Ring Dance 2011: The insider's report

OK, I know that I wrote about Ring Dance for last week's wonderful edition of The Collegian, but to be honest, Ring Dance and Ring Dance-associated activities took up my entire weekend, so I'm going to just write about it again since I haven't been able to explore any other hot topic social questions like, where do all those missing socks and hair ties end up?

And since we are taking a little ride on the honesty express, I'm going to admit I lack time. I usually write my articles about resume building, tanning, gym-going, avoiding people in the Commons and husband-finding, and since I didn't get to catch up on any of those things over the weekend, along with sleep or letting my liver rest, I'm gonna go ahead and make this article more of a laundry list of things that I felt were CRUCIAL to tell everyone about Ring Dance in as short of snippets as I can make it, considering the rambly nature of my personality.

1. Everyone looked wonderful! The junior ladies were visions in white, their dates and escorts looked absolutely dapper in tuxedos and all of the crashers looked foxy in their black dresses. I have been having a blast thoroughly stalking people's Facebook albums (so much fun, in fact, that I can't seem to focus on any of my homework!).

I secretly reload my Facbook page about every two minutes to see if anyone has posted new pictures in the 120 seconds that have passed since the last time I hit the strange little circle arrow in the top left corner of my screen.

2. My family hates pictures. We don't take them, we look terrible in them and our lives have been severely under-documented as a result. However, my mother, sensing the importance of the event (nothing says wedding-dress rehearsal like white dresses, Dad walking me down some stairs and escorts in tuxes) asked for an early birthday gift from my pops.

What did she ask for? Her very first camera! We spent all of dinner on Friday trying to teach her how to turn it on and review the pictures once they had been taken -- and I don't lie when I say we spent the WHOLE dinner trying to accomplish this feat. Once she thought she had the technique down, she kept insisting on practicing by taking pictures of my brother and me. I rocked the double chin in at least half of them, so luckily she also got to practice deleting photos!

3. NO BEER GIRL ARMS!!! Gyra: 1 Life: 0. As far as I can tell, I had minimal beer girl arm jiggle in the Ring Dance photos. If, by chance, you happen to have any photos of me in which my arms appear on the flabby side, if you could not tag them on Facebook, that would be phenomenally helpful in keeping my self-esteem intact. Thank you. Friends don't tag friends in unflattering photos. Words to live by.

4. I think the tanning might have been a bit much ... the "fresh-off-the-beach" look I was going for might've been a tad misplaced in the dead of winter ... especially compared to my more Aryan friends standing next to me in photos. Gyra: -1 Life: 2

5. Note to self: Be a bit more conscientious when it comes to deodorant for the next big event. Apparently, trying to put on five layers of deodorant right after the other is not the best idea. In fact, it leads to the excess deodorant balling up in your pits and making a strange ring just outside of your pits so it looks like you have a weird white rash right around your underarms. Gyra: -3 Life: 3

All in all, considering that I didn't fall down the stairs and I had minimal spills on my dress, it was a solid evening. Gyra: -2 Life: 2 (I will say though, I'm kind of sad for the moment to be over.)

I like wearing white dresses and something tells me the next time I wear a long white dress is going to be my wedding, and that same something tells me that my wedding won't be for DECADES at the rate I'm going. Gyra: -9,778,754 Life: A pain in my butt.

But, most things that are a pain in my butt, such as waxing my eyebrows, shaving my legs and men end up being worth it in retrospect. So yes, keep waxing your eyebrows, shaving your legs and dealing with men. Maybe if I did the first two more often, I'd have the third?