This week reminds me of a week 22 years ago which I could hardly recall a week later. Rather than regail you with tales of drinking in 1981 [which I can do if you really want me to…but no one does] let’s consider what the Biggest of Als (a.k.a. Smaller than Some, Bigger than Most) learned and continues to benefit from frosh week:
- One or two pals of mine, met that week, still perform much the same mating ritual that they did then. It does not work.
- The song “Black Velvet Band” will stick in the mind for decades even though it is sung by a poor excuse of an Irish band and heard through a beery haze.
- The saying “you spend your second term getting rid of the friends you made in your first term” is not necessarily true. Most of my friends now were present during that frosh week or subsequent ones. One was met when I carried him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes to his bed his frosh week during one of my campus police shifts.
- The excitement I felt the during first meeting of my undergrad Foundation Year classes has rarely been matched, even during the classes within the subsequent few weeks. First, I thought I was on to a great explosion of opportunity. Soon after, I realized I was listening to someone read the book to me. Attendence at future classes soon moved to my 33% average thought 7 years of non-distance university.
That’s all I can think of for now. So what lessons did you learn in frosh week?