Getting initiated into a weird tradition without consent.
GETTING INITIATED INTO A WEIRD TRADITION WITHOUT CONSENT.
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Remember that moment? You arrived, bright-eyed and ready for academic challenge, only to find yourself unexpectedly pulled into something entirely… unexpected. One minute you're trying to locate the library, the next you're part of some bizarre ritual, a chain of events set in motion long before you even applied. Maybe it was a late-night procession involving obscure chants and questionable garments. Perhaps a spontaneous, unspoken understanding that suddenly you're "in," and expected to uphold some arcane practice.
It wasn't a choice; it was an absorption. One day, you were just a student. The next, you were part of the fabric, initiated without a formal ceremony, just by proximity and the sheer gravitational pull of history. You might have questioned it, laughed nervously, or just went along with it, because, well, that's just what everyone did. Trying to explain it to your friends back home was futile. "So, you just… started doing that?" they'd ask, their faces a mix of confusion and mild alarm.
These aren't the moments you find in prospectuses. They're the whispered histories, the unspoken rules, the quirks that bind generations. They're the true "Only at an Ivy" moments, the ones that forge an unbreakable, if slightly bewildered, sense of belonging. The memories that resurface years later, making you smile at the sheer, beautiful absurdity of it all.