dtyd weekend by Ankita D. '23

this weekend was a hectic one for my living group. DTYD⁠01 dance til you drop, an annual party hosted by my floor, Burton 3rd LIV was on Sunday, so the days leading up to it were filled with events for our current members and alumni. the chaos started on Thursday, where I met up with some alumni at the Muddy⁠02 the pub that for some reason exists in Walker Memorial, right next to East Campus and then headed straight to Bhangra practice. since Bhangra was the final act of the CPW closing show, we had a lot to get through to make sure our performance was as hype as possible. after, I headed to Felipe’s, a popular rooftop bar in Harvard Square, to catch up with some friends.

on Friday, I finished a pset, got lunch with a friend in Somerville, and then went back to my dorm for my floor’s first CPW event, “Deep Talks With Shallow People.” the event is hard to describe, but involves hockey sticks, chanting, and strange content scavenged from the depths of Reddit. it was the event that convinced me to join the floor, so I’ve ran it every CPW and REX since since SCUFFY⁠03 the first year residential exploration process was different in 2020, and was called SCUFFY my sophomore year. however, five times felt like way too many, so I tapped out for this CPW, leaving it to a ’25 and ’26 who felt similarly impacted by the nature of the event. they did an incredible job, and it was great to be able to spectate and see the content with fresh eyes. I think most of the prefrosh were pretty engaged, too.

after, we had a couple of hours to hang around before leaving for our alumni bar crawl. this year, it was down the Orange Line and had six blissful stops from the North End down to Chinatown. more and more alumni joined as we went, and hanging out with them took me back to all the good times I had with them freshman year. it was insanely fun.

on Saturday, I didn’t have any time to help with CPW events since I had to head to Kresge⁠04 the main auditorium on campus to prepare for the Bhangra performance. I was exhausted from the night before, but managed to make it through tech time⁠05 the time each performer gets to stage + run through their performance without collapsing.  from there, I hung out and got ready with the team until it was time to perform. the performance went well even though the prefrosh didn’t cheer for us⁠06 seriously y'all, hyping up performers is essential. nothing kills the vibe more than a dead audience and we had to hype each other up ourselves.

as soon as we got off stage, the team commenced operation Get People Ready For Formal. DTYD formal was 6-9, and since Bhangra performed at 7:15, we were quite late. it didn’t help that Bhangra costumes are complex and take at least 15 minutes to put on fully. thankfully, me and the two others going to the event were undressed in mere seconds by the rest of the team, which made me feel like some sort of Victorian duchess. thanks to everyone’s help, I could change into my dress and heels and Uber to the venue within minutes of performing. slay!

although the formal venue had its quirks, I had a great time. when it ended, we all headed back to Burton Conner to change and then went out with the alumni again. everyone was exhausted after, but still managed to stay up past 4 AM talking in the hallway. it reminded me of freshman year so much that I didn’t want to break away to go to bed.

I’m really grateful the alumni cared enough to come back; it made me so happy to hang out with them in Burton Conner since the pandemic and renovation only gave me a few months to do so. something as simple as a “hallway party,” aka a bunch of people hanging out in the hallway in front of the elevator, made me emotional. after enduring so much chaos with the Burton Conner renovations and undergoing immense pressure to sustain the community, seeing new and old members of the floor casually interact felt amazing.

at 5:30 AM, I summoned the courage to go to bed, but had to wake up before noon to work on “hockey awards” for the underclassmen. this tradition involves giving every non-senior a funny award for something they’re known for doing. for example, I got the “town crier award” last year since I was notorious for spilling tea. oops…

gathering the seniors to work on hockey awards felt surreal. three years ago, I was receiving an award for the first time, and in what felt like a blink of an eye, I was in charge of making them? something about that felt so wrong. given our past three years of work for the floor, hockey awards are technically the only contribution seniors have to make to DTYD, but it didn’t quite make sense to me. last year, I was one of the people responsible for running the entire party, and now I was just sitting around while the underclassmen blew up hundreds of balloons and hauled around subwoofers.

four hours of ideation later, it was time for the ceremony, which was well-received. after, the freshmen presented senior superlatives they made for us, which were hilarious. obviously, the seniors aren’t as close to the ’26s as the younger classes, so the information they find out about us is comically distilled down to its essence.

on a more bittersweet note, the presentation ended with a dedication to the entire class of 2023. since we’re the ones who made it from the old Burton Conner through the pandemic and renovation, the freshmen thanked us for all the work we did in preserving the community and its traditions. it felt disconcerting to be acknowledged for sustaining a community, but god, was it a lot of work. from virtual first-year placement in 2020, to REX without a dorm⁠07 burton conner rex in 2021 was held all over campus since the dorm was still offline for renovations to host events in, to three iterations of FLEX,⁠08 first-year floor exploration we went through a lot to find the 58 wonderful members of the floor we currently have. it took a lot of energy and dedication to keep things going even amidst such uncertainty, but it certainly paid off, and I couldn’t help but tear up as everyone clapped for the 2023s.

by some miracle, I managed to recover emotionally before DTYD began. we took huge group pictures and the live band launched into their set, which slapped, especially considering that we randomly found them on a job board just a few weeks ago. the rest of the party was great too—it went way better than I expected. I had reservations about numbers since last year it was held in a weird location, and in 2020 and 2021 it didn’t happen because of COVID. it was packed, though.

I woke up at 2 pm the next day and sauntered down to the alumni barbecue (which wasn’t really a barbecue since it was raining). I had a much more calm Marathon Monday than most people since I just slept for the rest of the day. no regrets, though, as it was very necessary.

and that was that. it’s weird that DTYD is over; I feel like it was the last huge landmark of the semester besides graduation, and since I haven’t yet rationalized the fact that I’m leaving, I feel anxious and sad. it’s reassuring that I can come back for alumni events, but it also feels like there’s a huge barrier to doing so, so there’s a clear sense of finality.

the realization that I’m old makes me miss previous years, when I didn’t feel like I have one foot out the door, when CPW and meeting incoming students was exciting and not unsettling, when I was in charge of things rather than being free from all responsibility. while this has been one of the easiest semesters academically, and I’ve finally been able to make time for things I enjoy, I can’t help but miss the security that comes with not being on my way out.

this weekend was a powerful reminder of why I love my community so much, so it only makes sense that I’m struggling to reconcile with the fact that I’m graduating soon. I imagine these feelings will only get worse over the next weeks, which I’m not excited for. regardless, this DTYD was one for the books. I’m sure it won’t be my last, but where I’ll be the next time around, I have absolutely no clue.