2007-10-09 1:32 a.m.
Sleepsong and the First Rain
Yay, lullabies.
I was going to write some inane entry about nothing, really, but then tonight ended up hosting one of my university's more infamous traditions.
In order to do it justice, I must first backtrack a bit.
This was one of my montonously infamously uninterestingly lazy days. The only thing to distinguish it from most other days was the weather. Weather in Santa Cruz is extremely different from weather in Los Angeles - so much so that I have difficulty predicting it. To me, today was simply a hazy day of the first order, the sky silvered over in the peculiar way certain types of clouds have. It was chill, enough that I wore long sleeves and my hair down, but not enough to really bother me. My roommate thought it was freezing, but then we rarely see eye to eye on weather.
The day was average enough. I stayed in bed as long as possible, then rose to begin my day about half an hour before I had to be anywhere. I debated sending in an email claiming to be sick to one of my classes, just so I could stay abed for a bit longer, but decided against that in favor of doing what I was supposed to. Go figure. Classes were interesting and quite useful, and then I headed back to my room, in one of my more indescribable moods for no apparent reason.
I smiled at the note left for me by Jane, then proceeded to avoid doing anything of much import. I think I spent three hours clicking random links on MSN, which is my homepage. Wednesdays are another of my 8 AM class days, so I finally buckled down to do the reading for Modern East Asia, which was interesting. We're learning about China's revolution into communism, and it's quite interesting. Especially when you're reading what Mao Tse-Tong wrote about it himself. Then I read for Linguistics, always a trying task, and I think I got it this time. Finished up my Japanese homework by 10:00 PM, and was just bumming around online waiting for my best friend to come online and for my roommate's boyfriend to get the hell out of my apartment.
The wind was making the leaves of trees rattle in a way which, when combined with the noise of my heater, made my roommate and her boyfriend think it had begun to rain. It hadn't. He eventually left around 11:15. I talk to my best friend for a bit.
Suddenly, the rain began. It was about midnight, and suddenly there was shouting. I heard a loud thump as if someone had dropped a load of books out on my porch, and my screen door sliding open.
"Is it starting?" my next-door asked. My apartmentmate at the end of the hall. I could hear them talking, so I left my room. My roommate was asleep. We all gathered together at the bathroom window to watch the rain sparkle down through the orange haze of streetlights and sweatshirted students run shouting through our alleyway, all dazed and confused as to what exactly was going on. Loud, tribal shouts of excitement were echoing across the college to where we gathered. Suddenly, without a word being said, my next-door, my down-the-hall, and I broke and ran to our rooms to grab keys, shoes, and umbrellas, and never mind that we were all in pajamas. My roommate woke up and was out the door before I noticed that she was even awake. Everything was madness, adrenaline from what we knew was coming coursing through our bodies and making everything come alive.
I ran out the door and down the stairs, out into the rain and let it mist onto my hair for a moment as I fought my umbrella. My down-the-hall laughed at me, and we ran off to go have an adventure. Kids were gathered in the quad between the dorm buildings, shouting and chanting. And stripping. Can't forget the stripping, that's crucial. That's what makes the first rain in Santa Cruz unique.
The Porter First Rain Naked Run was on, but it was being started by College Eight. My College. (We're on the Oxford system of our university consisting of independent colleges all linked together. It gives us a more identifiable community - good, since UCSC has more than 15,000 students.)
Yes, we have institutionalized streaking. Don't you love college?
The rain was dripping off the leaves of trees overhead in shimmers of thick droplets as we ran up the stairs and across the road to Porter College, where numerous naked people had assembled and were chanting and drumming and yelling at the assembled onlookers to "get naked". A naked speaker stood up to berate the numerous Porter students who were standing around awkwardly about how College Eight had totally just pwned them out of their own tradition.
I have a cold coming on, so I didn't get naked. Maybe I'll do it my senior year, since I didn't do it last year, plan to be abroad next year (and can you imagine yelling "first rain naked run!" and ripping off your clothes at an English university? I certainly can't), and didn't do it this year either. I figure it's an experience I should have once, but not just yet. My friends all did it last year, so they didn't do it this year, either. We stood there and laughed and enjoyed the tribal atmosphere - the drums pounding through the quad area where we were stirring the blood and adrenaline, the chanting, the dancing, the rain pouring down. There's something quite freeing about running around in the rain in the middle of the night, naked or not.
We dashed about madly for a bit, laughing and revelling, and cheering on the naked people just because we could.
Finally, my down-the-hall and I made our way back to the apartment, sans next-door, who had been moved to join the naked runners. We took his clothes back to our apartment to await his return.
After a quick change into a different pair of pajamas (having soaked the other ones through while participating in the festivities), I decided to come post this blog to share the fun with all of you.
My hair is straggly and heavy from all the water it absorbed. I'm flushed and my asthma is shouting at me by way of wheezing and a worsened cough. My skin has that dusty softness only rain seems to give it. And my roommate is still AWOL. These are the hallmarks of the first rain at UC Santa Cruz.
Shouts and screams are still echoing to where I'm sitting, and it's almost 2 AM now. I can hear the drums pounding through the night and the shrieks of excitement.
My next-door just got back and informed us that tonight was not actually the Porter Run, because of all the rituals and traditions surrounding the properly executed Porter First Rain Naked Run. Mainly that it didn't rain during the day and it happened too late and there was no wrap-up drum circle and tribal naked dance afterward. Oh, and they didn't make it to all of the ten colleges here and were just utterly disorganized about the whole thing.
Oh, well. Porter still got pwned by College Eight taking it's tradition and beating it to it so far as initiating all of the new freshman minions. You're just not a proper student at UCSC until you've experienced the Porter Run in one of its many incarnations and flavors.
I think I'm blowing off my morning classes tomorrow. This was just too much excitement for me and my cold.
But it was well worth it.
Go dance in the rain. Or streak in it, if you so prefer, but just be careful not to get caught. The only reason we can get away with it here is that we're way the hell outside of the city, up on a hill in the woods where nobody cares what shit we get up to except University officials - and even mass streaking is too minor for them to be bothered with.
Good night...er...morning?
-Rose
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