What Day Is It?

     Banquet night...the time where you start partying early and end late...wait no, start early and end early...no start late end late...NO, wait, I got it...start late and end early.
     In all actuality, this night of the semester is one of the best ever. Maybe I just say that because I am part of the committee that plans it, but I really do love the experience of it. It's a chance to get all dolled-up and get escorted to a fancy meal. But the party doesn't stop there. After an evening meal and stroll beneath the stars, you get a late night skate session (This semester was ice. Last semester was roller.) Finally when the sliding and falling comes to an end, the mass crowds head to one of the nearby IHOP's for some 24-hour establishment breakfast food at two in the morning. Only after the food has been gobbled and the exhaustion has set in, do you hop in the car to head back to campus. By the time you reach the dorms, everyone in the car is either asleep or part of the walking dead.
     So why do we turn ourselves into zombies just a few nights before finals begin? Because it's the one night without curfew, and to the heck with it, who needs sleep anyway. We're out having fun and literally so sleep deprived that we start to act drunk. It's the time of night when the giggles reign and fears dissipate. It's the last social hooray before we buckle down for the stress of finals and say goodbye to our friends until the studying is done. But really I do it for something more. I do it for the high I get from seeing something I have helped plan all come together and turn out beautifully.
     You see for me banquet doesn't just happen one night and then is done. For me, it starts days, weeks, and even months in advance. Why? You may ask. Because it takes time to put together an event like that, and I am one of the trusted (or tortured) few that gets to help with all of that work. In the months prior to banquet, the social life committee starts to establish a theme and plan out exactly what the night will look like before the evening is even a sparkle in someone else's eye. As the time draws nearer, we start buying decorations, booking facilities, designing invitations, and hiring caterers. Just a few weeks out and we all start clocking hours by selling tickets, ironing out last minute details, and gathering all of the needed supplies into one place. Finally, we get down to the wire. The night before, the day of, and just moments before banquet begins we spend hours upon hours decorating, setting up tables and chairs, and all those other things that no one ever thinks of until the last minute. Then as we walk in just a little while before the guests do, we can finally release that sigh of relief we have been holding in for days. It's here. We can enjoy. Everyone has fun.
     We sit back and relax other than a few announcements here and there during the actual event. We go skating. We gorge ourselves at IHOP. Then the next morning, we return to survey the damage and start the clean up. So you see, banquet isn't just about dressing up, eating out, skating, and staying up late for us. It's also about seeing the fruition of all our hard work come about. So take a moment today and thank your local social life director, Carrie Roberts, before she graduates on Saturday.