Frosh week--Monte Carlos Night

Monte Carlo Night

“Alright, so there’s a night it’s called Monte Carlo night on this Thursday. You get to deck yourselves out, and hold a few hundred dollars worth of plastic chips,” said my Don on Wednesday night of the frosh week. He had on a white sweater that spelled “the Don”, and he had the mature feeling of a senior student. I later learned that the Don is a prestigious position that requires a careful selection.

“Oh right, almost forgot, you get a ticket for a free mocktail,” he grinned. Pulling out of his pocket a string of cheap tickets that looked as if it came from some pinball machine, the Don enthusiastically distributed the tickets one by one to the crowd of first years, sitting neatly in circles around him.

“Oh right, forgot again. I was supposed to promote this. So this is a really nice experience. Everybody’ll be looking their best. Ladies in dresses, and guys in tux. It might be hot, literally, so that’s why you guys get the one-shot mocktail.” He paused here, and gathered his words, as though unsure of why he’s really promoting this event after all. “So, this is one of the few times when you can act like a big shot. It’s overall a nice experience. Some of my friends still say that the Monte Carlos night is the best part of the frosh week.

On that night, I dressed up in my nicest shirt and jacket, and timidly opened the door to the gym. A rush of hot air rushes past me along with sounds of excited chatter. Gorgeous single women, and well-dressed men walk past me to the stands on my left.

Then I entered the gym, where upwards of a sixty tables were set up. Pokers, blackjack, wheel of fortune, you name it. A tremendous sight it was, with hundreds of flowing elegance roamed the floor. It was amazingly different from the sight of the frosh dance. An unblinking certainty is that the typically immature stereotype of freshman was replaced by the mature look of business executives.

While I was waiting in line for my own mix of orange and apple juice, it crossed my mind that perhaps I could discover a sense of higher esteem by being in the crowd, and that, for once, I might be able to see what an adult world is like without my parents’ supervision. I was hit by another realization that I was indeed on my own at last, and that the reality was a little different than I had imagined it to be. Along with the liberated feeling of independence, there came a responsibility to take care of myself, and to make sure that I survive in the midst of these higher class competitors. I had spent more money than other friends back in British Columbia, and I had to achieve. I felt as though not only had I needed to survive, I needed to do better than my peers, to prove that I was worth the money.

Sometimes amidst the piles of homework, or the winter frizzles, I would think back to the frosh week, and realize that Monte Carlos night was one of the more gratifying parts of the frosh week. It marked a fitting end to the frosh week, which I hoped to re-experience even if only an infinitesimal amount of the first week.