A cappella: when good rushes go bad

BY KIRSTEN WEBB

When I tell the story of my rush experiences to friends back home, I like to narrate it with the dolorous tone of a tragic Shakespearean monologue—a few dramatic pauses, some strategically placed sighs, and loud cries of suffering. As I collapse in a final spectacular heap on the floor, my friends shake their heads and tell themselves how thankful they are that they attend "normal schools."

ANDREW HAMILTON/YH

I almost ended up at one of these "normal schools," those lovely institutions of carefree frolicking and miniscule tuition bills—but then I heard that glorious phrase that would soon shape my very destiny: a cappella. For a high school music geek like me, this was the Mecca, the holy grail of holy grails. I might go so far as to say that a cappella groups were my deciding factor in the college decision process—except then everyone reading this would renounce my friendship and ask themselves how such a loser like me could have gotten here in the first place. 

But I know what's really lurking there behind your jeering gazes. Deep in your deepest heart, that's why you came here too—at least those of you who are rushing, or have rushed, or wish-that-you'd-rushed-when-you-still-didn't-know-anybody-but-if-you- rushed-now-You'd-be-the-only-senior-at-the-desserts. Screw the U.S. News and World Report ratings; during my final days of deliberation, I was holing up with my headphones and downloading MP3s of singing groups from UC-Berkeley and Oregon state schools. Let's face it; webpages full of snazzy jam-repertoire lists will be what I have to blame in 10 years when I'm selling my soul to the Man and wondering why I forsook free tuition for $2 million loans.

Or maybe this is just what I told myself after that fateful Tap Night last year to make myself feel 10 times worse. Actually, I really do think everything would have worked out swimmingly had I not come down with a raging case of either whooping cough or double pneumonia on the first day of rush meals. It's hard to make a witty impression over your Lucky Charms and Eli breakfast sandwich when you're juiced up on Benadryl and piles of Kleenex.

At auditions, I just announced to the groups that I was sick; they'd definitely see that behind my four-and-a-half-note range and squawking there lay unmistakable talent. I still hadn't been cured by the time callbacks rolled around, and after another agonizing round of hacking out "Blues in the Night," I was pretty sure that it was time to start filling out transfer applications to schools back home.

But, see, I know it wasn't as bad as all that. I'm sure rush was full of great times getting to know upperclassmen and feeling involved in some big part of campus life. I know that I got closer to my rushing friends and felt like a social maven during that first month of school. But really, when contestants get kicked off Survivor, do they go home with warm memories of the relationships they'd developed in the Outback? Hell no. They lie awake at night with a bottle of cheap liquor cursing their existence for not getting them that million dollars. They describe to their friends in graphic, tragic detail, each rat they were forced to eat, each Tribal Council they had to sweat through.

So maybe even though I forsook a life of financial security just to get kicked off the Island o' a cappella, at least I'll have something to write depressing poetry about. 

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