Southeast Missouri State University - Sagamore Yearbook (Cape Girardeau, MO)

Page 13 text:

An attempt to find oneself ends up only in losing oneself in the complex called orientation. For neophyte freshmen and advisers the clay is spent in hectic travels. It has been said that one must Hrst lose himself in order to find himself. But such is not the case here. The activity is rather 21 balm for hurt minds, for feelings of insecurity, a salve for a means of quickly get- ting lost in the mull of things Without any real hope-in fact ll fear-of ever finding himself. Ancl so the Clay Wanes with the greatest single activity being that of meeting the faces than they meet. Hectic card filling-out occupies every sitting moment, while standing moments are devoted to forming endless lines that lead on to nowhere. QA NN. ll

Page 12 text:

FALL ORIENTATION: FULL OF Leaving shadowed Walks to wait in the sun for his group assignment, the freshman is bemused, giddy, or passive in direct ratio to the amount of shade and number of familiar faces he finds around him. He finds, as thousands have found before him, that Orientation is, among other things, a Waiting game. Meanwhile, back on the terraces, student leaders adjust their orange badges, symbols of their chronological experience, and practice, in monologue, their cheerful and mature greetings for the tanned strangers Who are still only alphabetized names on a White piece of paper. SOUND AND FURY Orientation, dear Freshman, is a tale told by an idiot,1':uli of sound and fury, signifying noth- ing. BemUSeCl fl'9Shmel'1, 1500 strong, find that orientation is, among other things, a waiting game. 10 l

Page 14 text:

And then dusk approaches. With the bustle of the day over and evening not yet begun, self-conscious hundreds stand in the paradoxical pool of aloneness. Occasionally a too-brittle laugh breaks the strained silence, a small curse or shout is heard as insects buzz hopefully in and out, but nothing really breaks the tension. The freshman feels, as if for the first time, the paradox of being alone in a crowd. But then the shadows of the night come on, filling the land with strange and unusual patterns, slipping by the terraces, making sudden leaps, and seeing that it is a soft September night, curling once about the trees to fall asleep. With the falling of night, each is allowed his own safe anonymity. Now talk is freeg the desire is to make oneself heard. Amidst laughter and frolic, the unending line moves onward toward the outdoor barbeque. As in no other oc- casion, these queued beginners learn well a kind of Miltonic Shadows ofthe night come on filling the land maxim: that only those who wait are served. . with strange and unusual patterns. The unending line moves onward, groping its way toward the smelled but oh-not-tasted outdoor barbeque. A good time was had by all. 12