Remember that sheet of yellow paper that every new junior probationary prefects get during their first week as "Probates?" I remember the seniors called them the orientation paper - well - it seemed to me more like a passport to a world of torture and humiliation, at first.
What we are asked to complete was to gather as many signatures of the existing prefects as possible. The more "senior" the signatures are, the more scores you'll get on your orientation performance. Most probates will never realize what they have gotten themselves into when they first receive that piece of instruction.
But it wouldn't take long before one knows the level of difficulty to get those signatures/initials on their paper - especially the more "senior" ones like the school executive board or the Captain himself. A Probate will literally have to perform any sort of given challenge by their seniors in order to get them sign the paper: from residing the prefect's oath, backwards, to cleaning the prefects room; from dancing, to singing...all sort of things that I now come to think of them as being really creative.
The best part of this orientation exercise? The person who signs the papers are allowed to do anything to the paper, too. Poor newbies, some of theirs got crumpled, torn apart, dipped into dirty water, and burned. I can't remember how much humiliation a new, young, fresh mind would have to suffer throughout that entire so-called socializing process.
So mine was basically covered with cuts, tapes and glue when I had to submit them at the end of the orientation week. And that was the worst orientation I ever had in my entire life.
Seven years have passed since then.
That piece of torn, crumpled paper is still imaged vividly in my memory. Why so? I realized there were more to the whole initiation, more to what we come to think of it as torture. I thought it may be the toughest mental training one could ever experience at a young age of 13.
Whatever "hazing" practices that we were asked to perform are more than what we could see from a surface level. If you uncover the lid of that process, you may see it as a learning opportunity. When else is the better time to let one experience the cruelty of the world? When else is a better time, to teach someone that life doesn't always give us sweet candies?
We, the seniors to the younger learners, self-teach the innocent souls about the reality of this world, even though we had to act as the "bad ass" during the course of such training. We, however, made sure that these boyish freshies are taught the lesson in a harsh but adequate manner. Some Probates did drop out from the process, yet many survived it. And I am sure those who had completed the whole task turn out to be a newer soul - stronger, tougher, realer.
I'm not siding the practice of haze in anyways. My point is that customs like that should be carried on legitimately. I haven't been visiting the prefects for years since my graduation from high school so I'm not sure if the Probates are still being "persecuted" that way.
Appreciate every chance to learn. Boys like us always need some hard time in order to see the charming side of life. What do you think?
