Find out what happens when 53 Uni seniors ditch their books and spend a weekend in Wisconsin

By Max Goldberg, Roveiza Irfan, Yuzuko Nakamura, Justin Park & Sergei Pourmal

Gargoyle senior editors
Posted Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006, The OG, features

The Wilderness Resort at the Wisconsin Dells gave the Class of 2006 a weekend of fun and bonding from Jan. 13 to 16. The 53 seniors and 12 chaperones split their time between hot tubbing, watching movies, cooking meals in their condos, and hanging out at the waterpark, a short shuttle ride away from the resort.

Of course, there was a little more to the weekend than just that …

Sergei's shopping account
When the school bell rang at 3:50 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 13, the first floor erupted in chaos, as everyone grabbed their bags and ran to the bus parked in front of Uni Gym. I was taking my sweet time, idling around, and managed to be one of three people who boarded the bus 10 minutes late.

As we left a frigid and snowy CU, I was actually kind of excited about finally being on my way to my senior trip. Five hours later, however, I felt miserable. The bus was packed with bags and winter coats, it was impossible to stretch out or fall asleep, and “Edward Scissorhands” somehow won over “Aladdin.” By the time we got to the Dells, the lobby coach was a godsend.

I forgot what made me volunteer to go shopping for food. Somewhere along the line, I made the assumption that nothing was going down the first night. Next thing I know, I got packed into a (cramped) Honda Odyssey and sent off to Wal-Mart, while the rest of my condo hit the hot tubs.

My plan was simple — zigzag through the grocery rows, pick up anything that seemed good, and get out of there as fast as possible. While being the first person to reach the cashiers, I hit a major problem — somewhere between the bags of Lay's, boxes of Swedish Fish, and eight pounds of hamburger meat, I nearly managed to double our $150 shopping limit. I seriously thought there would be enough left over to tag on a few live lobsters, but I had to scratch that idea.

I wasted another 20 minutes just deciding what food to cut, and it wasn't until after midnight (and another cramped car ride) that I finally got to jump into a Jacuzzi. A word of advice for underclassmen: Get someone else to do your groceries.

Justin's somewhat fictionalized waterpark account
The musty scent of chlorine and little children greeted us the moment we entered the waterpark. With further speculation, it was apparent that there were more adults than children present. Interesting. Could the adolescents with low hair follicle counts really be the ones producing such a foul odor?

We stood in hypnotic stupors as we tackled this brain tickler, which was put before us by Poseidon himself. Seconds later the foul odor dissipated as if it was never there. Interesting. We all looked at each other in absolute amazement. God? Divine intervention? Improbable.

In fact, the answer came in the form of a facial expression as quick as the smell had left. A member of our platoon wore a sheepish grin as if he was culpable for the malodorous cloud. Indeed, he was. We had no choice but to proceed in sacrificing him to Poseidon in exchange for a safe voyage through the waterpark.

We surveyed the water metropolis that was before us and were intrigued by the mile-high waterslides and meandering play structures. A band of gentleman pirates accosted us with demands for our most precious belongings. With great regret, we gave them Udara Cabraal. After much grief, the rest of us remaining, three in all, proceeded to make our way through this strange new world with neither a reason nor rations.

We then hit a fork in the road. A cobbler directed us toward the highest point where great treasures await the brave and mighty. We were hung up by the phrase “brave and mighty.”

Daniel Jacobs and I obviously refused to go on and went back to camp. Al Renner, the bravest and consequently most illogical, journeyed on without his brothers. He was immediately eaten by a dragon.

Yuzi's dinner party account
The main feature for Saturday for the senior girls was a big semi-formal dinner. Each condo was in charge with cooking up a different part of the dinner: appetizers, main course, and dessert. The party was hosted by Condo 3, which was decorated with streamers and festive balloons.

Although the dinner and the dinner's organization were very impressive, even more impressive was what came after: a nearly seven-hour bonding activity, spread out between Saturday and Sunday evening. Essentially, each of the 28 girls present was given the opportunity to tell the other girls what they liked about them. So, during one girl's turn, she could be given 27 compliments, and during the entire activity, she herself could give out 27 compliments. If you do the math, that's the possibility of 729 compliments.

Or, in other words, seven hours of compliment-giving.

Many funny stories were shared, many heartfelt things said, many tears shed. We had to stop on Saturday because of our curfew. When we continued on Sunday, there were noticeably more people falling asleep.

Max's dance party account
While the girls were having their bonding time, I was drifting into lassitude in the hallway like a basking sea lion on a sun-bleached rock.

We males had pretty much exhausted all conversation topics and reasonable behavior and had resorted to chucking a roll of toilet paper wrapped in duct tape at each other. We were about to joust with dolly carts when the girls finished the first part of their two- night sojourn of feminine class unity.

This was fortunate, seeing as we were about to possibly impale a fellow student with a broom handle and/or send a dolly cart careening out a window. The girls announced that they were now going to host the long-awaited Condo 3 dance. With this, most girls went promptly to Condo 3's loft.

For the guys, the decision was tougher. It was either dance or play football in the hallway with the aforementioned TP roll. To me, the choice was obvious: dancing. Others, however, seceded from the dancing union and made a football confederacy that I did not see for the rest of the night.

I climbed the steps to the loft and was immediately struck by a blast of hot air. I felt like a Cornish game hen being microwaved alive. And yet, I stayed up there ‘til the end of the dance two hours later. Someone finally brought up a bucket of ice to eat, but it was still pretty hot. As for the actual dance, watch the music video to Nelly's “Hot in Herre.” It was something like that.

I returned to Condo 6 with my shirt supersaturated with sweat. Upon re-entering the cool environment, salt crystals rapidly formed, freezing me in a block of NaCl. Well, not that bad, but you get the idea.

Roveiza's skiing account
After two hours of quality sleep, I was awakened at 7 a.m. by my lively condo mates Sara Sligar and Lillian Soong telling me it was time for me to get ready for the ski trip. There was plenty of bustle in our condominium as half of our roommates planned to head to Devil's Head Ski Resort, a 30-minute bus ride away, for a day of skiing.

Once we arrived, our group of 15 students and three chaperones split up according to our preferences (skiing or snowboarding) and experience levels (some or none). Josie Chambers, Emily Floess, Fred Imlay, Lillian and I signed up for our beginner's lessons and headed to the bunny hill with our instructor, Doug.

Our intense lesson involved learning that we would not be allowed to use the f-word (and by that, he meant “fall”) and that wedging our skis (snowplowing) is the best way to stop.

After I was unable to halt at the top of one of the slopes using Doug's method and subsequently tumbled down half the slope, Josie's dad informed me that I was terrible at snowplowing and that as a beginner it was probably not the ideal method for me to stop. If only Doug had told me this three hours and four bruises earlier.

Most of my day was spent falling down the green slopes, losing my skis, and allowing my poles to fly out of my hands and hit nearby skiers. Lillian told me that I was improving on each run. In actuality, that was not the case. I had at least six bruises, or what I prefer to call battle wounds, by the end of the day. However, I did successfully ride up the lift and come down the entire hill without falling once. Lillian was my witness.

Back to C-U
After a chaotic Monday morning filled with cleaning and packing, our class boarded the charter bus and said goodbye to the Dells. The bus ride was mostly used to catch up on lost sleep, but the students who could stay awake enjoyed watching a few comedies, including “Dumb and Dumber.”

We stopped for a sit-down lunch at the Command Post restaurant in Rockford, and then returned to cloudy Urbana by 4 p.m. The biggest surprise came on Tuesday, when it was astonishing to see that most of us were both present at school and on time.

Class participation, however, was at an all-time low.