Why alcohol ruins everything

...or why our culture has made it this way

Part of the motivation behind my expedition to the B-School last semester - which I was kindly informed this weekend was "overkill" - was a refusal to graduate with major parts of this campus untread. Our schedules, schoolwork and stereotypes keep us locked on such a fixed track that we tend to miss what's happening everywhere else. By the time we look up, another semester's gone. Therefore, I'd like to periodically dedicate this space to a space you might be overlooking.

My first attempt, to attend a FIJI lodge Friday, was foiled by a freshman mob - especially identifiable this weekend by the white T-shirts (should I have mentioned last week that Proclamation Night wasn't until Sunday?) - warning everyone in its path to turn back because "the lodges sucked." We should've realized the schemers probably just wanted one of our apartments to raid, because I heard the paint party was actually quite the rager.

Disappointed in myself for not following my own advice from last week - about going wherever instead of listening to silly freshmen - I tried again the next day. Where would I find an experience foreign to too many students ... the library on a Saturday? Sadly, no, I knew people doing that.

Then, from my ultimate stalker window, I saw students rolling grills down the sidewalk. Ah yes, the first home football game. Bingo. Something foreign to too many students: not tailgating, but going to the game, going to the ENTIRE game.

It wasn't easy. After one pinky swear with my companion and one promise of her favorite Chipotle burrito to stay the whole game, one quarter later I was already looking for an alternate ride home. As the buzz from the tailgate wore off, so did my friends' enthusiasm.

But credit to them and the rest of the student section for watching a half at all. The question I'd posted to most people I'd talked to at the tailgate - "So, going to the game?" - had returned the typical reply. Albeit some variation: a laugh, a sneer, raised or knit eyebrows, I received the same core response, "Ah, I don't think so."

That the question needed asking was significant. That I could expect the same response was significant, too. For a second I wondered, as I surveyed the parking lot, "Is it possible they think this is the football game?"

There seemed to be two teams in the parking lot - one in sundresses and shirts and ties, the other in red Richmond T-shirts. After years of Team Classy as the favorite, the attire seemed to be half and half. Unlike the Revolutionary War, the Red-backs seemed on the verge of taking over, their uniform better represented than ever before.

There were also flags. Granted, they looked a little large to be thrown and had funny Greek symbols on them. Hefty Gatorade jugs providing constant hydration. Badged and holstered refs engaging in a cute little game of pretending that as long as they didn't see a label, we weren't drinking. Even discernible plays with some gents working on a certain lass or two. Points to be gained through cornhole or lawn golf.

But surely they could still tell the difference between beanbags and pigskins?

On one hand, yes. The announcement of the largest student attendance in recent years reinforced the shift in dress code, making the opener resemble a reverse Battle of Saratoga. Even Collegian staff on the field reflected the divide - half in Richmond red and half in sundresses. (How the photographer snapped shots on her stomach in a sundress, I don't know, but I'm impressed).

Yet each quarter the student section still got emptier, until you could see clear across to the parents' section and actually hear the cheerleaders. True, the high school band and velour-and-metallic-clad colorguard teams we outsourced for half-time weren't much to see, especially the one who dropped her flag. But the rest of it was.

It's not, "Well if we were better..." - they're defending national champions. It's not the distance from campus - the tailgate was full. It's not the price - each car paid $5 to park yet wouldn't watch the game for free.

The difference is alcohol. More specifically, the work-time-alcohol equation.

I heard someone arguing the other day that the school has been simultaneously cracking down on, and leading us to, binge drinking, and I've dusted off my pitiful math skills to show how.

The unrelenting Sunday-to-Thursday work schedule leaves only 60 possible hours for drinking from Thursday through Saturday night. That possible time frame has gotten further compressed, with many students citing a need to stay in one weekend night to do work and expressing guilt about "not getting anything done" during the day on Saturday or Sunday, if not both.

So 60 possible hours - 20 for work = 40 hours for drinking. After factoring in sleep, three hours for a football game where one can't drink does not make the cut.

And the crunch at times has gotten even worse - I didn't even want to use all my 40 hours for going out this weeekend. I just wanted downtime. And because I decided to take a Saturday night off from binge drinking, not only did I catch the whole football game, but field hockey and men's soccer games too - both worthier of my time than getting wasted. Again.

Now this isn't a call to put your beers down and a Rowdies T-shirt on - they usually go well together. But once in a while, try it. It doesn't even have to be sports, just anything to shake the work-and-waste dichotomy, which is healthy neither mentally nor physically.

If you're happy with the way your weeks unfold, great. Submit some tips in a 500- to 700-word opinion piece by 5 p.m. Sunday.

For example, my Spanish apartmentmate knows about more campus events than I do and finds time to do something social every night of the week. Granted, as students who studied abroad know, it's simpler to worry about credits than GPAs. But not enough to explain why it was the international students waving their pom-poms in the fourth quarter of the football game and hanging over the railing taking pictures, not the Richmond ones.

I think the difference is cultural, that other cultures find a balance by the day, not by the dichotomy. Drinking a little every day would be better than making it the focus of two or three days. Plus, everything else that can enter your focus will capture your attention a little better.

If those little kids who slide down the steep slope on sections of cardboard during the games were drunk (instead of the parents who let them), the hill probably would've become pretty boring once the buzz wore off, too. But the alcohol hasn't ruined it yet, and they were still sliding after the clock ran out above them.

Unfortunately, we're not kids anymore, so the pressure - of school, of activities, of whatever - is not going to go away. We can only control how we handle it. As a certain CAPS poster notes: "Got free time? No, well then make some. Free time is well spent. Be good to yourself."

Join me in a little experiment for a week - do one thing every day because you want to, and see if the binging goes down and the quality of living goes up.

The free cans of Coke the stadium attendants were handing out after the game aren't likely to turn into beer once the on-campus stadium's built. But our need for the cans to contain alcohol could.

Contact opinion editor Maura Bogue at maura.bogue@richmond.edu