I didn’t something that wasn’t so bright this semester. I pledged a fraternity. For some people it works, but I’m the last guy you’d ever expect to go Greek. I probably should have realized that it wasn’t the place for me when friends from high school reacted in one of two ways. “What?” or “Why?” The problem is the people in the fraternity don’t act like they normally do when you rush. They’re all behaving so you’ll decide to pledge. I fell for it and got suckered into pledging. After the induction ceremony, it changed a little. The brothers went from being exceedingly nice; to pouring beer on my head for fun and then demanding I get them a sandwich. The fraternity made less sense then. I gave up after my second pledge meeting. I was supposed to drink beer until I threw up (keep in mind this was a Monday night). Now I’m a pretty big guy, so I can hold a lot of beer before getting sick, too much beer actually, way too much. I finished the night lying on a couch hoping that the dizziness would go away. The brothers told me I had to learn to spew and I’d be fine. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would put up with that for a whole semester. The main arguments the other pledges gave me where, at the end you’ll be a brother. I have a brother. I don’t like him much. The last thing I need is thirty more. The other argument was I’d have friends that would always be there for me. I have those too and they don’t expect me to throw up every Monday night for six weeks. I think they actually discourage it. I know I would. Another benefit was that I got to live in the house… Remember the movie animal house? It’s not an exaggeration. Fraternities are just like that. Living there would be like choosing to live in my freshman hall for at least two more years. That would end in a psychotic incident.

You’ve probably figured out by now that I quit the fraternity shortly after I joined (two weeks after). I quit partly because I thought it was stupid, partly because my friends outside of the fraternity (who I would have never gotten to hang out with because the brothers expected me to hang out in the house every weekend) thought it was really stupid, and partly because I wanted to go to a concert the Friday I quit that I would have had to miss because the frat was having a party. I know the last one probably wasn’t the best thing to use as an argument against the frat, but it was a really good concert and I would have had to be a doorman or a bartender (as in I got the honor of pulling cans of beast out of an ice-filled trash can.) at the party. You know you would have made the same choice. My advice for anyone who is thinking about joining a frat is listen to your friends. If any of them say “Holy shit!” or seem genuinely surprised, DON’T JOIN. You are not a frat guy, you never were a frat guy nor will you ever be a frat guy. Anyone who tells you the opposite is lying.

Quick bit of bragging

The even hundred was part of Roundtable’s (W&M freshman theatre group) night of one-act plays. The school newspaper called me a strong up and coming playwright. Some of my favorite quotes from the review are “the writing was very tight so that each moment flowed nicely into the next” and “This play was quick witty and just plain fun.” I’ll be buzzing about this for a while.