Alarm Clocks, Zombies and a Bonus Video

(April 22 2010) Written by: Emily Okey

I have four 8 am classes this quarter (by choice and the answer to your question is no, not everyone has to take such early classes) and yesterday was the first time that I have been late to class. I should have probably seen it coming. I woke up at 6 am to register for classes only to realize that it was actually at 7 so I fell back asleep and either never set my alarm or the more likely story.. just slept through it.

Lucky for me, my professors are very forgiving. Now, I'm not suggesting that you call in sick weekly or make tardiness a habit but every so often it's not cause for panic. Depending on how many times you use excuses and what kind of work you are missing factors into how flexible they will be. I'm just glad that I woke up at 8 am and not 10 :) After quickly throwing on some clothes, I made it to class...we're talking lightening speed here. It was also quite fortunate that it was my Wednesday 8 am and not Thursday because Wednesdays all I have to do is continue working on a lab (flash project) and today I had a quiz bright and early.

I set my alarm on nice and loud this morning and had no problems-- it also helped that the construction on Global Village is right outside of my window and they were using a particularly loud saw or something this morning so that made falling back asleep pretty much not an option.

But now, for something completely different! Yesterday, two of the other ambassadors and I were sitting in Kodak quad enjoying the sunny weather when we spotted this....

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I apologize for the talking in the background, someone walked by who didn't know what was going on and someone else was trying to explain it to her.

For those of you who might not know, this is Humans vs Zombies. In fact, almost exactly a year ago, I found myself writing about the same thing.

So I'll conveniently copy and paste over the same description of it since I'm pretty sure the rules have not changed :)

Basically Humans vs Zombies or HvZ is a week long campus wide game of tag (invented at Goucher College in Maryland, I believe) that occurs twice a year. The point of the game is to make it the entire week without being "tagged" and the difficult thing about it is that it's a 24 hour event which means that yes, even walking to class you're still playing. This causes mass chaos around doors to buildings because indoors is out of bounds so the minute you step outside you can be tagged. It also means that people will walk incredibly far out of the way just to avoid the quarter mile. I've never participated but it's pretty funny to watch. You can check out the "official rules" by going to http://kdratrit.com/hvz/rules.php

Apparently what I failed to mention last year was that people carry around huge nerf guns or balled up socks and proceed to hide behind buildings, doors, etc and wait for the opposite team to walk by so they can "tag" them. It's pretty funny giving tours while this is going on because when there is a zombie "attack" everyone stops to watch. It's also funny when you walk by someone trying to hide and start laughing because they're get mad at you and tell you to pretend they aren't there :)

And when I say campus-wide, I don't mean that everyone participates. I, for one, have not been defending myself with a nerf gun or rolled up socks on the way to class, it's much more relaxing that way. While I think the whole thing is a tad bit strange, I can understand how it's a fun (and stressful-- constantly being on the look out) way to spend your week 7.

If you're interested in it more, here is a more professional looking video that someone put together to explain it.

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