Monday, November 7, 2011

All honour and glory

The Doyle Owl is an integral part of Reed culture (you can read about it here).  Before Saturday night it had last been seen two years ago, but it appeared once again on the fifth of November, and an Owl Fight ensued.  A campus of approximately 1200 people all going after an owl, trying at first to just touch it, then trying to steal it (timé, or honour, goes to the group who possesses the owl) is hectic and scary and represents the best and worst of Reed.
My dorm, Chittick, now possesses the owl.  Others will tell you that it belongs to an alliance of off-campus houses and the frisbee team, but I will see it as a Chittick victory.  Every so often I think about it - we are a small dorm, and we have the owl - and I smile, ridiculous stupid smiles plastered all over my face.
On the other hand, people got hurt.  Seriously hurt.  I wasn't involved in the acquisition of the owl, but I have friends with cuts and bruises and concussions.  People get hurt in this situation, but they shouldn't have, to the extent they did.
So, while we have the owl (and timé), real timé is when you don't hurt your friends.  Real timé is reserved for the people who pulled me out of the massive throng when I fell down and screamed, the people who kept me from being trampled, and the people who sat off to the side with band-aids and water.  
I am glad that I have seen and experienced the owl.  I'm just not sure that I'm ready to again anytime soon.

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