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| "We'll lose." "We do that together too." |
The Light Wars have just begun.
Although the dark lord Darth Jiddy is no more, the ragtag army of E-HIGH
students is once again scattered to the four corners of Orange County.
The vile PRINCE OF DARKNESS has
dispatched the vile plagues of apathy and indecision on the unsuspecting
students as they try to resume their daily lives.
Failing to regroup at HAVEN
spells certain doom for the small band of spiritual warriors in their struggle
to make a difference in the world...
Regaining old momentum is a
struggle, especially after 2015 Facedown retreat set the bar so high. But as a
certain Elliot Song would put it, 'We'll bounce back." In the meantime,
enjoy the first post of the new year, which is dedicated to my E-High group
SYNDICATE!
I spend my Friday nights at
church, which we call HAVEN. I'm part of a group called Syndicate. The pastor
encourages group unity...and competition. We have a house competition of sorts.
The group that does the best at the end of the year gets a prize and bragging
rights. Groups that don't do well...let's just say they experience a different
side of God's love (pronounced "punishment"). The words "group activity" are
enough to get my heart racing.
This particular activity was
based on the body of Christ (a hackneyed cliché for regular churchgoers). I was
supposed to be the "lungs," which was tasked with blowing a balloon
until it popped. The "blowing" part was easy. The "popped"
part was not.
I don't think I understood how
Sisyphus felt about rolling his boulder until that activity. Just as the
balloon was about to burst, my lips could no longer fit on the mouthpiece. It
didn't help that I kept running out of breath. Darn asthma!
Maybe it was the two white
balloons sputtering out of control. Soon enough the whole of Syndicate gathered
around me, cheering me on. Everyone was hollering advice or encouragement of
some sort, but the one comment I still remember came from a fellow Oxford
student.
"C'mon Oxnerd you can do it!
You know there's punishment for last place. This time it's Mad Dog!"
Mad Dog is the name of a hot
sauce that was the staple ingredient of HAVEN's arsenal of unspeakable horrors.
I am fortunate enough to not have tried Mad Dog, but in the eighth grade I was
given a drop of a similar sauce, Final Answer (1,500,000 Scoville units). You
would think I would have been down for Mad Dog (600,000 Scoville units), but
the numbers game is poor consolation when your throat feels like it's in the
deepest pits of Hell (I looked up the measurements while I was writing this).
Syndicate's reassurance moved me. I took
a deep breath, gathered my resolve, and began to blow. Then a teacher grabbed
the balloon out of my hands and stomped on it.
According to everybody, my face
was turning purple, and I was about to pass out. It took a full hour for my
face to regain color and the numbness to leave my body.
I still keep a picture from that day as my cover photo on Facebook. My cheeks are once again
ruddy, and I'm smiling because I was also the "brain," a job I was so
good at that my team's score skyrocketed from last to first. Syndicate is again gathered around me, but this time assured of victory. For my caption I used these words:
Don't chug helium guys!
