Choose Your Own Adventure

When I’m asked what I love about W&M, a thousand disconnected moments and experiences rush into my head. It’s impossible to translate this influx of emotion into a logical response to that query. I generally end up babbling about a thousand things I love; that babbling generally includes summaries of experiences I’ve had across the spectrum of my time at the College that summarize W&M’s personality.  One such event is the Audio Adventure.

One night my sophomore year, I got a Facebook invitation to an event put on by a performance art-esque group called The Collective, in which a few of my friends were involved. This event, the “Audio Adventure,” advertised an mp3 track on Facebook and directions to download it but NOT LISTEN to any of the file until 10 pm on a random Wednesday night. Intrigued, I borrowed a friend’s iPod and decided to try it out. On that night, I pressed play at 10 pm (and, unbeknownst to me, along with about 50 other students across campus) and was led on an hour-long adventure around campus (based on the audio instructions on the mp3 file, which were also set to pump-up dance music), choosing a team to run around with based on location, and finishing the night with a dance party battle in the Sunken Gardens.

I left the Audio Adventure exhausted but thrilled, having made a bunch of new random friends and having been impressed, once again, by the lengths W&M students will go to to come up with things to do.

I talked to a friend in the Collective and helped with Audio Adventure 2. This one was longer, required more audio recording and about a month of planning, and adopted an unofficial “Legends of the Hidden Temple” theme. I was the team leader of the Purple Parrots with my friend Bryan; we ran around campus sprinting from site to site, acting out events and watching the participants complete challenges.

By the time Audio Adventure 3 rolled around, the event had gained in popularity. Over 250 people registered for the Facebook event and participated. The energy and vibe were INCREDIBLE. The third adventure included a video component, a mission control base, a rescue of a victim, fake bomb defusion, and of course, dancing.

Audio Adventure, to me, captures the essence of W&M–spontaneous creativity and a spirit of fun exude from the event as they do from the campus community.