Hopefully, you had a fun Blue and White Weekend! While the weekend and its festivities are kind of a bigger deal for alumni, students were also able to get their “football fix”. This year’s spring game was highly anticipated due to the hiring of James Franklin. Plus, fans were looking forward to seeing the second year of Hackenberg and his offense. While the day was all about the blue and white, red would later make its appearance.
On Saturday, the weather was ideal: 80 degrees, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. For the first time, most of us probably thought the long, harsh winter was finally over. As we would learn on Tuesday, Mother Nature had one last snowy statement. Anyway, Saturday was great because people were enjoying the weather, the game, and the great outdoors. If you weren’t at the game, you were probably tailgating or spending time outside. All the while, the sun was doing what it does best…burning your skin. Walking around College Ave. that night, I noticed that almost everyone was sun burnt. Unsurprisingly, everyone probably underestimated the sun given that we all forgot what summer was like. Personally, I didn’t even think about applying sunscreen. As a member of the pale community, I’m usually pretty good about lathering up that SPF 30. When I was at my friend’s tailgate at 4 PM, I realized my mistake. While not achieving lobster status, the sun claimed my arms and neck. Luckily, I was relatively spared.
Unfortunately, many of my friends weren’t as lucky. Judging from the people walking around College Ave., neither were the majority of people. Basically, College Ave. turned into the New Jersey boardwalk. After a long day in the sun, people were leisurely strolling through town, wearing their tanks and spaghetti straps, and painted red. By day, blue and white ruled State College. By night however, red reminded us who really won the day.
While the burn may have ruined some people’s weekend, it got most of us excited about summer. Even though Tuesday was a rude reminder, we’ve survived the cold and are closing in on the nice weather. Seeing everyone out and about in the quad, sunbathing, playing volleyball, tossing a football, etc. reminded me of the first couple weeks of school. It’s been a great year, a long year, and I’m ready for break. If nothing else, this weekend taught me that it’s possible to get a burn at Penn State other than a wind burn.
I like to think the sun burn people acquired is a promise that summer is coming. It’s like the sun came out and kissed everyone to remind them that we shouldn’t be too excited for the summer. I, for some unknown reason, did not burn. However, I have friends that are fried. One of my friends was in the same position in the sun all day so she is half burnt half pale. It reminds me of Harvey Dent from batman with half his face burnt and the other half perfectly fine.
For reasons still unknown to myself, I volunteered to set up a tailgate with one of my clubs at 6:30am. It was just as rough as it sounds. I’m not a football fan, and I was pretty tired out by game time, so I just went back to my room and slept. I definitely got a lot of good food and because the sun wasn’t shining too hard when I was out and about, I managed to escape the red. It was pretty funny seeing everyone for the next couple of days though. I much prefer winter over summer, but I’ll admit it’s been very nice having some warmer days lately. If the temperature could just hover around 72 degrees for the next couple of months, I’ll be very happy. Unfortunately, it seems like summer is coming, slow as it may be.
The Blue and White game was awesome this year! I’m sure it’s always exciting to see our teams playing off-season, but the game was especially amped up because of our new head coach. Like you mentioned, though a little warm for my tastes, was pretty much perfect, and even the mild sunburn I got couldn’t prevent my excitement for summer. But unfortunately, it was pretty short lived, and this past week the weather was a cruel reminder that winter wasn’t quite done with us yet. But this past weekend did give us a bit of tease of warmer weather, we can only hope that next time it’ll stick around.