On October 29^th, 2015, I attended the highly anticipated “Lolla No Booza” event in the Campus Center. Lolla No Booza is one of the most frequently talked-about events at Stockton (at least, that’s what my brief time here has led me to believe.) It’s essentially a large party that promotes abstinence from drugs and alcohol on Halloween night, which is regularly considered a night where many teenage and college students drink heavily. Hosted in the Campus Center event room, I rounded up a group of friends and left to arrive at 8 PM, about an hour after the event started at 7 PM.

The theme of the event was “Freak Show,” and the attractions outside the Event Hall really showed that. There were jugglers, people on unicycles, jugglers on unicycles, clowns, and so much more. Clubs were also tabled outside promoting their messages, handing out candy, and setting up small games. After acquiring a few lollipops and Tootsie Rolls, my friends and I got our hands stamped and entered the Campus Center.

The first thing one notices is the sound. It was ridiculously loud in the event hall, with a large dance floor in the middle. There is definitely a market for loud music and dancing to strobe lights in the dark, but I am not part of that market. There were refreshments on our immediate right, with pizza, chips, lemonade, and water, typical of a Stockton event. Even inside the event room, there were some games around to play, but for no prizes or anything similar. Around the dance floor on the opposite side of the event hall was vaguely the same thing. My friends and I got separated a few hundred times, naturally, and eventually regrouped on the other side of the hall. Many of them wanted to stay for a long time and dance and play games and do things like that, but my one friend and I weren’t so keen on doing so. We decided to enjoy some games, grab some refreshments, and leave. One game in particular we played for a bit was Angry Birds, in which I shot a ball from a large slingshot at a tower of blocks in hopes of knocking down the pig plush on top of it. After failing miserably for a good twenty minutes, we decided it was too loud for us, grabbed our drinks, pizza, and gift bags, and left.

The gift bags came with a number of coupons, cups, discounts, and other cool stuff that I didn’t particularly expect it to have. It was a nice surprise to end the night with. As my friend and I left the event, I came to the conclusion that Lolla No Booza is definitely a great event for many people to have a great time with their friends. I, however, am not one of those people.

On October 14^th, I had the opportunity to attend the “Boo! Who?” event in the Townsend Residential Learning Center. This event was hosted by D-building RA’s, Anthony, Julie, and Nancy. It served as a one-time event to educate attendees largely about stereotypes, and how to better interact with our peers. It lasted from about 8:00-9:00, followed by a watching of Hocus Pocus. The event was well-advertised around my dorm, as I live in D-building. The purpose of the event was intentionally kept a secret and was only described vaguely, as my RA described, because to go into too much detail about the event would be to detract from the meaning of being there at the event that night. “Boo! Who?” was targeted at Honors students, although others were technically invited. There were less than three non-honors students that attended the event.

I had gathered a small group of friends to go with and arrived about twenty minutes early. Decorations were mostly set up, and Anthony and Nancy were putting on the finishing touches. There was a table of candy and refreshments by a wall, and I assisted in setting up a Pandora station appropriate to the atmosphere they were trying to achieve. After about thirty minutes of talking to friends, more honors students arrived and we began the night’s activities.  First, we played some group games while the organizers set up an activity, now knowing how many people were there and therefore how many materials they needed to make. While playing, each person was assigned a stereotypical role on our backs, such as Jock, Theater Student, Loner, Pothead, and Greek Life student. We couldn’t see our own tag, and were told to treat others stereotypically according to their tag. I was assigned a pothead, as I found out quite quickly when people started asking me for brownies. The purpose was to show that people with labels such as these would generally be offended and saddened that they could be treated in such a way that that they were considered two-dimensional. Obviously, there is more to a person than their stereotype, and the burden falls on us to realize that.

Afterwards, we performed a similar task in which we were assigned a role that was kept secret from everybody but ourselves, and to act like that role. As a jock, I interrupted conversations to talk about muscle gains and protein powder, as that felt like what I was supposed to do. This was meant to either give insight into ourselves or others, depending on how closely our assigned role matched our own personality. As someone who is horribly non-athletic, I considered the fact that not all jocks behaved stereotypically, and would take that into future consideration in the future. It offered an opportunity to reflect on my own biases and evaluate them with regards to other people.

Finally, we finished with a game of “On the Bus.” The premise is that a moderator asks a question about our lives, and if it applies, we get off on the left side of a line, and if not, we move to the right side of the line. The questions got increasingly deep and personal, such as going from having siblings to having experienced racism, body image issues, and whether suicide has impacted our lives or not. The purpose was to show that, even as negative experiences affect our lives, we aren’t alone as others have experienced the same thing. I didn’t stay past that, and didn’t watch the Hocus Pocus movie afterwards, as I had other obligations.

Overall, “Boo! Who?” was a fun experience that made attendees really reflect upon how they treat others, and how others deserve to be treated, as well as let us know that in our toughest times, we were not alone. It was a refreshing experience that I am glad I could spend with my friends.

On September 23, 2015, I went to a Glow in the Dark Mini-Golf event. This event was hosted by the Stockton Entertainment Team, and took place in the Campus Center Event room from approximately 7:30-9:30 that night. I had heard about this event initially from posters around the dorms, advertising large, intricate displays and holes in what appeared to be stunning glow in the dark neon-esque visual effects. A day prior, my RA also started planning a trip to the event for their community interaction, which is largely what persuaded me to go. On the night of the event, we gathered a group of six people, and proceeded to the Campus Center Event Room.

As we got there, it was somewhat crowded, as most events are at Stockton. There was some reference of team size, but it wasn’t very clearly communicated, and we ended up making one team of six, which we assumed was for organizational purposes to begin with. Eventually, they started calling teams inside to play in order, which was definitely a good decision, as allowing all people in at once would’ve been chaos.

When we got inside, it was quite disappointing to see what reality was relative to what we were lead to believe by the advertisements. The neon-esque effects that were advertised were simply blacklights shone across the room, which provided little to no effect on the game we were playing. Some golf balls were white and therefore glowed with the blacklight, but a majority were not. The holes were neither large nor intricate, but rather small wooden frames with some tiny plastic obstacles, about 4 feet in length each. There were 9 holes total, with teams spread out with about two holes of space between them. In this regard, the organization was well designed, as teams didn’t interfere with one another. Pizza, chips, lemonade, and water were also provided as part of the event.

Overall, I feel we were largely mislead about the nature/scope of the event in advertisements, but it was still a fun enough time overall. It was well organized for what they had to do, and I suppose the lack of materials for more intense or interesting holes isn’t the fault of the SET. I feel that the advertisement shouldn’t let on too much as to the nature of what it had, as it looked significantly more interesting than what the reality was. In the end, there were snacks, friends, and a small fun distraction. What more could you really ask for?