Dons Ragged

Don Rags, a wonderful three days of restricted freedom--dress code still enforced, 11 PM curfew--and ten to fifteen minutes of out of body experience--having tutors talk about you, behind your back, to your face. This semester's don rags are over. With the exception of a few stragglers who haven't yet had theirs (last ones are on Tuesday), we have finished our mid-terms. Mid-terms. I don't even have any clue what those must be like.

My own don rags went very very well. Extremely little ragging. Instead of having to take slaps in the face with a straight face, I had to take complements without looking smug. A refreshing change of pace from last year. Last year, I had my worst don rags ever; probably one of the worst don rags ever. If you have ever been warned that unless you shape up, you may potentially be asked to leave the college, you should get the picture, because my don rags last year went something like this:

"Mr. Boyer is bright, buuuuuuuut..."

"Mr. Boyer does seem to understand the material, however..."

"One ought to listen to one's classmates when they are speaking. Mr. Boyer, on the other hand doesn't."

"If Mr. Boyer doesn't shape up, I feel I will be forced to talk to the dean about hiring a firing squad. Or an impromptu lynch mob."

"What do you mean hire an impromptu lynch mob"

"Well, even if we do study gravity junior year, it doesn't mean liberally educated students could actually form a proper lynch mob. I mean, what with the random pitchforks and fire brands and mindless oafs yelling 'Can we burn him! Can we burn him!' even though
1) this is an interrogative statement, so a question mark should be used, and 2) this is a lynch mob and not a burn him at the stakemob. I mean, these are dynamics which the average student of Aristotle just can't grasp on the practical level. They would be too busy asking each other, 'What is the specific difference of a lynch mob as opposed to a burn him at the stake mob?' and 'Well, what is the entomology of lynch?' or 'To properly understand the effect of gravity on the lynched once the lynchers have removed any support from under the lynchee (what is the Latin for that anyway?), do we have to postulate that a line is made out of points? Because if we do, then that is clearly absurd, and we wouldn't actually be able to lynch anybody.'"

(Pause)

"Mr. Boyer, do you have any comments?"

So this year was much better.