Astro-drinking

We sent two baby Bwoggers to their 11 am FroSci lecture as they guzzled a bottle or two of the cheapest white wine International had to offer (−OH, ya feel?). Throughout the lecture, they managed to develop a drinking game AND learn about black holes (though we all know that their consumption induced them into their own black hole of drunkenness). Read about their experience and the innovative drinking game that you can now replicate (isn’t repetition a part of the scientific method anyway?). 

We walked into FroSci lecture yesterday morning (right past the security guards harassing other froshies for bringing in chamomile tea and Starbucks tiramisu lattes) toting two iClickers, a box of granola, two nondescript containers (a Minute Maid apple juice bottle and a Blue Java travel mug) filled with a bottle’s worth of pinot grigio, and a genuine love for science. The lecture started with the lecturer saying that they would start cracking down on cell phone use in lecture…but what about drinking?

We played at pacing ourselves–drinking games are great ways to do that, right? Predictably, the rule list got long enough after the first ten minutes that it was more a dash to the finish than anything else. Here were the rules:

Drink when…

• Someone asks a question
• Everyone collectively flips the page of the lecture slide packet they printed out
• The lecturer describes the FroSci “team” as “data-driven”
• The lecturer plugs the Twitter (@FoSColumbia #FroSci)
• You have to use your iClicker (not nearly often enough for the $40 price tag!)
• You get the iClicker question wrong
• You get the iClicker question right
• The lecturer describes a ridiculous scenario (like dropping your keys in an elevator to test if you’re in a building or in space?)
• Some asshole gets up to use the bathroom and makes you pull in your legs
• An athlete falls asleep

As you would imagine, due to a combination of intoxication and under-caffeination, we don’t remember much of the lecture. At one point, the lecturer starting throwing chocolates, and an athlete (a football player?) seemed to come dangerously close to falling off the upper level in order to catch it (if only they could catch the football like that!). We later ended up heckling the lecturer until she threw one in our direction, much to the embarrassment of the sober friend we stationed next to us to make sure we didn’t try to ask any questions.

One interesting part was when she started talking about black holes, because one of us saw Interstellar and she said their depiction in the movie was excellent. We then took numerous snapchats with that black planet emoji, the “black hole” symbolizing our increasing drunkenness.

Somehow, the hour and a half lecture seemed to go by pretty quickly (it also ended 15 minutes early, we think…). We exited Teacher’s College with fond memories of reaching new frontiers of astrophysics, leaving a trail of granola dust in our wake (we managed to chomp through half the box during lecture–we get hungry when wine drunk!).

Honestly, if this doesn’t improve your FroSci experience, nothing will. Our experiment ended with one of us passing out in the other’s bed (to the amusement of said person’s roommate) and the other one going off to Lit Hum. With our love of science rekindled, we can’t wait for next week’s lecture–maybe we’ll shotgun beers in the bathroom!

Hire us, NASA! via Shutterstock