All Drops and No Loopy Loops

I have also used the phrase "emotional roller coaster" to describe my feelings about pledging for the fraternity more than once in the past and the events of this past week definitely exemplified all the subtle things about the fraternity that made my experiences in it such a roller coaster ride-like series of ups and downs.

UP: Saturday "dinner and a movie" night out with my Big with a great meal at SipZ and an extremely cute chick flick, "27 Dresses"

UP: Got to sleep in and bum around on Sunday/Monday because of the three-day weekend and rescheduled GBM

DOWN: Super long Tuesday GBM

DOWN: Gross, rainy weather all day with no umbrella

DOWN: All-nighter for research paper draft

DOWN: Family Potluck

UP: IC Event at Guppy House in Anaheim

UP: Tutoring at Bayview Baptist Church and YOGURT WORLD afterwards with our old woman

DOWN: Walk for Life at 5:30 am in the rain - our "job" was to stand out in the mud and freeze our asses off for four hours

DOWN: Showcase filming

DOWN: Family event at TapEx

UP: A little bonding with two pledge brothers on the way to GBM

UP: Getting mugged unexpectedly by our awesome old woman at GBM for being a great chair

DOWN: Getting criticized by eBoard for being a bad pledge class

UP: Surprise "Bonding Bonfire"

DOWN: Realizing that people didn't actually take the activity seriously and seeing some serious faults in our pledge class clearly for the first time

Anybody want to graph that for me?

***

Earlier this week, our PT emailed our class to tell us to dress warmly for Sunday's meeting because he had a surprise for us after our pledge meeting.

After all the warnings of "DRESS WARMLY!!" prior to and during pledge retreat, I was sure everyone in our class was worried about what the surprise he had planned could possibly have been.

Myself included, of course.

During our pledge meeting, our old woman had each of us take out a piece of paper and write down a regret, fear, or some secret we had never shared with anybody else before - PostSecret style. We then folded up our papers and handed them to her.

After our pledge meeting, we were taken to a "secret location" by the actives for our "secret surprise" activity.

It turned out that we were headed for La Jolla Shores.

For a bonfire.

The first (and only time) I was at La Jolla Shores for our "S'mores by the Shores" bonfire during Welcome Week, the weather was perfect and the sky was a breathtakingly pink and orange color when the sun began to set.

This time, the night sky was engulfed by fog and it was so dark out that I could barely make out the faces of the pledge brothers standing next to me. However, as we all huddled around the roaring fire, we bonded a little more while postulating about the surprise our PT had planned for us.

Soon, our PT was passing around the folded up secrets we had all written during the meeting and told us to read the papers we received out loud for all to hear.

It didn't take long for the tears to start streaming down my face.

At the end, we all tossed our papers into the fire and watched all seventy-ish crumpled balls of paper disappear into the flames.

The speech one of my fellow pledges made at the end of the activity completely pushed me over the edge and the silent tears instantly escalated to uncontrollable sobs.

I was not the only one bawling.

But apparently, I was one of the only people who took the activity for more than its face value.

Immediately after our circle broke apart, someone came up to me and asked me if we could go home yet in an exasperated voice, which was a clear indicator that she was not only unaffected by all the powerful emotions expressed at the bonfire just minutes ago, but was actually bored and apathetic like she always was.

After a few rounds of tight bear hugs at the edge of the beach's parking lot as we all waited for our drivers to retrieve their cars, one of the standoffish guys in my car came up to me and exclaimed, "Goddamn, I am hungry. Do you know what time El Mercado closes?" And then proceeds to talk about nothing but food for the next five or so minutes.

Seriously?? I was absolutely stunned; after such an emotionally triggering activity, all this guy could think about was food and how to satiate his hunger? You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Then I tuned in to my surroundings a little more and realized that there were a lot of people complaining and whining about how late it was and joking about random topics as if the bonfire had not happened at all. I had expected my class to be more somber and subdued after the overwhelming wave of emotions that had washed over all of us while we were in that bonfire circle, but that was clearly not the case for a majority of us.

The activity was supposed to symbolize letting go of all our regrets and learning to come together as a pledge class. In theory, it was another great, "pledge retreaty" metaphor of an activity to illustrate that point. But in practice, it was pretty clear off the bat that it wasn't going to be completely successful.

That's exactly how I feel about the fraternity.

In theory or on paper, this fraternity is the perfect organization for me to join; when I told an acquaintance from high school about my doubts before deciding to become an official pledge, she expressed surprise at hearing that I had any doubts at all because she was so sure that I would have jumped at the chance to become a "brother" based on the activities I devoted most of my time to in high school.

But in reality, things are not looking that great. I am not going to give up and admit defeat now that I am so close to the end and have already devoted so much time and energy to the fraternity, but I just want to make it clear that things really are not as great as they may seem or are supposed to be.

Sometimes I wonder if the problem lies solely with me.