Happy Birthday to Me

Today, September 5, is my 21st birthday!  This is, I suppose, my fourth and final birthday I will spend at Pomona (weird!).  Of course, at Pomona, we have a very particular birthday tradition: fountaining!

I remember on my tour before I came to Pomona when the tour guide mentioned being ambushed by your sponsor group and thrown in a fountain I was pretty nervous—and annoyed that my birthday was so close to the beginning of the school year.  But luckily one person in my sponsor group had an even earlier birthday than myself, so I saw it done before it was done to me.  Then it was over and done with and I didn’t have to worry all year about it.

Really, it’s not that bad. I mean, I’ve learned not to wear anything too nice or dry-clean-only on my birthday because chances are good it will get quite wet.  Depending on your friends, you might walk around nervously all day anticipating a surprise attack, or your roommate might let everyone in at midnight to grab you.  And afterwards you smell a lot like chlorine.  Whether or not you run away and struggle is up to you.  However, everyone getting together to throw you in one of the many fountains around campus is just your fellow Sagehens’ way of showing they care.  And then of course you get to run around, streaming wet, giving everyone who fountained you a big hug.

This is just one of the many great traditions here at Pomona. I wonder how it got started…I guess I’ll look into that for another day!

 

Fountaining a friend–holding him down so he wouldn’t run away!