Fightin' Texas Aggie Weekend

This past weekend has been one of the best weekends of my life... not sure exactly how high it ranks, but it's way up there!

There are TONS of traditions here at A&M, many of them over a hundred years old. And a good number of them seem to fall towards the end of the fall semester.

November 18, 1999 is a special day here in Aggieland. At 2:42am twelve students lost their lives when a giant bonfire collapsed. This bonfire takes several months and hundreds of students' work to cut and stack, and is usually lit the week before the rival football game with t.u. (also known as the University of Texas). The last couple of weeks before burn students work 24/7 to finish building it--and sometimes tragedies happen.

(the morning after it collapsed)

Bonfire is no longer a university-sanctioned event and is now held off-campus, but dozens of organization and dorms join hundreds of current students and Corps of Cadets members to pull of this amazing event. But in the amazingness of Bonfire, we never forget those 12. There's a beautiful memorial built on the on-campus site, and every year at 2:42 thousands of current and former students gather to remember our fellow Aggies.

(aerial view of the memorial with the rest of campus in the background)

So, after my Bible study got out and all my girls got back to their studying, I went back to my dorm and made tons of coffee and worked on a presentation for my class tomorrow morning. Then my friend Abigail and I  got all bundled up and walked over to the memorial. We got there about 1:50am and stood with the hundred or so others that were already there. She and I were about 15 feet from the center where the 12 students' families and friends were. We all stood in absolute silence as we waited for the thousands of others to come. At 2:42 one of the parents read the poem "The Last Corps Trip," read off the names of the twelve and we sang "Amazing Grace" followed by the "Spirit of Aggieland" and the Aggie War Hymn. Then we all silently left. Doesn't sound like much and it was literally 40* out there and Abigail and I stood silently out there at 2am for like an hour and a half... but that's what you do when you're an Aggie.

(walking up to the Bonfire Memorial ~1:45am)

(leaving the memorial ~3:05am)

Got back to the dorm about 3:30am, set the coffee pot on autobrew for 7:15am, and got a few hours of sleep before meeting three classmates for a field trip to a maximum security juvenile detention facility about an hour away. It was a rather interesting trip.

Came back, slept, did homework, had dinner with the Navigator staff girl who's discipling me, and then went out country western dancing with Brian and a friend of his. I'm taking a PE credit Country Western Dance class this semester and our jitterbug skills test is this Tuesday... I'm in woeful need of more practice! Off to bed at midnight.

Friday--skipped both morning classes (gotta love recalling favors from classmates earlier in the semester) and did homework/laundry all day. Then some friends came over for a movie night ("Return of the King"), and I headed off to meet another friend for Midnight Yell.

See, Midnight Yell is another crazy late-night/early morning tradition we Ags hold the night before a home football game. It has been called a "pep rally" by some teasips in Austin and most recently "cheer practice" by the Nebraska Cornhuskers' head coach. Basically, thousands of students meet in Kyle field to practice the yells, hear our Yell Leaders poke fun at the opponents, and--in some cases--find a date for the next day's game.

The friend I went with is a Junior in the Corps of Cadets and while all the other students and cadets are in the stands, the Corps Juniors and their "dates" get to stand out on the field. I randomly ran into a friend of mine that I met a year ago over human bones and a dead cat in Anatomy & Physiology I. :)

Then, off to get food and get to bed. 4am this time.

Late Saturday games are wonderful. Slept til 10am, went to Starbucks to study for a few hours, then to a tailgate with Brian and his old Corps of Cadets outfit. 

Then off to march-in a few hours later. All the outfits  march down the center of campus and around the track in Kyle Field just before the game. 

There were SO many people yesterday!!! We were trying for a national record in student attendance (31,005) and also happened to get a record A&M attendance (90,079)! The stadium was so insanely loud; a friend of mine who was watching the game on ESPN told me the announcer said it was the loudest game they'd ever recorded at!

It was both a Maroon Out game (every student was supposed to wear a maroon T-shirt) and a 12th Man Towel Out game (every student was supposed to wave their white 12th Man towel)... let's just say it was a ridiculous game! And a wonderful way to finish out my undergraduate Aggie football experience!

(my usual seat is somewhere up there on 3rd deck...)

(The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band!)

(this very well could have been the closest either team got to the goal line!)

(let's just say that we were a *little* excited!)

We won 9-6 versus the Nebraska Cornhuskers. We were #1 in the Big 12 for offense and they were #1 in defense... and the game was entirely composed of field goals. I don't think either team was closer than 5yds from the goal line!

Since the game started at 7pm it didn't finish til like 10:30pm. My friend and I had 3rd row seats the the North 5yd line with the rest of the Corps... and as soon as the game clock hit 0:00, we all charged the field . Mind you, this is the first time in several years that we've done that! It was SO cool to sing the Aggie War Hymn out on the field!

(from the field looking out on the student section of Kyle Field)

"No student body enjoys its football team quite like Texas A&M... There's nothin' like it--the Aggie War Hymn" - ESPN announcer

Then off to get pizza and sleep... not necessarily one right after the other. Thank goodness for "the day of rest" today!

Tomorrow, I register for my last semester of classes, give a presentation about a hypothetical research project I designed, learn about the skeletal muscle pump for the cardiovascular system (Exercise Physiology), mood disorders (Abnormal Psychology), and get a good workout (Step Aerobics PE class). Then off to an induction ceremony for the new members of Phi Epsilon Kappa, the research-based Kinesiology honors society I'm involved in, and then end out my day with our weekly RA meeting.

And while the semester winds down and I start the avalanche of "last times I'll ever..." I have to say that I love A&M and I love being a part of a school that remembers the past by honoring traditions and embraces the future by training leaders and conducting ground-breaking research!