"Fratboys in the Mist" is an ongoing introspective report from an Anthropology major at Florida State University. Austin Wilkes is an accomplished undergrad who in her free time, studies the natural habits of those on Greek Row. Check back each week for a new field report.

Today's Observation: Home for the Holidays

    After final exams have been taken, turned in, and completely blotted out of the memory with alcohol, the natives of FSU flee the campus.  Many of them leave the state to go sit in sweat lodges and go on vision quests, or so they tell me in native parlance. “Go home and drink a lot,” seems to be the standard response to the ritualistic question, “What are you doing over the break?”

    “The break” is a time of ritual separation from the campus, and so for these weeks, the university is quite a lonely place.  Only a few graduate students undergoing their sleepless vigils remain to guard this forest of brick and stone.  I interviewed a few of the natives about their plans for the break, but alas, I have been unable to accompany them.  Here is an excerpt transcribed from my tape recorder:

    Delta Female: Well, my dad’s a real asshole so I’ll be spending time with my mom, and like, my brother is a pig, and like, they never give me what I really deserve for Christmas anyway so I’m all, why am I even bothering with this shit, and like, all I really wanted was all a Mercedes and all but I’ll probably get something all like a gift certificate and shit.  Lame.

"Fratboys in the Mist" is an ongoing introspective report from an Anthropology major at Florida State University. Austin Wilkes is an accomplished undergrad who in her free time, studies the natural habits of those on Greek Row. Check back each week for a new field report.

Today’s Observation: Winter Clothing of Sorority Members
 

December is upon us.  While the rest of the nation’s starving student population wades through snow, ice, and apathy to get to class, we here in the Sunshine State more often wade through knee-high drifts of gigantic insects to reach our hallowed, and sometimes un-air conditioned, halls of learning.  Yes, Fall has at last extended its dreary, withered hand upon us, and only four months later than the rest of the country.

This is not to say that there are no signs of winter.  Quite the contrary; in my field research I have discovered that most of the denizens of this Northern Florida campus choose to treat Winter as a social construction rather than a phenomenon of climate.  The campus bookstore has stocked Christmas wrapping paper since the beginning of the term when it was a healthy ninety-eight degrees outside.  (That’s also the number of degrees likely to be awarded in total this spring, given FSU’s budget cuts; however, I digress).  The natives festoon parking lots with plastic holly and fake snow shortly after recovering from their Halloween hangovers, and just today I saw a member of a fraternity walking by with a jaunty sprig of mistletoe peeking from the fly of his cargo shorts.
Nowhere is this symbolic donning of winter more apparent than in the female members of the local Greek Tribe.  At most times of year, these sorority girls (or “sorostitutes” as the rest of the community calls them) prefer to wear very little.  Only minimal covering of the breasts and genitals is required by their standards of decency, and then only during the day.  But in the winter months, namely December and part of January, they begin to cover their extremities against the imagined cold.

For some of you finals are finally over, for others they will be over in a few hours. Long, grueling hours. While I never understood how the best judge of what you learned over the course of a semester requires a blue book and a scantron, and then multiply that by four. The stress can bring a lot of people to their breaking point. Adderal and caffeine addiction mounting, sleeping becomes a distant memory - the very nature of the finals period WILL ruin your soul.

But not all students let it get them down. Several places of higher learning have traditions that allow students to calm down and de-stress. Whether it be one-on-one releases, binge drinking, or one of these events below; college students don't let a little exam get them down.

UNC Chapel Hill :: Flash Rave

We're not sure if this is a tradition, or a newly crowned event, but the video has us wishing we were in Chapel Hill last week. Publicized in a Facebook event, at midnight students overtook the undergraduate library for a ten minute dance party. There was music, crowd surfing, a white-kids-can't-dance-breakdance-circle, topped off with some good ol' school spirit. For more pictures and video of the Flash Rave, check out the Daily Tarheel.

Other Rituals include: public nudity, undie runs, more raves, and screaming.

Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management is consistently heralded as one of the best places to get your MBA in the nation. But apparently "filing" isn't something they teach the business men of tomorrow. 50 applicants were sent erroneous messages Monday telling them that they had been accepted into the full time grad school program when in fact they had been rejected.

The Chicago Tribune spoke with one of the jilted applicants who after receiving the e-mail called his parents excitedly and even had a celebratory dinner Monday night. When he logged on the next day to see what the next steps for enrollment were, the mistake had been 'corrected'.

What really blew us away though was the $235 application fee. I mean, shit. We did the math. Every admissions period, the school sees roughly 5,500 applicants. Of that, only 17% are accepted. But everyone pays the $225 fee. Which means every winter when the school goes thru their applications for the following Fall, they receive$1,237,500 from the application fees alone. Add on top of that the $43,935 annual tuition - does anyone else think this Grad School business is highway robbery? Sure 90% of the graduating class has a job when they cross the stage that will earn an average salary well over the six-figure mark, but every year the school rakes in over$43,495,650 in tuition. With the fees, that's almost $45 million. Every year.

Which leads me to my next announcement: I will be opening a business school in 2009. We are currently accepting applicants, processing fee is a mere $50 and tuition will be more than affordable. Courses include making me coffee, passing out fliers at bars, and making Boosh your life. I think this plan is really going to pan out well for everyone involved.

 But seriously: Boosh is looking for current college students to serve as campus reps, so if you think you've got what it takes, drop us a line. campusrep [at] booshmagazine.com. Quick cash for little work. Hit us up.