Picnic Day 2010

I never thought that I would spend several hours walking around Davis in front of thousands of people in boxers. But today, that's exactly what I and 20 of my classmates did. And it was awesome. Today was Picnic Day, a day when thousands of people — alumni, prospective students, families and friends — pour into Davis for what is essentially a campus-wide open house.
Among the literally hundreds of activities throughout the day is a parade, which is by far the biggest draw. Students from the Graduate School of Management annually march in the parade as the "Briefcase Brigade." As such, the attire is "business on the top, party on the bottom," which translates to suit jackets, ties and button-up shirts mismatched with boxers/shorts and sneakers/flip flops. And of course we each had briefcases, but rather than being stuffed full of papers or a laptop, they were filled with candy.
Tori Heibel, a fellow first year who I learned today used to be a cheerleader in high school, was given the great honor of holding the megaphone and leading us in cheers. My favorite was when she yelled "NETWORKING!" and we would all run to the nearest parade watchers and hand out candy, shake their hands and introduce ourselves. In another cheer, she would yell, "Buy low!" and we would all respond, "Sell high!" In all, we probably had about 10 different cheers that we rotated through during the march. So not only did we walk more than two miles during the parade itself, but we were yelling, cheering and being energetic the whole time. And then of course, we had to walk to and from the parade starting and ending points to Gallagher Hall (home of the GSM), which was a good 15 minutes away. Before we knew it, we had spent close to 3 hours walking. But there was still the rest of Picnic Day to enjoy! So after taking some time to relax back at Gallagher Hall's student lounge, six of us went back out to enjoy the festivities, which included the Cockroach Race, trying to get into the laser maze (they were sold out, unfortunately), grabbing some food, seeing dogs do a relay race, and watching some locally based international dance groups perform.
After walking to parts of campus we had never even seen before to get to these activities, we finally decided it was time to go home and "study." For me, that meant collapsing into bed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, completely exhausted from all the hours I'd walked. It's now 8 p.m. and no studying has occurred...guess that'll have to happen tomorrow. It was definitely worth it though!