It's Good Not Being First Year

Today the first years had their initiation.

Last week, there was actually a "fake" initiation, where the third years did storm the classroom, shouting and blowing whistles and getting everyone to take their shoes off, rattling their cages but nothing happening after that. I heard it went poorly.

Having been warned by our third year friends, we all gathered near the vet tower and grabbed as many water balloons, eggs, bags of flour, and cartons of milk as we could. In front of the vet tower is the bridge that crosses the vet pond, and there was a tarp tunnel filled with what appeared to be mud, but one whiff of it revealed it was actually cow poo. A bit more potent than horse poo, which is what we got thrown at our class. A number of third years were putting water balloons in the vet pond. Three of them had a big slingshot, one of them holding each end, and the other practicing launching water balloons. He hit the third years that were setting up the poop tunnel.

Waiting and snickering, our first indication of the incoming victims was several third years running from the direction of the lecture hall. You could tell they had just stormed the first years, taken their shoes, and sent them out back. Shortly after this, screeches and screams and whistles and shouts could be heard from the route between the lecture hall and the vet tower. This is them running through the gauntlet of third years armed with their assortment of projectiles, no doubt.

Then they appeared! In ones and twos they struggled through the poop tunnel, emerging to clouds of flour and fish oil and milk, and most importantly, me and my friends armed with water balloons. I was actually on this awesome streak and hit like 4-5 of them out of the 10 or so that I threw (which is pretty good considering they were running and ducking).

Then the poor sods got ushered out to the concourse, where there was loud music and they were forced to dance this ridiculous dance everyone learns at VLE (the professor that instigated this apparently makes people do it at the beginning of all her lectures, too). Standing around dancing made them way better targets than when they were running and ducking.

After that they got the lovely news that their shoes were locked away and the key was in a balloon in the vet pond.