Life as a Queen: Weekend with the Aggies

This past weekend was mine and Joseph's two years of dating! He surprised me by planning a trip to Texas A & M..which I have been wanting to visit since junior year of college! I worked at Camp Ozark with a lot of AGGIES, and heard about all of the traditions. I am a sucker for traditions. I have thought ever since junior year that if I could go back and change colleges to go anywhere, that College Station would be where I would go...and I was right all along!

Joseph's sister, Ellen, goes to A & M for the architecture program, and his best friend from childhood, Joel, also goes to A & M.

We just happened to go on a ring dunk weekend! Getting your class ring is a huge deal to A&M students, alumni still wear theirs. When you finally get your ring your junior year, you have to dunk it in a pitcher, and chug the whole pitcher! I had heard about this tradition too, but they only have three ring days a year, and it just happened to be the day we went!

Also, at midnight before a game, they have midnight yell practice. The core marches in behind the Yell Boys (which i will get to in a minute), and plays all the way into the stadium. Everybody has a date to the midnight yell practice, and if you don't, you carry around a sign that says you "need a date"! Girls would come out of the crowd to be their date! The stadium is three decks deep and the student section has one enitre half of the stadium. At both the game and the practice, the stadium was PACKED! They have serious school spirit.

Also, instead of cheerleaders like most colleges, A & M has 5 male Yell Leaders. These are the big men on campus. They lead all of the cheers and chants for the whole student section!

At the football game, we finally snuck into the student section after halftime. I was very tired by the third quarter, it was a very long game. Apparently, there student section stands up the ENTIRE time. I decided so sit during an injury time out and got yelled at to stand up or go home!... i was having fun checking out who had the best cankles around me.

The A&M mascot is named Reveille. It is a collie that lives with one of the core members. Reveille has to go everywhere with the owner, including class. If Reveille barks in class, it is dismissed because he is bored.

The core has 800 members. All of the freshmen get their heads shaved when they join. They are called fish. The uniform changes from year to year, freshman have one uniform, sophomore another, etc. You have to earn everything when you join. The freshman have a whole list of words they cannot say, such as water, icecream, zipper, button, etc... and the list gets smaller as you get older. code words: water: sky, icecream: cold cow, button: fastener...