Walking around Midway on Monday night, I felt that I was able to get a taste of the excitement that many people associate with Carnival. There was a lot of hustle and bustle, a lot of noise associated with the whole deal. People worked frantically, by yellow lamplight, on their unfinished booths (some sketchy, some brilliant). The whole situation reminded me of a frontier camp or maybe I've been watching too much Deadwood.

I'm being very honest when I say that Carnival last year (my freshman year) was a bit of a let down. For the whole year preceding the actual weekend, I had been led to believe that Carnival was something spectacular and unbelievable. When those four days did finally come around, I was disappointed. I couldn't understand why people would put so much effort into structures that would be around for only a few days. Walking around Midway that night I got a sense of the answer to that question. I think that prolonged periods of teamwork has the side-effect of creating a sense of excitement and joy, much like Speed or a good workout, which is great.

That being said, the booths I'm most interested in seeing on opening day are the SigEp booth and the MayurSASA booth. Last year the SigEp "Nintendo" booth was hilarity and awe rolled into one; I'm expecting more of the same this year. The Mayur booth was quite average last year, but they're attempting an ambitious "Taj Mahal" booth this time around. Midway opens to the public (that's you) at 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 17. It's worth at least an hour of your time, if not more.

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