Watering the Plants: Initiation Week

Today marks the beginning of Initiation Week (I-Week) for the Beta Gamma pledge class of the Theta Psi chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity (a mouthful, I know). It is the final week in the pledging period, and is the most important. By Saturday morning, the pledges will become Sigma Chis, and to prepare them for this life-long commitment, we ask them to excise levity from their daily lives for the week and instead use the freed time to contemplate everything. Everything they have learned during pledging; everything they want from life; everything significant that happened to them previously; everything about their relationships; everything ad nauseam. To encourage this excogitation, assignments and reading packages are handed out, within which are philosophically-weighty questions in the former, and inspirational poems and short stories in the latter. Here is an example. Read and discuss:

If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400.00 that carried over no balance from day to day and allowed you to keep no cash in you account and every evening canceled whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day, what would you do? Draw out every cent of course! Well, you have such a bank, and its name is "Time." Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to no good purpose. It carries over no balances. It allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow." You must live in the present--on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success.

--Author Unknown

The pledging period prior to I-Week slowly eases you into the concepts of the ideals and aims of the Fraternity. One pledge class is scheduled a week, within which are discussions on the ideals of friendship, justice, and learning; on the founders and the events leading to the founding of the fraternity; and on pretty much everything else about the fraternity. It's generally easy-going (unless you're me, but that's a long story) and has a relaxed atmosphere. Attendence is strongly suggested, but pledges can miss a class or two. They don't have to do the assignments, and don't have to learn about Sigma Chi, but come Initiation Week, things get serious. Pledge classes become a nightly affair, and there is the examination to haunt the pledges and make them regret their prior procrastination. Then we force upon them all this self-reflection, and I-week usually takes places just before exams, so it's hectic to say the least.

Another task with which we charge our pledges, and in this case, the initiated brothers as well, is to identify a weakness in their own character and defeat it, or at the very least, abstain from succumbing to the weakness for the week. Examples include quitting smoking, going to the gym regularly, don't go to McDonald's, etc. I remember not logging onto MSN, refraining from watching television (not that I watch much TV to begin with), using the internet only for educational purposes, and quitting masturbation for the week. hah, it was tough, but I managed to survive.

My personal take on the reason for this task is this: I am a Sigma Chi for life. As a Sigma Chi, much is exected of me, including becoming a better man. That is a life-long journey towards an ideal, my ideal of the perfect me. If I can't hold to my resolutions for a single week, a pitfully short period of time, then how can I expect myself to strive for that ideal outside of the structure and pressure of Initiation in the rest of my life? When no one but myself is there to push me to improve my body and mind?

I decided for this week, I would not take upon myself any resolutions. I've lately started on so many self-improvement projects that I feel that I don't need to, and can't really expend any more time on such endevours. Within the previous two months, I started getting up at 5:30am every weekday and 8:30am on weekends to hit the gym, I started seriously following my healthy dietary plan, I started spending less time with Shirley (not that I have a choice) and spending more time studying for the MCAT (two hours a day is the target), I started planning on a comic I want to write/draw for the Imprint, I started reading books again, I continued on my (painfully slow) quest to become a better big brother and son, and I quit smoking. Next up on the list, when I have the time, is to learn Mandarin and vernacular Chinese, go skydiving, go fishing with my dad, learn how to shoot a gun (again), and perhaps finally leaving the damn province and go somewhere for a vacation (I have never, ever been on a vacation).

I-Week ends with the formal initiation of the new brothers, and we throw a big, fancy brouhaha. I'm looking forward to it, as it will be my first weekend out of the house in almost a month. I am so socially-deprived at the moment. I might start talking to my football in another day or so... God help me.

--Brian
7:26 pm