One of my favorite nights I’ve had at school so far – we had a “Fear Factor” style eating competition that was a challenge from one of the girls’ dorms to my dorm, Nihal. Each dorm put up 5 contestants, for a total of 10 people vying for the prize. Each round, a disgusting item was brought out on a small plate (pickled plums, dried sardines, a very hot pepper, gross mixtures of various foods with mayonnaise, seaweed etc), and then the last person to finish their plate was eliminated.

To be honest, we hadn’t really given the girls’ dorm much of a chance – we have some pretty good eaters in our dorm (example 1, see the eventual winner below). The first round, a girl was eliminated, but then a boy, then another girl, but then TWO more boys (ones we thought would be phenomenal at eating contests)! This left us with 3 girls, whose total poundage was certainly less than 300 pounds, against 2 boys, whose total poundage was far more than 300 pounds. Another girl was eliminated, puking in front of the entire school, but then another boy was eliminated, which left these two TINY sophomore girls against a huge senior guy. He ended up triumphing in the end (see belly slap below), but barely by any time at all.

It was one of the first times I’ve seen the school really excited and really coming together as a community. It was also the first time I’ve seen someone puke in front of their entire school. Both were awesome.