Link, linkety-link

[kaffy_r]

For Your Delectation, Delight and/or Bemused Incomprehension

....all of which I experienced when I visited these pages.

Thanks to cutecouple and heatherbelles over on TWoP for the first two. The third is something I ran across as part of my job, and I'm interested in other people's response to it. Me, I like the idea of reunions, because the one and only reunion I ever attended was one of the most positive things I've experienced in my life when it comes to my school days. Any thoughts, y'all?

1) Dairy delight at Amazon (I understand it's been a matter of amusement in the New York Times since 2006, but I don't mind being a day late and a dollar short.)

2) Those wacky Welsh

3) But can you hug someone you haven't hugged in years on Facebook?

Comments

Warning: very long and probably valid for only me

[monkey-pants7.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm on facebook, but only for the past year or so. It didn't exist when I was in college. We were all ridiculously addicted to email, though--no one had cell phones (they weren't so ubiquitous, plus at the time there really was no reception up there) so whenever you wanted to communicate with someone you emailed them, and there were terminals all over campus so you could check blitz. (we have our own system, blitzmail.) No one even used their room phones.

All of this is to say that we all communicate over the computer without facebook anyway, plus I knew most of what the people I knew were up to through the alum magazine, newsletter, and this alum theatre website. But I still went back for my 5 year reunion, and so did almost all of my friends (and a very large portion of the class). I know what some of them are doing almost minute-to-minute now, which is kind of odd, but no matter what I know about them I still would want to see them, at the 10 year and into the future.

This may be because the reunion culture is very ingrained into Dartmouth students--I worked them sophomore and junior year, and they're really, really popular. This may be because they're a whole weekend long, and you stay in the dorms, and often it turns into a weekend-long party replete with frat visitations and pong, but also I think it's because people miss Dartmouth, they miss the campus, and there's also nothing like hanging out with your friends. Just because I know what's going on with them doesn't mean I don't want to eat dinner with, dance with, and talk for hours with the people I spent four years with. I think perhaps people who don't care to go back are people who see the people they cared about all the time, and don't really have a huge attachment to campus?

Re: Warning: very long and probably valid for only me

[kaffy_r]

It's the hanging out part that I think would ultimately keep the reunion concept alive, despite what the youngsters (hey, you're all youngsters to me) said in the Newsweek article. Reunion planners may have to adapt, and change what comprises a reunion, though. or at least how to convince people to participate - it may not be safe to simply assume people will want to come.

Re: Warning: very long and probably valid for only me

[monkey-pants7.livejournal.com]

I agree--the hanging out was the best part. I don't see how Facebook can replace that--unless you just don't want to see people. Which is a definite possibility for a lot of people, I think--I was very wary of going to my HS reunion, but I ended up forcing myself and it turned out well.

I think adapting the idea of a reunion is good as well--you have to have something that appeals to a lot of people and doesn't cost too much.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I'm 53 and didn't graduate from college, so I can only talk about high school reunions. I've never gone to one. I didn't care enough about the people in my class to want to see them again and whenever my father (and then some online reunion company) sent me info about them, I saw that fewer and fewer people went every year. The last one, in 2002 (30 year), had only five people.

As to Facebook, it's always seemed like the USA Today of social networking and I'm more of a NYT or WP person.

[kaffy_r]

I didn't graduate college either, so my reunion experience is also high school related. High school life was a mixed bag for me, good memories and bad, but I decided to go to my 30th, which took place during a centennial celebration for my home town, so there were extras beckoning. I had, to my joy and surprise, a tremendously positive experience, almost a loving experience; I wrote about it years ago, in one of Geri's early issues of Idea

[maruad.livejournal.com]

I don't remember going to any reunions except family... which we used to have every few years on my moms side. Last one was probably 8-10 years ago. All her siblings are either too old, too senile or dead.

I never went to my high school grad as I didn't finish high school till I did it in night school.

I never went to convocation when I finished my BA (I had them mail me my degree). I don't think of myself as class of ** because I spent 13 years getting my degree. I never identified with any one group of people in the university.

[kaffy_r]

Coincidentally, I've had a similar conversation with folks on one of the boards I haunt over at Television Without Pity. Some folks over there who do have the graduation option were ambivalent about it. It made me think about my experience with graduation, and I realized I wanted more than I actually got. I walked across a stage to get my practical journalism "degree" (actually, a certificate) because my college figured I'd learned what was necessary by getting a full time job in my chosen career half way through the course. I felt like it was an acknowledgement of my abilities, but I've always wished, in retrospect, that I'd asked my family to come and see me do the walk.