It's official. I can now truly consider myself a sophomore. I'm back in town, writing from the third floor of Utay Hall (Corps Dorm 12). My fish arrived here last Sunday, and have been going through Fish Orientation Week, or FOW. FOW is where all the fish are "indoctrinated" into the Corps. I think I described it about a year ago from the fish side of the experience, but now I have a totally different perspective. Since I'm not one of the Cadre (training staff) I didn't have to show up until Thursday, but some of my buddies and the outfit leadership have been in town since the middle of last week. They've been teaching the fish stuff like whipping out, how to greet, how to eat, how to dress... the whole nine yards.
There's a lot of old names among the fish this year. One of them is my buddy's little brother, another is one of the juniors' cousins, and one is the little brother of a senior. Several more are know personally and were recruited by us. That's not even mentioning the shared names. We also have one set of twins and two other pairs of shared names. It's just going to be a nightmare to learn all of them.
Now that I'm a sophomore, examining fish fresh out of FOW from a different perspective, I can see how incredibly silly we must have seemed a year ago. We take it for granted that everyone knows how to wear every one of five or six different uniforms, and can take perfect care of them. Not to mention the odd names that come out of their mouths. You see, when you whip out with thirty of your buddies, the noise is deafening, and you go with whatever name you think you might have heard. Thus, my budd Krakoski got called Checkovski, Markovski, and a lot of other names that ended in -ski. I heard several variants of my name, including Pharaoh, Fumble, and Fury. Mr. Fury. I think I kinda like that name.
