Sai Kulkarni ‘23
Culture Editor
Does every article I write have to begin with a reference to You-Know-What? I hope not and remain positive that this will be the last one. But like someone unable to get over a breakup, everything I talk about tends to include a reference to That-Which-Sucks. Anyways! This last year sucked. Plain and simple. There was no social scene, and for good reason. The Class of 2023 missed out on all the great things that our predecessors had, such as Dandelion, Bar Review, and most of all, Feb Club. What everyone who stayed here for the summer got, though, was Summer Series. This was 29 days of partying in the month of June, organized by our now-disappeared alumni of the Class of 2021, given the fact that a lot of people were working virtually and decided to stay in Charlottesville.
Now if you talk to any of the alumni, I’m sure some of them will tell you that the event was organized for their own sake as a last hurrah before taking the Bar. I choose to believe the interpretation I was told frequently: it was to give my class a real taste of law school. It brought people together, got us outta the house, and introduced us to some stalwarts of Charlottesville culture. With all that introduction out of the way, it’s time to talk details. The most important part of hosting a party is always the guest list. Locations change, plans adapt, but you have to meet your desired turnout level. The illustrious organizers chose to create an open invite GroupMe with a few of them as admins. Of course, there was no way for this to get out of hand (*cough* med students *cough*), but between alumni Nicole, Sam, Danny, Ines, Will, Josh, and one of my closest friends’ boyfriend (I think his name starts with a Z?), they managed to get a massive crew together and get the party started.
Did you notice how even after I said “all that introduction out of the way,” I kept giving background? Yes, of course my summer job liked my writing, how dare you insinuate otherwise. Anyway! The Summer Series was kicked off by a toga party at a specially opened Bilt where there were epic speeches, creative outfits (especially by our benevolent overlord at the Law Weekly), and good vibes. It set the tone for a large, inclusive event and introduced me to my favorite place in the city. The ball kept rolling that week with a Pav pool party featuring a rare appearance by our beloved Stan.
The one event I missed involved a wedding and a bachelor party but I’m sure that the happy couple is off in Croatia honeymooning in peace. That’s just a taste, so you can imagine that the events that followed were great as well. Rather than running through each remaining event, let’s talk highlights. By far the best event was Bar Golf. In a creative rebranding of the traditional bar crawl, this involved a game based on points for tasks completed at each location. It was a great way to introduce a lot of Corner classics and brought everyone together on the same task. As one of the few present from the first to the last location, it was a crash course in unique places and seeing people cut loose.
There were, of course, plenty of house parties hosted by various people, celebrating everything from birthdays to the color of the moon. Different people also got the chance to host themed events like Paige and Brian’s 1L party and Ines and Jennie’s goth party. If you want to learn how to make everyone feel like a participant in the party process, the Summer Series Admins were teaching a master class.
While I think each of these events were awesome, I think the real stars were the people. At the end of the day, this is law school, people have strong personalities, and that can cause conflict. But despite all of that, people from all three classes (plus some med students that snuck in) came together for a common purpose: to get lit. That’s really beautiful to me. Everyone was so open to partying hard together that it gave me hope in a time like law school when hope is anathema. I am optimistic that a lot of the new friendships formed this summer will stay for a while. I know that this year will mean a return to usual events. But the legacy of a project created by a few enterprising law school graduates through Summer Series will last for a while (especially on my Instagram profile).
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omk6cg@virginia.edu