To clarify, my title isn’t supposed to have a double meaning: the compound “geekend” does not, in fact, refer to the time when geeks and nerds no longer rule this Earth. Rather, it describes this past Friday, when <3′s celebration of nerdiness (in other words, our concert) temporarily took over part of Risley (and my life–that’s why it’s been a bit since I posted).

If you asked a guidance counselor to describe college in a word or two, he or she would probably say something about academics, while I’ll bet the media would make a snarky comment about binge drinking. In my opinion, college is, on the most trivial level, defined by bubble tea and a cappella music.

Though I’m a big fan of those chunky straws myself, I’ll personally never understand the bubble tea obsession here at Big Red. I do, however, have a few theories about why collegiate a cappella is such a big deal. The popularity of TV’s Glee certainly hasn’t hurt the popularity of covering songs and dancing around onstage, but this trend was alive and kicking way before a bunch of middling auto-tuned performers started rehashing pop hits on Fox.

Hey, I think we can still dance better than the guy who plays Finn Hudson.

Honestly, I think a cappella’s appeal among the 20-ish set is based mostly on recognition. It’s always awkward when you go to a concert and your favorite band plays some silly song that you’ve never heard before (I’m looking at you, Jonathan Coulton!). What could be better, then, than attending a performance where it’s almost guaranteed that you’re at least somewhat familiar with all the selections ? Plus, you get to see that reserved dude from your bio class and that chick you always see drinking lattes at Libe Cafe belting out the power chords instead of Adele or Bruno Mars.

Now, <3 never tries to emulate any of the current Top 40 superstars, but we’re still fundamentally aiming for recognition, too. It’s delightful when we do more obscure things, of course, (e.g. one of our staples, the YouTube classic “They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard,” certainly wasn’t played on any radio recently), but our best performances occur when people get what we’re doing.

And, based on the huge number of fans who stormed the doors of Risley Hall like orcs attacking Helm’s Deep to see our show, Cornellians do understand us. By the time the girls and I took the stage, we had a line of folks standing in the back because all of the seats were taken!

One final note before this post just turns into a pointless rant of <3 love: our concert would have never been such a success without the support of our advisor. While it’s true that no advisor is required to play a particularly active role in his or her organization’s activities, I was surprised by our faculty ally’s enthusiasm.

When our advisor and his wife attended our dress rehearsal, they were cheerful, kind, and full of great suggestions for last-minute improvements. (They also proudly mentioned their love for Joss Whedon’s work, and even recognized the picture of Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Spike that I currently have as my desktop wallpaper, so, you know, that helped too). I’ve never met professors at Cornell–or anywhere–more actively interested in their students’ lives!

And he was willing to hold our mascot, a unicorn named Edward Gorey! How awesome!

This coming Saturday represents another special milestone for <3 as well. We’re having our first real open auditions! Though I’ve attended billions (that’s a very precise number, I’ll have you know) of auditions in my life, I haven’t ever been on the decision-making side (except when I directed and wrote a dorky musical in tenth grade, but we won’t talk about that). Incidentally, if you’re coming here next year as a freshman and want to try out in the fall, send me an email!