Every exam period we at IvyGate thank our lucky stars we do not go to Harvard, where repressed smart kids like to let loose and run nude and have sex in the streets, or something, as part of the strange ritual known as Primal Scream. But just because we don't want to see it doesn't mean we don't hear about it. IvyGate operative Alterrell Mills watched his peers frolic in their skivvies and wrote in.

Primal Scream. Smart people running wildly. Idiots frolicking in the cold. Call it what you will, but one thing that was different about this year's merriment to mark the end of reading period and the start of exams was that it came too soon. Starting about seven minutes or so early, breaking with the traditional kick-off occurring at midnight, the first of the naked future Bill Gateses ran their glorious lap around Harvard Yard. Notable appearances for the cold-shrinking time included athletes, hairy guys, fat guys …and a surprising amount of girls! I'd put the count of females at about 30% depending on President Faust's inclusion, a rarity for the usual pre-exam sausage fest.

Per usual, some Harvard students decide to do things "differently." Three girls, probably freshman, ran hand in hand, their intimates purple. Does purple come out with laundry detergent in those kinds of places? The highlight was when one of the girls fell and looked as if she was going to vomit, before her two naked friends lifted her back up from the ground. None of the guys running past her thought to help her, but happily ran past as the audience (yeah it was a show, the admission to get in was the shame in seeing your resident tutors observing alongside you) just laughed. The only thing to top this girl's performance was that of a wheelchair-bound student who rolled his way around the Yard.

Read the rest of this entry »