Marathon Weekend

Mar*a*thon week*end

[mar-uh-thon week-end]

--noun

1. A weekend in Mizzou's Greek system devoted entirely to completing house decorations for the Friday night before Homecoming.

2. Includes a float, scaffolding for the decorations themselves, finishing the skit and dance and most of all, pomping about 10-16 wooden boards.

3. Typically requires sorority women to spend the entire weekend with their partner fraternity finishing up the work, and a fraternity's pledges not even being able to leave the vicinity until all pomping is done.

4. The assumption that you have no social life because every Greek chapter is finishing up Homecoming 'pomp boards'

Miz*zou Home*com*ing

--noun

1. The craziest and most time consuming series of events a University of Missouri college student, especially one involved in a Greek chapter, will experience.

2. A wide series of traditions, events and more celebrated by Mizzou students

3. Founded in 1911

4. Events include the blood drive, Fling skit performances, various service events, barbecues, Decorate the District, late-night breakfast, house decorations Friday evening, the parade....oh, and the football game itself.

5. SO big of a deal that the Fling skits are being broadcasted LIVE here each night, Monday through Thursday. Check it out! I'm absolutely fascinated that each evening, over 700 people are watching from their computers. Technology is amazing.

Pom*ping

--noun

1. Wrapping squares of tissue paper around a pencil or a marker to create a cylindrical shape, dipping the tissue paper in glue or a flour/water mixture and sticking it down to a wooden board.

2. Usually, each Greek chapter requires more than five hours per week of it six weeks before Homecoming

3. A huge waste of time, energy and spit.

Mar*riage par*ty

--noun

1. Where the partner Homecoming chapters of the pairing join to 'get married' and have a party together with a theme

2. This year, our marriage party was at Galactic Fun zone. With lazer tag, dancing and more!

Well...there was a quick introduction to Mizzou Homecoming! It's been an insane week and weekend, but probably up there for one of the most fun weekends of college. Everyone in the pairing starts to feel a sense of unity working together to reach the common goal of winning for house decorations.

Although I had an absolutely empty schedule on my planner Friday and Saturday (this is a big deal), I WANTED to be pomping and helping out at Lambda Chi the entire time...so I pomped for over 17 hours! It's a fun atmosphere to hang around, watch whichever game is on and get to know the people around you. And be somewhat productive while doing so.

Saturday night mid-pomping, I went over to Gregg’s apartment for an Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) Movie night! We watched a Russian movie pronounced “Ostrov,” about a Russian monastery and monk that serves people who approach him for help on an island. For someone who doesn’t watch movies very often, I was very attentive and it was interesting to follow through the subtitles, understand some subtle humor and watch miracles happen through the power of God.

Here is a photo of some of us at the end of the movie night that was taken for the OCF blog! It was a great night to begin Christian fellowship-type evenings and I look forward to more in the future!

Sunday, I unfortunately could not go pomp all day because I had meetings for essentially...every organization I'm involved in. I spent between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. in group and project meetings, and now feel the spirit of the start of Homecoming Week!

It was great to receive the news that ESPN College GameDay will be coming to Mizzou for the first time EVER on Saturday for Homecoming!!! We are ranked #11 and Oklahoma is #1 for football, so it will be a very good game! ESPN will be recording Friday afternoon from 12-2 and Saturday morning from 8-12 on the quad, so keep an eye out for me! The parade was moved to Saturday at noon to accommodate for oh...just this national coverage, because we'll be on ABC too!

M-I-Z-Z-O-U!

If this isn't enough spirit for Homecoming Week, the New Student Center will be dedicated this Friday afternoon and I was invited to attend through Mizzou Student Foundation (MSF)! It will be a very exciting week!