Carnival a Fun New TIP at UGA First

By Rose Fox and Kelly Rosch
M&M Staffers

On Sunday July 19, 2009, the Duke TIP staff at the University of Georgia (UGA) campus hosted the first TIP carnival on Myers Quad to give students a break from their busy schedule.
Residential Counselors, who students call “RCs”, had previously told their groups that the event would be a five-hour long nutrition seminar on physical health. After the fair, many students recalled having suspicions about these statements.
The carnival began in the early afternoon and lasted until 5 p.m. Some staff members manned cotton candy machines, made snow cones, ran fortune telling and handwriting analysis booths, and assisted in face-painting. Other staffers patrolled the inflatable obstacle course and pirate ship.
TIPsters, students who attend TIP, were enthusiastic about the carnival and activities. Sterling Richards, a third-year TIPster, was interviewed after climbing out of the unstable pirate ship. “I liked the handwriting analysis,” she responded when asked about her favorite activity, “that was pretty cool.”
Theary Tiep, the student counselor for TIP, sat patiently by and analyzed students’ handwriting underneath a booth on the right side of the carnival. Tiep was able to pinpoint personality traits by observing patterns in TIPsters’ writing.
“Your handwriting is a representation of who you are,” said Tiep. Many TIPsters granted that Tiep was spot-on with her analysis, which she acknowledged was purely for entertainment value and should not be taken as a concrete perception of personality. “You know yourself best,”she assured students.
In addition to rides, students could also join games such as Frisbee, mini-golf, and Nerf gun fights. Geoff Toy, a third year boys group RC, was in charge of photographing these and other activities for a TIP slideshow.
“This is the third summer I’ve been part of the slideshow committee,” he said, “so I’m used to taking pictures of everything.” At the time of the interview, Geoff had taken twenty pictures of the carnival and a total of three-hundred pictures over the course of the whole term. When asked if he had ridden any rides, Geoff responded that “No, we’re not supposed to. We’re on patrol duty,” continuing, “it’s good, the rides are for you guys.”
One of the most notable activities was the “RC Dunk Tank,” where TIPsters could throw a ball to try and hit a button that would drop a staffer into the water below. Ross, a second-year TIPster, explained that “you don’t even have to hit the button. If you hit a bar they go down.” Carrie, a girls RC, reported getting dunked at least fifteen times.
“The water is warm,” she mentioned, “It’s cold when you get out of the water and the wind is blowing.”
Second term TIPsters were lucky. The UGA TIP staff attempted to hold the carnival during the previous term but was unable to meet the deadline.
Before being allowed to venture onto the quad, students were warned to behave reasonably at the risk of the carnival being cancelled for future terms. Nevertheless, multiple TIPsters reported burns on their skin from rides, one student suffered a jaw injury, and another broke a bone in her hand.
Despite these injuries, staffers fully intend to bring the TIP carnival back to UGA next year. The TIP community started the final week of the 2009 TIP season with camaraderie and enthusiasm, giving students a reason to remember the day they came together to create the newest TIP campus tradition.