others headed out for a snack at the Diner or McDonalds.

And still others, perhaps the truly honors among the honors college, headed home to bed. Because, after all, there was still more homework to do in the morning.