Campus Chronicles 2: Attack of the Frosh ft Kimbo Smash

Helloooooooooo Baylor Nation! lord.hinton here. I'm so excited to be back for another week of Campus Chronicles! This week has been filled with fun and awesomeness meeting and greeting the newest members of That Good Ole Baylor Line, the class of 2019. I've had the honor of being a Welcome Week small group leader for the second year in a row with my wonderful partner Kat! Along with that, this week McBeezy has finally arrived back on campus and is getting settled in at Brooks Flats, oh and Kimbo Smash (the homegirl we all know and love) is our guest this week to tell us all about her own experience as a Welcome Week leader this year. We also have a couple of reader questions from last week. Let's get into it. But first, here's a shot of my group before The Big Event on Saturday night!

Reader Questions:

Ted Harrison asks "BUT IS THIS NEW FEATURE #ELITE"

LH: It might be a little early to say this, but we're here for HOT TAKES so I will go out on a limb and say it, Campus Chronicles will be the best feature yet in ODB's long line of great features. We haven't seen a whole lot from it yet but I'm talking awards, championships, all of it. It's got the best of all the tools of every feature that we've ever seen. And Kimbo Smash is on it this week so, by default, #ELITE

SicEmKC asks "so ODB is to the Lariat as Campus Chronicles is to The Rope?

LH: I think you meant the DBR, if so, I can totally get behind that analogy. Other than the fact that the DBR probably has way more reads relative to CC than The Lariat has to The Rope. Shout out to the homie Shehan aka Yung Shee over at The Lariat btw.

Jam of the Week:

Matt McBeezy's Week:

Well, I moved in on to my apartment at Brooks Flats on Friday. YAY! Met all of my suitemates. My roommate brought a Baylor flag (the one that looks like a green-and-gold Texas flag with a "BU" emblem on the far left rather than the Lone Star. It’s a pretty awesome flag. And my apartment looks really cool. I met this freshman girl on Friday named Sidney(Sydney?) and she had no idea where Penland Dining Hall was. While carrying a box with a three-tiered shelf and a grocery bag holding a flatware organizer, I walked her all the way from the Collins parking garage to Penland Dining Hall. She’s from Linden, home of Shock Linwood and Miranda Lambert. Having two freshmen as suitemates, I can gather that both are excited for Baylor Football season to start. I’m a little jealous of them: running the Line during a season in which Baylor should be a national-title contender. Lucky. Anyhow, that’s all for this week. Next week, I’ll have more to talk about. Probably because the whole campus will be buzzing about Baylor Football instead of figuring out where all of the classes are.

lord.hinton's Week:

My week began with Welcome Week training on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday which was rather uninteresting especially since I went through the same stuff last year so I won't go into the details on most of it. However, there was an interesting new session on some of the new Title IX initiatives the university is participating in including the It's On Us BU campaign. 2 representatives from Baylor's Title IX office came to speak to all of the Welcome Week Leaders to inform them of the resources available to students to report and receive counseling for any sexual assault or other similar harassment that takes place against a student. As I'm sure all of you are aware Baylor's response to such an incident has recently come under fire. Clearly there are people more informed on what went down with the investigation and the trial than I am so to avoid sounding like an idiot all I will say is that this situation is far more complicated than any Baylor hater on Twitter would have you believe and we may never know the whole truth of what happened but our beloved Baylor time and again has shown the resolve to overcome all challenges and I have no doubt that we will take a long hard look at ourselves to find out where we went wrong and what could've been done to better protect the victim. Also any idiot saying Art Briles needs to resign or be fired for putting students in known danger by allowing a rapist to transfer here is completely out of line and I take personal offense to the idea that we sacrificed a female student to sexual assault because we wanted to win some damn football games. That's been proven to not be true. But as you all know, Twitter doesn't really deal in facts or proof. Anyway, on to happier subjects of the week.

Thursday 8/20

I was supposed to be on the move-in crew for Collins in the morning but, oops, I had to work my day job which thankfully doesn't include climbing 6 flights of stairs. In the torrential downpour that would ensue later that afternoon I went all across campus passing out dope coupons and candy to my Welcome Weekers in their dorm room trying to make sure they'd be pumped for WW and know where to show up to meet their small group. Some notes on that: The newly renovated (just reopened this year) full North/South Russell Residence Hall is AMAZING. The rooms, the study spaces, the furniture, and the gameroom on the first floor all made me a little bit jealous of the freshmen who get to live in new everything. Also weirdly enough Russell now houses both guys and gals with a brand new Education LLC being located there. This is probably because Penland is closed for the year while being renovated but we''ll see what happens when Baylor eventually takes a break on construction. The President's picnic and small group round up got rained out on Thursday so everyone awkwardly ate in their laps in the Ferrell Center while Ken Starr gave an impromptu speech that I...missed.

Friday 8/21

On Friday (at 8:30 in the gosh darn morning) we finally got to meet our small group and play some icebreakers and name games and things. We had a pretty solid turnout with only 3/16 not showing up and one of those 3 having prior commitments with the Golden Wave Band. Academic Convocation was better than I remember it being last year or even the year before that. The afternoon was filled with the new Academic Open Houses which basically meant all the professor's from a certain department stood in a room that had free snacks or Dr Pepper floats in it and the students asked them questions they didn't really care about the answer to to avoid looking like a mooch only in it for the food. I taught them well. Later in the night we had the Spirit Rally where you could really tell this class is PUMPED about football season and some of the other sports too*. The freshmen closed their night with CL&L Tradition which for some was Serenade and for Brooks, Teal, and The HRC was a carnival type thing on Fountain Mall. Everyone said they had a great time.

*John Heard jumped over small children and dunked on a mini basketball hoop. Crowd went wild.

Saturday 8/22

Saturday was a pretty chill day as far as Welcome Week activities go. We had lunch with our groups in the early afternoon and then took them to the Church Fair so they could scope out some potential churches to try out over the coming weeks and then released them back to their res halls for events there. Since I don't live on campus anymore I don't know what those events were. We met back up with them for dinner and The Big Event! This year's theme was GLOW so mostly everyone was dressed in Baylor's infamous electricity color. For at least the third year in a row In10city the cover band came out performing a set of current top 40 and throwback hits like Michael Jackson's PYT and Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music. A lot of the freshmen thought they were too cool to dance like idiots around all these people they hadn't met yet, thank God people like me and Kimbo were there to show them you can be uber cool and still dance like a drunk dad at a wedding.

Sunday 8/23

Sunday was also a very chill day. My group ate lunch at East Village and then we reserved one of the team rooms in the new Business School (which is even more amazing than the pictures you saw in the DBR yesterday) and spent several hours going through life stories. Life stories is amazing for group cohesiveness, I could literally see the walls coming down in the room as this group of future classmates told everyone about the circumstances that led them to Baylor, the BIC, etc. After life stories and a little bit of exploration in Foster we had dinner and then went out to the Ferrell Center for the Worship Service which was INCREDIBLE. This would usually be followed by the candlelight ceremony but they axed that this year because of construction on the BANC and also apparently the soccer team doesn't dig wax on the field. So we just sat out on the Ferrell Center lawn to reflect on the week and all of my group was experiencing that powerful mix of emotions we all remember fondly going into college. Will I make friends, will I get good grades, will I get I keep my friends from back home, etc. etc. I can tell they will stay a tight nit group as they transition from welcome week group to classmates and I'm super excited for them to finally be starting school here.

After that we went Tortilla Tossing which is always a good time. Ya boy landed 2 on the pillar.

KimboSmash's Week:

HEY HEY HEY!

First, huge shoutout to lord.hinton for letting me join him and Beezy this week on Campus Chronicle.  Also, shoutout to lord.hinton for herding leading freshmen all week with me.  Aight.

This week was completely focused on the Baylor Class of 2019 (which makes me feel ridiculously old).  They are a very bright class, and really reflect the demand for a Baylor education at this point.  They love football, and have previously been very successful academically.  Baylor is a hot school right now, especially with all the attention we're recieving because of sports, which means passionate and dedicated students.  Campus is rockin' and vibrant and I've loved watching campus boom over the past 3 years.  ANYWAY.

Monday through Wednesday I was in training for Welcome Week, which included visits from the campus Title IX office, as well as Spiritual Life and other departments crucial to the success of the incoming class.  Wednesday morning, I moved in the Education Living Learning Center, housed in South Russell.  (Campus ain't what it used to be!  THERE ARE BOYS IN THE RUSSELLS.  And worst of all, word on the street is that girls will be allowed to live in Penland next year when the renovations are complete.  WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?)  Ken Starr came to visit, and praised our team for being able to unload an entirely packed car in 30 seconds.   Sic 'em, move in!

Thursday evening began the Welcome Week festivities, but rain hindered the traditional Small Group Round Up.  My partner for Welcome Week and I dressed up like ketchup and mustard (yes, really #college), much to the amusement of the official Baylor photographer.  Friday brought with it Academic Convocation, a ceremony meant to mimic Commencement and "bookend" the Baylor academic experience, as well as the Spirit Rally.  My group headed out to support the Lady Bears in their match against FSU before flinging our green and gold afar during the Spirit Rally.  Saturday evening, we got krunk.  The Big Event is a huge dance party in the Ferrell Center, complete with inflatables and a cover band, and it is awe.some.  According to my phone, I ran 10 miles while dancing (I'll let you know when my legs recover!), but my favorite part of the evening was setting up chairs for the next day and singing Old Fight (yep, that's the official name of the Fight Song.  I promise).  The final event of Welcome Week 2015 was a worship service held in the Ferrell Center, followed by an emotional small group gathering.

This week really made me appreciate everything that Baylor has been to me, as well as making me realize how bittersweet it is to begin my last semester here.  I am beyond blessed to call myself a Baylor Bear.  Sic 'em, always.

--XOXO, KimboSmash

So there you have it folks, another week on campus in the books. Leave any questions you have in the comments and we'll be right back here to answer them next week with a fresh batch of hot takes on the first week of classes. Thanks again for stopping by KmboSmash!

May the afar flung green and gold guide and protect us as we onward go down this Good Ole Baylor Line. See ya next week guys!