When people ask you what your best memories of college are, most people respond with tales of drunken bliss, social bonding or Frisbee-throwing merriment. This summer, half of my extended family will ask me what I did over the last year. They might be expecting tales of how I studied so much my brain hurt, or how I drank so much that everything except my brain hurt; but when I tell them about the time I stood in the pouring rain at 3 a.m. holding a wrench and yelling through plywood, I hope they’re more than a little surprised.

For those of you who have been locked in a cave (or the Admissions Office) for the past fortnight, this week marked the 61st consecutive staging of that institution of insomnia we like to call Lot Week. It is a glorious time where weather patterns take the place of showers, sawdust is substituted for sustenance and the Greek community proves that it can hammer just as well as it can get hammered. Regardless of your opinion of the finances, methods or motivations of Thurtene Carnival, you have to admit that hundreds of people coming together to build basically a half-dozen small homes in a week is a pretty spectacular achievement.

There are people right now who are standing on the A.C. parking lot who are wearing the same clothes that they wore on Wednesday. They smell, they’re tired and they have splinters and sawdust in places that wood products shouldn’t be allowed to go. For the past week, these individuals have screamed so much that passing bystanders either don’t even notice or simply think that most of the junior class of Wash U has a problem controlling the volume of their voices. There has been a couch at the Francis Gate for the past week not so that the Honorary can get rest when guarding the lot, but so that the guy who dropped an I-Beam for the third time has something to take cover under when being chased by three overalls wielding Black & Deckers. The level of commitment of so many has led to a net loss of hygiene and academic performance, but the payoff has been worth so much more.

For many in the Greek Community, the biggest attraction to joining a chapter is the prospect of Brother or Sisterhood. This week, every time someone spotted a ladder, held the other side of a bolt or grabbed water for a friend hanging three feet off a scaffolding, that bond has been formed. Just as rural communities take pride in raising the walls of a barn, there is no greater method of bonding for our community than when fifty wet, tired, unshaven undergraduates hoist a wall into the air and hold it into place with an army of two by fours. It’s not just the Greeks that are taking part, though. Dozens of campus groups are setting up tables or booths to run games or sell concessions. These groups might not watch the sun rise while putting on a roof, but they prove that Thurtene is a time when all of Washington University can come together to benefit a cause (and probably have the largest amount of purely sober fun of the entire year).

For the past week, my clothes have been soaked to the bone, my hands have gone raw from ratchets and screwdrivers, my feet ache from endless repeats of jazz squares, my voice has gone raspy from belting out my best impression of Steve Perry four times a day and there are dozens who are reading this and laughing at me for having such a light week. Thurtene is without a doubt the biggest undertaking that undergraduates at Wash U put on, so, when you come this weekend, remember that. All the things you see around you-all the buildings, all the shows,and all the random shenanigans-were planned and accomplished by your fellow students. It came at a cost of grades, sleep and bodily injury, but it was worth it. Thurtene is a celebration of community-something a story about standing in the rain could never truly express.

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