It’s that time of the year again. Our worn-down Ithaca streets revived by the intoxicated, Adidas-stumbling steps of dozens of girls in denim skirts and black crop-tops and frat stars in generic basketball jerseys. Welcome to O-Week!
With its sweaty glamour, these six days mark the beginning of yet another semester you promise yourself you’re actually going to do the reading and won’t end up at another frat house with a Keystone blowout next to the boy that ghosted you last semester. Well, good for you!
As for me, aside from some hot and raunchy summer rendez-vous, I’ve had time to reminisce on the unique flavor each O-Week offers, and wonder if like good wine, it gets better with age…
The First
Your parents finally left, but instead of an empty, homesick knot in your stomach, you feel the pressure of the clock as you rush to get ready for your first college party, and, of course, you don’t want to be late!
If you’re lucky, some naughty freshman invites you to their pregame in their shoebox dorm, and together, you and dozens of other freshmen march in a single-file line to Collegetown.
While ratios get calculated, you get in anywhere because the frat guys on the porch thought your boobs looked hot, and you feel flattered.
Now inside, you quickly realize the temperature is as hot as the steam room at your favorite spa, only instead of eucalyptus, the bitter scent of spilled beer and sweaty armpits embraces you like a soggy hug. After a couple of refreshing Keystone Lights, you feel confident enough to make eye contact with a cute junior twice, and miraculously, you end up making out by the stairs blocking everyone’s way to the pong table.
The Experienced
With a year or two of wisdom, you know better than to arrive at a party too early, so you pregame the pregame with your close friends then head over to a pre-arranged mixer with your Greek family.
There, you encounter some past hook-ups and wonder if it’s the Svedka shots you took earlier or if they actually look hotter this semester. Either way, you make small talk in a crowded annex and perhaps sneak in a slightly more discreet makeout session than last year’s before proceeding to the next house where the process repeats itself.
By the end of the night, you set yourself up for success with a couple of late night booty call options. Emboldened by drinks and lust, you send a “WYD” text at 2:23AM and with luck, you have sweaty, toe-curling sex next to unpacked suitcases on a barely-made bed.
The Last
As they say, all good things must cum to an end, so as you pregame with your roommates in Collegetown, a pang of nostalgia taints the excitement of O-Week. You savor every sip of Franzia and realize this is one of the last nights you dance under clumsily-arranged twinkle lights on the back porch of your Collegetown fixer-upper. You feel free from the corporate world that suffocated you during your junior summer internship and assert your place at the top of the food-chain as you shout out to the freshmen upon their arrival in Collegetown. Making your way through the crowd of familiar faces, you shoot your shot with the one you’ve fantasized about for the past couple of years because who even cares — it’s your senior year and you’re horny. It’s easier than you think and before you know it, you’re in bed with the hot boy from your Intro to Microeconomics section. With three years of O-Week experience, he finally knows what a clit is and you moan in intoxicated pleasure as he goes down on you, promising yourself you won’t get attached (especially since you have three more nights left).
…all in all, I concur, O-Week is among the sexiest weeks at Cornell. With the pulsing anticipation of lips you haven’t savored for two whole months, and the hot, summer night sky concealing the sins of O-Weeks Past, these are the days Cornellians fantasize about when the temperature dips below freezing and prelims crush your libido to the point of no return. So put on your sexiest LeBron James jerseys and apply your most sweat-proof mascara to fully embrace the hot, humid, sinfest that is O-Week!
Veuve Cliq-Hoe is a student at Cornell University. Fire & Ice and Cherries in the Snow appears monthly this semester.