Homecoming

Homecoming. what a whirlwind. On paper, this year was just like any other. Lots of political pandering, a show of force, far too much alcohol consumption and alumni fit in there too. However, this homecoming, for me, was unlike any other that I experienced so far. This year, I managed to only do the things that I've found fun over the years, and discarded all of the bullshit we do because we're told that it is fun.

Homecoming this year started on the Tuesday before homecoming weekend. One of my housemates, Alex came up early because he had to work, and we managed to have a good time catching up until Thursday when we had to get back to work, gearing up for a big weekend in the restaurant industry. On Thursday two more of my friends arrived, and on Friday the final two were in town.

On Thursday we finally started to get organized for the weekend festivities. at around 5pm, I traveled down to the Beer Store to try and pick up a keg, for our annual pancake kegger on homecoming saturday. Arriving at the beer store, I quickly took care of buisness asking a service rep. what kegs they had left in stock (frequently, the beer store runs out of kegs and pickings are slim for homecoming) and I was informed that they were teeming full of kegs, 300 in fact.

Too good to be true. The Kingston Police had served them with an order that they could not sell any kegs from thursday through the rest of the weekend. Noticing the rep.'s shared injustice, i decided to drop it, and move on buying bottled beer for the night instead.

These were tense times. Homecoming waits for no no man, and I needed to think fast if we were going to be able to host our party, which many people were already invited to and anticipating. There is no keg depot in Napanee or Gananoque, the two closest towns. The supply of kegs was quickly dwindling in Belville the closest depot. I had to import a keg from even further.

The good news is that Homecoming brings alumni into kingston from all over, and being in fifth year, I am friends with many. Four phone calls later, and I had found someone who would be able to save Homecoming, Aaron Glazer. Aaron hosted the kegger himself when I was in first and second year, and in fifth year he came through again. Thanks Aaron! (shameless plug: www.idlivethere.com)

With that debackle dealt with, a few of us played mild drinking games, such as Gladiator, Wii Golf and Mario Bros. It was a - relatively - quiet night for the most part, as friday was sure to be a big day.

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Friday.

The friday of homecoming has one really big event, Homecoming Ritual. The event brings engineers back to the campus from many years, this year the oldest getting marked as a '63 grad. Ritual is the weekly meeting of engineers on Friday afternoons to celebrate the start of the weekend with a few pints of beer. Homecoming ritual is the type of event that if you don't arrive when the liquor licence begins at 11am, you aren't likely to be able to get in, without waiting in a line for at least 2+ hours.

Arriving at 11:30, I was in for some trouble. I phoned ahead to friends and the line had not started yet, which was promising. When I got there a small line greeted me, but at least it was moving. There are two lines at ritual, the alumni line and the undergrad line. Since it appeared that there was no problem with waiting in the short line I waited my turn getting to the front of the crowd. It wasn't so. I ended up waiting for an hour and a half at the front of the undergrad line, having them reached capacity with my mate directly in front of me.

I did not attend Homecoming ritual this year. The good news is that I can go to ritual next week, since I haven't graduated yet and have none of the responsibilities that graduates have (oh, snap).

Much later in the day, I went back to ritual and snapped a few pictures off, catching a few of my friends after they had spent the last 4 hours there. Needless to say, they were in fine form. After getting getting some food we all headed home for a quick slep to recoop energy for the next drinkfest.

We spent the night flip-cupping and singing out. good times for all. Eventually we headed to bed, eager for the next morning- of drinking.

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Homecoming Saturday.

On Saturday it was 10am when the first of my friends arrived atour annual pancake kegger. We tapped out kegs and I headed out to pick up last minute supplies for the kegger (like plates, cups and pancake mix....).

I Figure about 50 odd people partied at our house that morning. everyone had a wonderful time, and there was even an impromptu beer pong tournament. Fun times!!!

Another day long of drinking meant one thing... hard core napping.

After our naps had replenished us, we struggled through our 7pm hangovers and grabbed a couple more beers and headed out to Aberdeen, to see the drunked-up annual debackle. Same old shit.

Sunday we got the best Queen's Sunday Hangover Helpers. Two risers and a Poweraid at the JDUC.

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All things Considered, it was a the weekend that I had envisioned. I give a big shout-out to all of my buddies who made the treck back home to kingston, for one more alchoholistic mess of a weekend.

Cheers!