What happens when eLion crashes on the first day of senior scheduling, locking out thousands of 7th semester students hoping to fill out their degree audits for the final time? Pure chaos, and something beautiful on Twitter, it turns out.

That’s exactly what happened at midnight last night and eLion was even trending worldwide on Twitter for a few moments.

Marcus Robinson, the Communications Director for the Office of the Vice Provost for Information Technology, offered this statement on last night’s issues:

“Investigations are ongoing into the issues experienced with eLion overnight. We are aware that the system was slow or unavailable for students from around midnight to just prior to 1:00 a.m. Course registration is always a high-use time for eLion, and the systems that comprise eLion are designed to support that use. As with all systems, particularly those that are highly complex and highly utilized, the unexpected can and does happen. Staff are continuing the work to uncover and address the cause.”

Most people were eventually able to schedule, but in the interim, Twitter was a fantastic place to be. Here’s the best of #eLionGate2013.