Busaball and Partying For All

29/9/14

A quick prologue: I didn't bring my camera to school the day this took place, so there aren't any photos of what happened in the first part of this post. You'll just have to trust me.

If you live in the States, you're probably familiar with the whole ''freshmen initiation'' thing for high school and university students, but what you may not know is that it's international. Except, instead of freshmen, they call us busar in Iceland, but it means the same thing. Additionally, instead of--to put it bluntly--basically treating us like crap the whole year as they did at my old school but not doing anything to us except convincing us that underwater basket-weaving is a real class, they actually initiate us...HARDCORE.

Now, technically busavika lasts a whole week (it does literally translate to ''busa week'', after all), but nothing really happened until Fimmtudagur/Thursday, the day of the freshmen dance (busaball). Well, nothing except growing anxiety from wondering what exactly the older kids have in store for us. Anyway, busar were all told to wear white shirts and blue jeans so we'd stand out, and to avoid spoiling the fun, we all obliged. As soon as we got to school, I think a lot of us were wishing we hadn't. 

That's because there was a rather intimidating girl in all black with white eyes (I mean, they were obviously contacts, but still) who didn't say anything, but wouldn't let anyone go in the front doors of the school. Instead, she pointed off to the left or right, and everyone had to go around to the back door. 

As I walked around the building, I began to hear something that was both pretty and nightmarish. On the stairs leading up to Casa (the cafeteria) were two rows of figures in hooded black robes that hid their faces all ominously humming together without moving. Luckily, I did not need to go to Casa.

If you can believe it, the rest of the school day was normal. Well, almost. With just one class period to go, we looked out of the windows and saw a crowd forming on the steps of people in all kinds of terrifying war face paint chanting ''BUSABLÓÐ!'' (''freshmen blood'') over and over again as a line of white-shirt-wearing kids had to squeeze through the middle of them. Then, as quickly as they had assembled, they dispersed.

Or so we thought. From down the hall, we could hear people counting, and after each number the bell tolled (oh yeah, our school has an actual bell that someone rings between classes! MR is really freaking old). One of my classmates told me that when they reached tólf/twelve they would all charge down the hall into the busa classes. She was not wrong. After being forced to sing ''Gaudeamus Igitur'' (a school song thing) in both Latin and Icelandic, we crawled out of the front doors of the school under the toga'd upperclassmen while they hissed at us and then ran to the front yard, surrounded by older kids. 

Then, one by one, they began pulling us away over to groups of six guys (in togas, obviously), where we were thrown. Einn! Tveir! Þrír! And then you're airborne. It was very cool. 

After that we ran up a small hill back towards the school buildings, where everyone who was tossed got a paper triangle pinned to them that basically said that we had in fact been tossed and then we went to a little table where we got cake and milk after shaking hands with the two presidents of the two student councils, who said, ''Velkomin,'' (welcome).

And that was it! We were in! Oh, and then I somehow wound up joining both photography clubs (one for each student council), or ljósmyndafélagið, and they told me to bring my camera to the dance that night, which means I actually have pictures!

Okay, fast forward past the before-party which was essentially trying to navigate around drunk kids in togas who had lost all concept of personal space, and we're at the dance. Err..standing in line for the dance.

Oh, hey! Cool story: in the opposite direction you could sorta kinda see Reykjavík, but much cooler than that were norðurljósinn/the northern lights, which for some strange reason were visible. Over a bright city. In early September. Definitely not where I thought I'd see them for the first time, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Ready for a curve ball? Busaball, despite how it may appear to native English speakers like myself, is not a ball. It's not even really a dance. It's a rave. So when I showed up in a floral skirt, a cardigan, and tights, you could say I was a little over-dressed.

Still, you have to admire the people who knew what they were doing.

Even before I went into the rooms with the actual dancing, I still thought the venue was pretty cool.

Okay, enough stalling. Time for the dance rooms.

This is either one of the best or worst pictures I've ever taken. Up to you.

Heyyyy!!! Something was actually in focus!

Eventually I decided to embrace my role as ''that chick with the camera'' and asked anyone I ran into, ''Má ég taka mynd?''/ ''May I take a picture?'' I'm beyond happy with the results.

 There's plenty more, but those are my favorites. Unfortunately for everyone involved in the ball/rave/dance, we only got  4-5 hours of sleep maximum and had school early the next day; however, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.