VERMONSTER!

At every college, there's a series of things you simply have to do at some point before you graduate. Somewhere on Dartmouth's long and varied list is what Ben and Jerry's calls a Vermonster - an ice cream challenge of nearly barbaric proportions:

-20 Scoops of ice cream(4 1/2 pounds)
-10 scoops of chopped walnuts
-5 scoops of fresh whipped cream
-4 bananas
-4 scoops of hot fudge
-3 chocolate chip cookies
-2 scoops of m&ms
-2 scoops of reeses
-2 scoops of chocolate sprinkles
-2 scoops of gummi bears
-1 giant homemade brownie

So what better way to celebrate the interns' first week at Admissions than to tackle a Vermonster at the local Ben and Jerry's? Especially when you can do it on work-time! At 2:15 yesterday, the interns and some of the Admissions Officers took a break from the office and made the trek over to Lebanon Street where our new challenge was waiting for us in a two-gallon bucket. Not the kind of people to turn down a challenge, with spoons in hand we intrepidly dug in, determined to finished what we'd set out to do. For 45 minutes the conversation at our table centered around our singular goal: "Hey, I found the Cherry Garcia!" or, with apprehension, "Oh man, there's an entire brownie down here..." But by 3:00 the bucket was almost entirely empty, save for what I'll call the comingle of melted ice cream, chocolate chunks and some gummi bears who managed to escape unharmed. We'd conquered the Vermonster!

And so, a little worse for the wear, we trudged back to McNutt to finish out our day. I think it would be safe to say that no one was all that productive for those last couple of hours, but we were all certainly very satisfied with what we'd accomplished that afternoon!