Civilized Behavior

Well its back to school week here in Toronto which means that the summer is over. It also means that I feel just a bit older as I see all of the new University students everywhere. Is it my imagination or was I ever that young? I know definitely I wasn't that small when I started University.

Anyway, I see all the frosh (freshmen) running around doing their orientation/initiation routines. Scavenger hunts, tours of campus, and other activities to supposedly instill them with camaraderie and all that other crap. I remember when I was a frosh so many moons ago. Imagine first time I leave Barbados and I'm living in residence all by my lonesome. It was quite the transition. I noticed first off the bat that most University events were centered around beer. Not really my thing actually. Then there was this whole motif running through the initiations of instilling fear in you and respect for the upperclassmen. I don't do well when people try to force or push me. I tend to push back so I wasn't really fond of that either and I skipped most of the res events.

My faculties events were almost as bad. Running around campus chanting, getting into fights with other groups over silly stuff, painting arms purple (it took a few days to get that off too and I swore I had ruined one of my best pairs of stone wash jeans. Am I sounding dated ?) .I wondered what the hell had I gotten myself into with this university stuff. I also wondered what happened to civilized behavior. I mean this is Canada , a first world country and they are supposed to be civilized right? What's with all the rituals and that stuff? And these jokers would have the nerve to say they are more civilized than me. Well where I'm from we never had any of this craziness happening over school. Come on now!

Anyway its calmed down a bit these days. The focus on alcohol has lessened since most frosh are now younger and under the drinking age. Also the universities saw that some of the initiation stuff was scaring the frosh and in a few cases a bit dangerous so they have also cut back on that. However the purple arm thing has become a purple body thing. Saw a whole class full of purple dipped kids two days ago. Saw a few today, still slightly purple. I guess no one told them how long it takes to get that stuff off.