Welcome to the Family - Initiation

    Did I forget to mention that I ran around campus in my boxers for almost three miles? Yeah. That happened. Granted it was an organized “Nearly Naked Mile” with entry fees and a clothing drive for charity, but I still get to say that I ran around “The Zoo” in my underwear and body paint under the embarrassed sun. It was definitely an… experience and forged some bonds with people that I met there.

     The day after, I committed my first campus theft. I was asked by some friends to come to a late night meal at one of the dining halls mostly so that we could nab one of their pumpkins. They didn’t want me there for my personality, mind you (I’m a pretty boring guy), but I was the only one among us strong enough to carry a pumpkin the size of my torso across campus. Also I was the only one who seemed to have the balls to grab the thing. I will not lie and say that I was casual about it, on the contrary I was terrified. I started casing the place for cameras and staff members the moment we walked into the building and made sure to time a crowd to ensure that it passed between me and a supervisor while I took the pumpkin from its perch. It didn’t seem to matter. Considering how many people were laughing at us and clapping, I doubt that we went unseen. I think that the staff just didn’t care. That was also the night that I was introduced to the iPhone app “Yik Yak” as someone posted “Shoutout to the guy who just stole a big ass pumpkin from Worcester.”

Between the fear of committing a theft that didn’t matter, the exercise of carrying the gourd, and our laughter all the way back, I’d say that it was a pretty good night that we were bound to remember.

    The week got better though.

    The next night I attended the English Society’s initiation. You can imagine what my thoughts were when they told us to show up wearing all black. “As close to mourning clothes as possible” the “secular chaplain” said. “Bring your worst, most reprehensible piece of poetry ever. I'm talking the scrap of break-up poetry you crumpled under your bed during sixth grade. When Martha broke up with you the night before the Sadie Hawkins. To go with your best friend. Ugh.” Well, I write very little poetry, but what I’d scribbled down a couple of weeks before in a bout of anger and depression was dreadful and I had resolved to burn it.
    Perfect, I thought and grabbed it as I finished adjusting my suit and tie. This is a perfect demonstration of how you can still write absolute shit even at this age. I popped on my fedora and bolted out the door, a stupid grin cracking my face as I leapt down the stairs. Once we were all gathered, we were handed candles and we listened to the chaplain tell us how, that night, we were “reborn.” This was the night when we left behind all of our sins and mistakes and “The time when Sally broke up with you over text message and said some really awful things about you to her friends and then you two got into a big fight and said some hurtful things that really shouldn’t have been said.” He was crying by this point. “God damned Sally.” He recomposed himself. “But none of that matters, because tonight, you are reborn.” He would say that same phrase perhaps five or eight more times before the night was over. “It doesn’t matter about that jerk in elementary school that followed you into high school and called you gay in fifty different ways before going into the military and then coming back without any change except for how big he was and that the military broke him down and built him back up in their image and he was still calling me ‘faggot’ and ‘pussy’ and…” He recomposed himself. “But that doesn’t matter, because tonight, you are reborn.” The monologs went on like this for a few minutes before he told us that we were about to descend into the depths of Hell.
    We entered Herter Hall and proceeded to the tunnel that connects that building to Bartlett, which is considered the English building. However, while we had candles and an electric lamp, we found that the lights were still on in the tunnel. I heard a lot of muttered “They should be turned off! How do we turn them off!?” before the Society’s officers decided that we would carry on as if we were all in a pitch black room. They held up their lantern so that the vice president could read a passage from Dante’s “Inferno” in the pretend darkness, describing the inscription above the gateway to Hell. “Through me you go to the grief wracked city; Through me you go to everlasting pain; Through me you go to a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator: I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love. Nothing till I was made was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally. Abandon all hope — Ye Who Enter Here.” He was alluding to the trials and pains of being a writer- all of the errors you will make, the publishers who will deny you, the people who will criticize your work- and said that this ritual was also about cleansing our writing “sins” and giving us a new start. “To cleanse you of your sins, however, like Dante you must pass through Hell. Here you will see the horrors of writing and the atrocities that you must never commit.” He then leaned back and opened the door to the tunnel, gesturing us through with what might have looked like a foreboding gesture if he hadn’t done it in essentially broad daylight. While giggling at the mock severity of this whole “ordeal” and walking through the passage, our chaplain halted us and pointed to the president who was sitting at the far end of the hall with a white strobe light flashing against his staring face. Again, in the dark this may have been disturbing, but in the light he just looked like he’d taken a hit of marijuana. “Stop here,” our chaplain ordered. “Do not approach him. He is one of the tortured souls who wanders the abyss. Don’t speak to him. He may start crying.” The chaplain then walked up to the staring president, knelt beside him, and asked “What ails you my son?”
    The president looked up, crossed himself, and said “Forgive me Father, for I have fucked up.”
    “Oh, come on, whatever you did couldn’t have been too bad.” The president pulled out a folded stack of papers and handed them to the chaplain. “What’s this?”
    “This was my final paper.”
    “I’m sure it’s not that bad. I’m sure that your writing sins will be forgiven…” he trailed off as he started to read the essay. “What is this? This is unacceptable.”
    “I thought you said I’d be forgiven!”
    “I’ve changed my mind! This is disgraceful!”
    “Oh,” the president mumbled. “Am I going to be grounded?”
    “We’ll talk when we get home.”
    We dragged him from the tunnel, all of us endeavoring not to guffaw like buffoons at the officers’ antics, and lit our candles before processing to the campus pond, frightening all of the bystanders that we passed with our macabre parade. We came to a stone bench beside the pond which the officers used as an alter and platform as they ordered us to come forward one at a time to read our horrible poetry. I must say that, while it was all dreadful, some actually had interesting bits in them that deserved recycling in the authors’ later works. Anyhow, once we read our word vomit aloud, each of us rolled up our poems and stuck them into an empty scotch bottle with some stones at the bottom. Once that was done, we were “absolved of our [literary] sins and reborn.” The officers then tried to light the poems on fire while they were still in the bottle. I watched them stuff match after match down the bottle’s neck and we initiates were clasping hands over our mouths to stifle the giggles. “We are definitely English majors,” one of the girl initiates said. We lost it and all started laughing, some of us so hard that we had to lean on each other to keep from toppling to the earth. I couldn’t stand to watch any more and pointed out how there wasn’t enough oxygen in the bottle to sustain a flame.
    The officers looked at each other. “Well,” the president said, “there are rocks at the bottom of the bottle. It’ll still sink.” They corked it and the chaplain cocked his arm back. With a mighty heave, he threw the bottle as far as he could into the campus pond where our poetry would sink to a watery grave, our sins forever at the bottom of a [frequently dredged] artificial pond. Until the bottle bobbed to the surface ten seconds later that is.
    I figured as much would happen and sort of kind of freaked out because my piece-o-shit poem had my name on it. I don’t want anyone seeing that atrocity! Our chaplain apologized and assured us that he would retrieve it after the ceremony was finished. We were herded back to the “alter” where our new president was baptized by the chaplain and other officers with the four liquids of all UMass writers: Bad tea, Bartlett water, bad coffee, and good scotch. “Except that we don’t have any good scotch, so we’re just going to use this stuff and pretend.”
    The new president got down on his knees, bowed his head, and waited as the officers poured these drinks onto him. The stuff soaked into his hair, ran off into the grass, and started seeping into his suit. Dripping with some concoction of those four liquids, he stood on the bench himself, trying to control his own laughter and wiping the junk out of his eyes. “I hope that I don’t get pulled over tonight. I can just imagine the officer leaning in, smelling me, and asking ‘Sir, have you been drinking- Actually, have you been swimming in scotch tonight?’” He started to give a short speech. The only part that I can remember was when he said “This is a proud, momentous night when you are made officially members of the English Society and there is a cop over there.” I have never seen students move so quickly. Candles were snuffed out almost before the words left his lips and several people dove for the nearest trees or bushes as if they were in a war zone. I just watched the cop as he cruised past us without any sign that he saw or cared. I turned back to find the president and officers standing up from their hiding spot behind the bench as they peeked around to ensure that the police had left. Most of us still had lit candles and we all snickered at each other and abused the officers a bit. I noticed one girl walking back toward us and I wondered how on earth she had managed to get as far as she had so quickly. She had almost made it to the Fine Arts Center a good hundred meters away in the span of just a few moments. She didn’t even look particularly athletic…
    Our president had long since lost his train of thought and decided to call it a night. He gave us one last warm welcome to the English Society before we turned and walked back to our dorms. Chatting with those heading my way, we joked and laughed, retold bits of the night, and just enjoyed each others’ company. The next day, they either didn’t recognize me or didn’t want to speak, but regardless I had the sense that I had shared something with them, even if they didn’t feel it. I had become a part of a society through an absurd ritual and the members’ mutual love of literature. Just as I had bonded with other friends over stealing a massive pumpkin and running around campus wearing only enough to cover my “vitals,” the people at the ceremony had become something of an extended family that night. I haven’t seen them since, but I think that the next time I see them, we will at least have some inside jokes to share.

    I know that I didn’t get to the major gossip or anything tonight, but I figure that this is probably enough for you if you haven’t gotten bored and quit the page already. If it helps ease the disappointment, I will tell you that the English Society’s chaplain later stripped and swam through that dumping ground of a pond to retrieve our monstrous poetry. I’d like to think that I owe him one, considering how he probably had to go through military-grade decontamination after that, but he did sort of bring it upon himself through bad planning… Eh. He survived. Have a good week!

A (sort of) Normal Week

    Is it strange that, even after being back in the US for three months now, I still get a kick out of hearing American accents? It’s wonderful! I love the dialects and how you can find ones that sound elegant, casual, disgustingly colloquial, or anything in between! Yes, you get that in England, but I love being surrounded by familiar sounds! What I’m not too fond of is being surrounded by a single familiar name: Matt. My dorm, and most of the campus it would seem, is plagued with people named “Matt.” Just in my dorm I think that there are twelve of us, though there may be more! People have started assigning nicknames to us because no one can remember our last names, but then there are multiple nicknames for a single Matt. Furthermore, there are Matts that many of us have never seen and thus we can’t assign a face to the name! For example: I’ve been dubbed British Matt, Fake British Matt, British Boy, and just plain Brit, though that one died away pretty quickly. People are still saying “Oh, so you’re British Matt!” when they’re introduced to me! At least mine sort of makes sense though, even if it is incorrect! There are others called Generic Matt, The Original Matt, and God knows what other Matts there might be! Next I’ll find someone called Tropical Smoothie Matt or Androgynous Matt or something else absurd!
    Anyhow, some time ago I began working for The Daily Collegian, our school newspaper, and my first assignment was to review some of the group workouts offered in the recreation center on campus. I’ve always been partial to group workouts. Exercising with others is motivating because there are people you can pace off of while you are spurred on by the embarrassment of slowing down and looking like a lethargic slug. The banter before and after is always fun and, for guys at least, there’s even more motivation if there happen to be cute girls hanging around. As the time drew closer to when the 30-Minute Body class was supposed to start and packs of girls filed in, though, I began to realize that no guys were going to materialize. Upon this realization, I thought Oh, shit, what’ve I gotten myself into? Well, at least I’ll have the chick motivation. Even so, I became all too aware of my hairy, trunk-like legs and lack of muscle definition. If you’re a guy, then just by showing up to these workouts you’re really demonstrating your security and open mind. When I took the job, I was hoping to act as a phantom workout reviewer, blending in with the crowd and then disappearing right before the review appeared in the paper. That idea disintegrated as soon as I noticed how many ladies there were in the class. I was about as inconspicuous as a badger surrounded by calico cats. Once I submitted the review, however, I tasted the frustration of the editing process for the first time. The editor not only changed the article’s format and thus disrupted its flow, she also chopped up many of my sentences and removed much of my sarcasm and original voice. My personality barely shows through and this butchered editing job makes me look I'm in junior high! Oh well. Hopefully the editor for the arts section will be more understanding with my review of “Dracula Untold.”
    I’ve been here long enough that I’ve settled into some semblance of a routine. Between homework, gym sessions in the morning, and classes, I’ve started taking my breakfast around two or three in the afternoon, unless you include a protein shake right before class. Then there’s the regular fencing and film stuff and yadda yadda yadda. I’ve got a system. Enough said. A piece of advice: I’ve found that there’s no way to really excel in life, especially business and school, without having some sort of structure to adhere to that can organize and push you. Granted, that structure jumps out of the nearest window as soon as the weekend arrives and the various “activities” begin again, but it works. The strange thing is that the sign of my week returning to normalcy is when most of the people on my floor get together on Sunday evenings to watch “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver and there is nothing normal about him except for his journalistic investigation.
    Normalcy was once again broken, however, by a whole slew of birthdays in my hall. I decided that, since four were occurring within nearly a week of each other, I would order a cake for the lot of them. I managed to organize it so that everyone on the floor except for the birthday people knew about the cake and ensured that they would all be there for when it was presented. However, I emphasized how I did not want these four to know that I was the one who’d done all of this. It just makes me feel awkward when people are particularly grateful. It’s almost as if they have some debt to me when I just wanted to make their day better. Anyhow, my involvement was leaked, as all good secrets are, despite my conscripting a couple of others to deliver the cake. When they asked why I had not had any until I made sure that everyone else had had some and why I didn’t want to take credit for it, I was actually a little confused. It occurred to me that I might have grown up with a different philosophy than most. I believe that you do not partake of the gift that you give. As the giver, you only partake of the joy of giving the gift and seeing the results is enough. Perhaps I took all of that Christmas and Santa Claus stuff a little too close to heart.
    On a more interesting note, that evening my friend Kai managed to slice his head open. As a group of us were making our way to dinner, Tanner noticed Kai walking some ways behind us. As Tanner was a human and Kai a zombie in UMass’s infamous “Humans vs. Zombies” game, Tanner charged after Kai. Shocked out of his reverie by the sound of pounding footsteps and our cheering, Kai staggered back, trying to dodge the ball of rolled up socks that Tanner threw to stun him for another ten minutes. However, while trying to evade the fluffy projectile, Kai tripped, fell, and slashed his head on the curb. We were all laughing as he got up, as we hadn’t seen the impact and he seemed fine. Then he touched the back of his head and I noticed that his hand was covered in blood. “Oh shit!” I said in tandem with another guy as we sprinted forward to aid him. Long story short, we called an ambulance, I got to practice my first aid training from the Boy Scouts, and Kai was carted off to get stitches at which point a couple of us had to go and scrub his blood off of our hands. On the bright side, he dodged the ball of socks.
    I’m aware that this entry did not have much in the way of a theme or cohesion, but every now and then a casual collection of anecdotes can be enjoyable. I hope that everyone has a great week! Next time I will let you glimpse the English Society’s initiation, subject you to my laments over mild betrayal, and then some gossip because I feel like acting like a teenage schoolgirl. See you around!

A Whole New World

    This is turning into an unhealthy relationship. I keep saying that I’ll be true and then I fail and stray again. For months on end, I don’t even see you. I feel you at the back of my mind, beckoning me to come back. Yet one thing or another, a new person or another pretty girl, always manages to pull me away. I’m sorry. I have not looked upon you or touched you in over two months. Forgive me my dear blog.

    The thrill of moving into university was somewhat dampened by how I nearly fell asleep at the wheel while driving there. I think that I had strayed into the breakdown lane three or four times before I arrived at 7AM to shlep my junk into my new abode. Over the last month since then, I have brought a girl to my room, been cheated on by said girl, been locked out of my room at 3am, and been sexiled for all of twenty minutes. I have gone to my first tailgate and hosted several dorm parties. I have taken on too many clubs and flirted with too many women to keep track of either and thus am getting benefits from neither. I’ve acquainted myself with as many people as possible, still can only remember about twenty or forty names. I’ve thus become adept at the art of having conversations without using the anonymous person’s name, also known as “Bullshitting.” Most fantastical of all to me, I’ve found droves of people who know who Josh Groban is and even some who love his music! Forget Chapman University, I think I’ve found the right place.
    Here, for me, the social dynamic is somewhat like being in England again, in that I can socialize with most anyone I choose. However, this time it’s not because I’m an American novelty. This time, it’s because these people have, for the most part, grown out of high school and become secure with themselves. They’ve come to terms with addressing their issues, talking to others, and the concept of overlapping social circles. There’s still the occasional petulant child who cannot get over their own magnificence and omniscience or the people who want to be friendly just so that they can drink your booze, but they are easy enough to avoid if they don’t live across the hall or something like that. Otherwise, society has become almost fluid. You want to hang out with the geeks today? Sweet! We’re getting together to watch “Howl’s Moving Castle” tonight! The stoners feel like going stargazing? Come along for a joint that you’ll never smoke! It’s okay! Just hang around with us! If you’re a cool guy, who gives a damn what drugs or drinks you take or abstain from? If you just want to find your niche among people that you feel comfortable with, it’s not too hard. This place is all about clubs, diversity, parties, and individuality, so finding your place doesn’t take long. Oh, and school’s important too.
    Just when I thought that I’d found paradise, except for the lack of an explicit film program and real live Pokémon running around campus, I encountered the first flaw of UMass Amherst: They are always doing construction. Note that my roommate and I had taken to keeping our windows open, as the AC was busted and the summer sun was still hammering us with a vengeance. I discovered the glories of the university’s expansion at seven in the morning the first Monday when World War One re-erupted outside of my dorm window. I threw myself out of bed, trying to figure out why tanks were rolling through the university and whether or not that machine gun would start firing at me. Once I realized that I was cowering from the sounds of a backhoe and jackhammer, I noticed that my roommate was looking down at me, still half asleep himself with scrunched eyes and trying to figure out why I was on the ground. “Dude,” he said. “Did you just fall out of bed?”
    “Um, nope!” I stuttered. “Just doing my morning pushups!” On the bright side, I now don’t need an alarm clock and I get a good pushup routine first thing every morning. On the other hand, Skyping my friend Hunter Patrick at night makes the next day a bit of a slog.
    Over the next few days I realized that much of my “Creative Writing” class revolves around our TA trying to fix the outdated machinery in our classroom, that I’m free to banter with my professor in “Ideas That Change The World,” that I should not take my honors anthropology course too seriously, and that I should take my physics 114 class very seriously (because I just don’t get what he’s teaching us). Then there’s the weekly current events seminar which is mostly run by the students and overseen by the school’s chancellor and a middle-aged professor who we find adorable in an excitable puppy/teddybear sort of way. Oh, and a word to the wise: Even if you’re just shopping around for clubs like I was, don’t even think about experimenting with seven of them at once for any amount of time. I tried them all for about a week before I started having a mental breakdown and something of a conniption fit. Just… don’t do it.
    It occurs to me now that, as with my high school Tabor, UMass’s colors are maroon, the campus is larger and more sprawling than usual, there’s freedom to go to town whenever outside of class, and our football team can’t win a game. It’s almost as if destiny had directed me here. I just hope that destiny has something really good waiting for me, because so far I’ve been following the track far too perfectly. Whatever they have in store, the fates seemed determined to keep me from the party scene. As strange as this may seem after my year of debauchery in England, it took an entire month to even start attending “social” events. The first weekend was layered in various club meetings and homework while the second weekend was dominated by auditions. That time, my friends and I tried to get into a frat after my audition ended (which ended much like a burning plane that’s lost its engines might), but it was eleven at night and, despite us being two guys and nine girls, we were denied entry. The frat rat at the door declined us with a sentimental mix of “We’ll only let the hot girls in” and “Tough shit.” Eh. I was in a bad mood anyhow and got to hang out with a cute girl instead. Not a terrible trade!
    The next weekend, I needed to attend a gala in Boston celebrating the accomplishments of Sifu Woo, the man who founded the martial arts federation that my dojo is a part of. I don’t care that I didn’t get to go party hardy. Missing that and the hours of driving was totally worth it. I should note now that Sifu Woo’s Hung Gar school is the only one in America recognized by the Chinese government and that he is a member of the Shaolin organization. These guys mean business. Anyhow, they started off the evening with a quick speech and traditional drumming which segued into the Lion Dance. Or at least they tried to segue. Right away, the main drummer’s stick (which is over and inch thick) snapped in half, one end flipping up into the air while the drummer stared in disbelief and dismay at the broken end that he was still grasping. Poor guy. They restarted and I watched the three sinuous, stylized lions weave past each other in a slow stream of colors before moving into the crowd, batting their enormous eyes and standing on their “hind legs,” which involves the student carrying the lion’s head to jump up and stand on the shoulders of his partner.

    Afterward, the city counsel recognized Sifu Woo and honored him for his cultural contributions to Boston and Massachusetts. Right after, I watched a man in a tuxedo perform one of the crispest, sharpest, most powerful and deadly looking forms that I have every seen. Go home James Bond, you’ve been outclassed. A representative from California then demonstrated a form. While he was built like a tank, the man moved with enviable fluidity and showed a limberness that I would have associated with men built like scarecrows. Following that, an old man with a fan showed us something much like Tai Chi, every move slow, graceful, and precise. Watching his techniques, however, I began to discern the blocks and strikes in the form and realized that this bit of theory was portraying a kind of brutality that most people would not show in a cinema. The demonstrations continued all night, most more fantastical than the last. Don’t get me started on the woman who had six spears pressed against her chest while another man powdered a cinder block against her back.
    Between being awed by the techniques and the phenomenal food, though, my sensei pointed out a man that was shaking the hands of someone across the room.
    “You see the old Chinese man in the suit over there?” he asked. I nodded. “He is one of the founding masters of this organization and he’s homeless. He’s been staying in various houses with other masters, but he can’t make enough money with his job or sustain a dojo.”
    Horrified, I asked “Have you offered to help him?”
    Sensei grimaced and shook his head. “I’ve been trying for years. It just goes to show that there’s not much money to be made from working as a true martial artist. It’s not like those huge chain dojos where you’re advanced every few months for just showing up. That man barely makes enough to keep himself alive and is still one of the best artists in here.”
    We continued to laugh and joke the rest of the night, but that conversation made the event much more sombre for me. I looked around and began to wonder how many of these other geniuses and assiduous artists were in such dire straits. I know that my own sensei had struggled for years to balance his life as a nurse with running the dojo before he managed to turn Bridgewater Martial Arts into a non-profit organization due to his work with autistic kids, but that paled in comparison to destitution. Coming back to the laughing, carefree world of university, it was tempting to forget about these starving artists. I returned with unbelievable stories from the demonstrations that my dubious classmates listened to with awe, disbelief, and humor in equal measures. I wonder how they would react if I told them that a man who could show up the head of any American chain dojo was walking the streets of Boston without a penny to his name. They probably wouldn’t believe me.
    I do not want to invoke pity for this man. If he is like the other instructors in our organization, then he is proud to be homeless if it means continuing the art that he has dedicated his life to. I’ve heard dozens of jokes about starving artists. I’ve heard the stories of Edgar Allen Poe’s and Van Gogh’s poverty and how they persevered throughout their lives, died without recognition, and became global sensations after their deaths. There is no such hope for a poor martial artist. Unlike writing or painting, there is nothing permanent or tangible that this man can leave behind, especially if he does not have a student or heir to pass his style to. Yet despite knowing how he will not be recognized or appreciated in the way that he deserves, the master continues to practice his art. For that, he is one of the noblest men that I have heard of.
    Wow that got heavy. I promise to all of you new readers that I am seldom this gloomy in my blog. If you want more of the typically lighthearted stuff, try looking at when I went to Italy back in late October (“Don’t Trust The Romans”) or when I visited a medieval “fayre” in Wales in January (I think that one was called “Same Old Song And Dance”). I will endeavor to refocus my attention on school happenings and personal observations and try to put a quirky or at least chuckle-worthy spin on things. I will try to make weekly entries (as I promised and failed to do last year), so until then, good night!