Bwog tipster Christopher Morris-Lent sent in the first--but certainly not the last--gem of the year from Sunil Gulati's Principles class:

No more CUnity this year. Orientating first-years, who arrived at Columbia a few years too late to have Edward Said tell them that they have in fact been Occidentating all along, instead had BlaZe--a kind of scavenger hunt / color war hybrid--sending them screaming across campuses on both sides of Broadway. Naturally, Bwog was there, in the form of correspondents Andrew Russeth and Marc Tracy.

The event was everywhere, and nowhere. A hula hoop race—quick, everyone hold hands! now pass a hula hoop around your circle without not holding hands!—in front of the B School. Sudoku in Upper Mac. Beirut and Quarters, at, respectively, Barnard Lawn and the basement of Mac—except with cheap cola instead of cheap beer. Word games in front of Philosophy, posted to The Thinker (get it?). All done by forty teams spread out in five colors ( e.g., Yellow 1, Red 3, Bwog favorite Green 5).

We had been told the name of the event—BlaZe—carried humorous connotations. Puzzled by this, we put on our reporting caps and asked around. "Fire and fun," an OL offered, on what BlaZe meant to her. "Pouring gasoline on people and lighting them on fire," another, perhaps the younger brother of the McBain arsonist, told us. "I don't know," demurred another student, inexplicably adding, "I don't smoke." And then there was the first-year who, as we talked to her during something of a traffic jam behind Earl Hall, insisted, "You know what we're thinking." Um, no, not really.