Thoughts on Homecoming and More

Soooo...
Homecoming was this weekend at my school. It is a huge deal, and is one of the few times the campus would have an average age over 25. Tons of stuff going on, lots of people, a good amount of food (free or otherwise). The best part about the weekend was seeing my parents for the first time in a few months. That was absolutely fantastic and a good cure to any lingering homesickness (which I've pretty much gotten over by this point). Huge thanks to them for coming out.
The week before homecoming, the Mall got taken over by hoards of space-ravenous white tents and tables, as well as their handlers and transportation. Some of the quickest routes to classes were cut off by fences and caution tape.
The Club Olympics also went on the week before - I would walk past the stage in the middle of the mall and see people stuffing their faces with pie or trying to burp the loudest or pulling a tug-of-war rope in an improvised mud patch (it's been too hot to have much real mud). It was interesting seeing one of my friends, who's on Freshman Class Council, spinning around on a bat then trying to go through an obstacle course.
The Friday before the game, the men's basketball team played their opening game against Cal Poly SLO. We won handily, but they had one guy who could land threes like nobody's business, making it a much better game than most people thought it would be. I learned a lot of the cheers and "traditions" (boink boink boink PASS!) and realized the crowd is just as much a part of the game as anyone on the court.
So now we come to Homecoming Day. I was up earlier than I have ever been on a weekend so that I could help finish up the mini-Rube machine the Rube Goldberg Club planned to exhibition later on in the day. (Apparently, I drew a really good Heisenberg [from "Breaking Bad"{no, I have not seen it}] "Wanted" poster). My parents saw the big machine, and seemed pretty impressed. Went shopping, came back, and explored what was being put inside the white tents scattered across the Mall.
A lot of Greek orgs, the alumni association, some clubs and other campus related organizations had tents. I hung out mostly at the College of Engineering tent, where there was tons of free food (and the mini-Rube machine was being shown), though I probably walked the whole mall at least five times (mostly for the free eegees from the Campus Health tent).
Saw the parade - you could tell who actually planned out floats more than a week in advance and who just thought "oh great, Homecoming parade is this week - lets throw some paper mache together and call it a float!" The best float was definitely the Outdoor Adventures club (or something like that) who had a full on Jurassic Park scene with moving parts - very impressive.
The actual football game was pretty exciting. I sat with people from church. The energy in the student section is intense. We lost, but it was a good game.
Overall, Homecoming seems to be more about the alums than the actual students, but I guess that's how it should be. It's about the people who actually go here most of the time, anyway. I wasn't super impressed with the Homecoming activities, but it's got to be a lot more exciting and emotional from the other side. It was a good experience, and I have come away from it very full-filled.