9:00 PM Friday night—I’m on duty. To be honest I’m a little bit aggravated to be stuck in tonight—I’m missing Kappa Krush, 3 birthdays, and a campuswide dance party. Everyone else, freshmen included, will probably be out partying. I don’t expect much to happen tonight. Maybe I’ll watch a movie.
I’m also suffering from the haze of a food coma—my stomach is filled with all you can eat sushi from dinner and my blood is coursing with tryptophan. I seriously need a nap. I send out the necessary on duty email before I tell Dave, the other froco in tonight that I’m going to pass out for an hour or so.
Hey guys
Dave and I are on duty tonight pondering the meaning of life and the myth behind the everlasting twinkie. Come stop by if you want to chat!
Your frocos!
11:00 Dilan comes in waking me up. She visits often—last time i was on duty we facebook stalked crushes for 3 hours.
This time she insinuates something naughty about 2 other frocos from a different college. When I probe for more information she evades. She loves withholding information from me; otherwise she wouldn’t have brought them up in the first place. The conversation shifts to piercings and tattoos when she complains about belly ring aching. She asks me if I have a tattoo but I evade the question. (I like seeing her squirm too when she doesn’t know the answer).
Dilan: Come on froco! I’ve already told you so much! Where is it located?
Me: Well maybe if you tell me which frocos you were talking about I can tell you about myself…
We’re bartering information but in the end no exchange is made. This encompasses 90% of the exchanges we have together.
12:00 Chelsea comes in after her night out. she tells me all the places she’s been tonight—Samurai, Fence Club, the Dance party, Silliman. I guess they weren’t that enthralling if she stayed at each place for only 30 mins and came back by midnight. MJ, another froco comes in to hang out and so do a couple more freshmen demanding food.
Caroline: We were wondering if you had twinkies like you mentioned in your email.
Me: I was speaking conceptually!
But i could go for some snacks too. One of the best things about being a freshmen counselor is that as long as you have more than 10 people, you can call an impromptu study break pretty much any night you’re on duty. I run off to Durfees to pick up some chips, pirouettes, cookies, and nutella while MJ holds down the fort.
When I get back a guitar magically appears as everyone reaches over to dip the mini donuts in nutella. Of course every acoustic player has Damien Rice in their repertoire. Dilan starts playing The Blower’s Daughter, a personal favorite. I tell them about my memories on the banks of the Vltava River in Prague 2 years ago, listening to the song with a friend and eating biscuits while watching the night city shimmer. Zach tells me about a high school wrestling match when his team sang this song together after a big victory. Damien Rice brings people together I tell him.
Me: Do you still keep in touch with your wrestling buddies?
He says he does but he doesn’t think he will wrestle anymore because his motives for self-improvement are too selfish. I ask him about altruism and if motives matter if in the end the results remain the same.
He opts not to answer me, instead chiming on Caroline’s conversation about the X-Men.
Liya: You’re not going to answer his altruism question?
I don’t care that he didn’t respond—I know he’s going to think about it later.
Dilan starts playing Moldy peaches- anyone else but you and everyone starts singing. Everyone’s seen Juno and knows the song by heart.
After the song ends we’re all filled a sense of satisfaction.
Zach: When are we going to have frokyoke (froco karaoke) again?
Mental note: let’s schedule that soon. MJ is thinking the same thing.
Dilan moves onto Mario kart love song. She pulls the tabs on the internet but can’t get the timing down precisely. We turn to the original on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDBpQVhCMb8
MJ: I would date him. He’s so adorable.
Dilan: This song is so romantic, and cheesy.
Me: I would totally fall for someone who sang this song or spun counterclockwise in a room.
MJ: Totally
Dilan doesn’t get the reference so I show her the xkcd comic. That’s true love I tell her.
http://xkcd.com/162/
Freshmen: Well we’re going to go to sleep now.
Dilan: Frocos what are we going to do without you next year? It’s sad to think that we only have 2 months together.
We try to reassure her that there’s plenty of time and she won’t need us next year.
She accepts this, hesitantly. I’m going to miss her and the freshmen just as much as they’ll miss us, but I don’t tell her this. It’s bittersweet to think that in 3 months this will all end so I push those thoughts out of my head. No point in worrying about the inevitable.
It’s 1:30am now. I’m no longer on duty. I’m glad I stayed in.
Let's go again.
