Oh, where to begin. Well, first of all, I can’t reveal much about the stuff going on behind our group. That’s a given. I can say though that so far I’ve had a great deal of fun seeing the frosh having fun.

The first day of frosh week was officially Tuesday, but all of our organization efforts began on Saturday. For me, this involved putting together many jigsaw puzzles of sorts out of cardboard. This was for the “communication” principle of the event pertaining to the 5 principles of engineering. The game involved having the frosh put together 5 puzzles. Originally, the plan was to not have any of the frosh speak. However, me and my organizing partner made the puzzles so ridiculously hard that we felt that we had no choice but to let them talk after a little while. We did that by saying how pathetic they were and how we were going to give them mercy by letting them talk. It didn’t fail that every single time I said that everyone just let off a collective sigh of relief.

–This was the day when all of them earned their hard hat.

The second day was LONG for all of us. It was the day the frosh were introduced to our engineering mascot. For me, it meant that I was given an opportunity to smash things. You know, I never really did appreciate the weight of a sledgehammer until that day. I thought I’d just be able to swing that thing without any problem. Well, I was able to swing it, but my arms needed a minute or two to adjust to the weight of the thing. That’s all. Right now, my only hope is that I didn’t look like a fool swinging that thing around.

That night was a cross-campus event meaning that other faculties were involved. That gave me an opportunity to get out of my persona for a while. It was the Lunar Luau, which was pretty much just a socializing event. I volunteered to read tarot cards for the frosh. It’s been so long since I had done it, but once I started I felt right at home with my deck. It was amazing. With almost every question I felt like the cards were reflect the very thing being asked without any doubt. Even if there seemed to be some sort of difference between the cards showing and the question asked, a question or two helped to reveal exactly what each card meant in the context of the original query. Now, I’m more of an intuitive reader than someone who believes that the cards have this amazing power, but I must say that a lot of things were falling into place that night. I read for about 4 and a half hours with a short five minute break in between. It was safe to say that my brain had turned into mush by the end of it. I got home at 230am

Thursday was a rough night! It was Monte Carlo night–which was also a cross-campus event. Our group was in charge of maintaining security and acting as pit bosses at the gambling tables. A chip/ticket system was being used in order to prevent chips from ever leaving a single table. As a pit boss, I was basically in charge of issuing the tickets whenever someone wanted to cash out. I was dressed in semi-formal biker gear…so I had my suit on with chains, bandana, leather gloves, etc. I had no idea what I looked like since the place I was staying had no full length mirrors…but no one laughed at me, so I’m sure I looked intimidating enough. I was on my feet for 4 hours straight. I eventually got to go home at 2am.

Friday was our last fully engineering event. It was our scavenger hunt. Now, let me tell you, it’s an odd feeling being on the other side of the event. I mean, running the events, and having “POWER” in general was a strange feeling. Some highlights of that night from stuff that I saw and supervised:
- For the acquisition lists, teams had to show us a pool-playing robot. One team came in and had a guy just pretending to be a robot playing pool. I said I was unimpressed and sent them off. They sent the guy back a little while later all wrapped in tin foil. I gave them the point just for the effort.
- In the foot hockey event my partner and I foolishly decided to have 5 concurrent games running all at once. Well, that didn’t quite work because it was hell to organize. Plus, it was at 9pm, in the dark, and on a hill. Anyway, it eventually worked out as teams got eliminated.
- 10 way tug of war was going to be an OK event, but the rope snapped. One guy got injured. It was because he wrapped the rope around his hand. This was despite another leader saying not to wrap the rope around their arms, their body, or neck. In the end we got our the thick marine rope and played tug of war 2 teams on 2 teams and doing some sort of elimination style play.
- I had to do headquarter visits for 5 of the 10 teams. Among the memorable things for each group: the Lime Slime dance, the Grape Scots dance, the Navy video, Hungry Hungry Hippos with the Tang clan, Teal sports events.

Tonight it all ends with the big Toga party.

Listen, there are a few people that are against the way we act during the week. So we act scary and like asses in the beginning. You know what, the frosh are able to recognize after a while the amount of work we put into the events. We’re there for them to have fun, and the ones that recognize that have a blast. There are surely other ways to go about it, but you know what? Our method works too. In the end, it’s all about tradition.

Tomorrow, I’m leaving for home. I’m very much ready to sleep in my own bed and take a shower in my own bathroom. I really appreciate Meagan for putting up with me for the past week. The couch was more than comfortable and she’s been extremely nice about it all.

Thanks.