The Crapulous Campout Blog
A Vietnam war reference might seem dated, but I can’t help but note the 1,000 mile stare Nic Schoolers will be walking around with this week as we return from tent city a.k.a. “The Refugee Camp.” The zone of conflict was over season tickets to men’s basketball and it was by most estimates as grueling an experience as finals. But the real question is: did the tracks of the MEM program sufficiently prepare us for the 36-hour ordeal? I say yes, with the only caveat that I am still delusional from not sleeping.
The weekend started innocuously enough; through some sort of sublime socio-cultural segregation, the various grad schools of Duke split up into the have-RVs and have-nots. Those who had no RV, or no organizational gumption to rent one, were internally displaced to tent city, whose density was rivaled only by 19th century Manchester, England. Sanitary conditions had not markedly improved.
On an ecotoxicologcal note, Purell was handed out freely and swine flu was avoided for now, that is until an antibiotic resistant super virus comes back for us. On the plus side, being yelled at for touching a “free” bagel instead of being handed one brought back fun juvenile memories of elementary school.
The environmental economics of the event were not hard to extrapolate. Tragedy of the Commons started to look more like a cautionary wife’s tale compared to the phantasmagorical apocalypse that was tent city at dusk. Supply of tickets was artificially restricted even though demand still lead to a market-efficient outcome. However, this outcome clearly included socially sub-optimal implications involving being awoken 25 times in 36 hours to the convulsing air-raid sirens of Campout.
The coastal environmental impacts were small except the possible increase in zombie sightings in Beaufort after a number of Nic Schoolers made the trek. Ecosystems were disrupted though their services were clearly appreciated as tree shade become treasure, even though foresters’ hearts sank as human waste of both the physiological and industrial kinds began to accumulate and saturation was achieved long before Sunday 7 a.m. Water and air resources were in high demand but low in supply due our incarcerated conditions and lack of a fresh water supply. However, those who ventured to Cameron for the women’s volleyball game found several positive externalities in the arena.
The imposing football lights provided the requisite lighting to avoid stampede-related deaths and to have the ability to open a tent, but because there was no predictable loading schedule some attentive MEM grad at Duke Energy probably wondered what could cause spikes in electricity demand for a random field of grass at three in the morning.
And finally, on this crapulous of all weekends, global environmental change was mitigated through reduced CO2 emissions by the graduate students of tent city who returned to pre-anthropogenic CO2 production levels as well as living conditions so that they could get the red card to Coach K’s magic factory. Totally worth it.
P.s. Yes, “Crapulous” is a word.
tent city gear