Top Ten Reasons to be a Sillifrosh:
10. Other colleges have courtyards; ours is a park.
9. We’re the only college with free HBO.
8. If you play your cards right, you might inherit the Salamander suit from current mascot Mike Mackenzie ’03.
7. When you’re tired of the pale rubbery stuff in the dining halls, wander across the street for some real chicken at the Slifka Center for Friday Shabbat dinner — goyim and shikses always welcome.
6. You’ll never have to share a bathroom with the Secret Service guys who live across the hall.
5. Upperclasspeople! You might find yourself jammin’ with guitarist/Whiffenpoof Talley Lambert ’03, running a marathon with Moira Heiges ’04, or making duct tape wallets and finger painting with Ming Thompson ’04.
4. Chef Stu.
3. Take a study break from the Sillibrary for some quick pick-up hoops in the Sillidome, then watch one of the hundreds of DVDs in Silliflicks as you munch on some Sillipopcorn with your arm around your Sillisignificantother.
2. Dean Flick can cross-dress with the best.
1. You’ll actually get to know all the other Silliman ’06ers.
Today’s example: As I write this, in the wee hours of the morning with two days until spring finals begin, 20 or so Sillifrosh are splashing around in a kiddie-pool-turned-hot-tub in the courtyard. They’ve even brought out the tiki torches and a huge pan of Ghirardelli chocolate brownies. What more could one want in a study break?
Silliman freshmen are too hot for the Old Campus scene to handle, so they jump straight into college life instead — and get to know each other way better than frosh in most other colleges do. (Disclaimer: Don’t get too close! Silli-cest can be hazardous to your health.) A year as a Sillifrosh kicks off with Freshman Olympics — may the best pickle-eating, ketchup-slurping, musical-chairs-playing, baseball-hitting, scavenger-hunting entryway win. When the college hosts the Safety Dance in November, the 80s theme brings Madonna and Michael Jackson look-alikes out of the woodwork for a night of neon-accented debauchery. Later, on the eve of the season’s first snowfall, Sillifrosh are always instrumental in pounding their rival college Timothy Dwight into a snow-covered pulp in the annual Silliman-TD Snowball Fight. Fuel up for this one at one of Master K.’s succulent study breaks, where the sheer volume of goodies spread across her monstrous dining room table rivals a medieval banquet. (But get there early — the good stuff tends to disappear before the doors officially open.)
Warm up that first Monday of spring semester at the Beach Club’s Tequila Monday party — check out the Cabana bar last year’s occupants built while you’re there. And when the weather finally cooperates (early May? This is Connecticut, after all), celebrate spring at Silliman’s reading week festival, Richfest. Kick it on the lawn while you listen to some of Yale’s best student bands, slurp watermelon, try to drop Dean Flick into the dunk tank, flip wildly on the moonbounce, and put off that seminar paper just a few days longer.
And don’t be surprised if next year, when spring finals roll around, you find yourself in a kiddie pool at midnight with the best of ’em. Welcome, Sillifrosh of 2006!
Lauren Keane is a senior in Silliman College.