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Wednesday, 26 December 2012

Student's Craze

There is a new craze among students (not here but somewhere in the west!!!!!) , known as ‘milking’. It involves standing in a public place — on a traffic island, in a dust bin, at a train station — and pouring a four-pint container of milk over one’s head. Needless to say, it is already attracting its share of online tut-tuts: ‘No morals, no shame’, ‘What a truly appalling waste, words fail me’, ‘Not very clever for students, are they?’

As crazes go, it is pleasingly odd, even rather beautiful: for some strange reason, pouring milk over yourself makes your head go black and white, whilst your surroundings remain in colour.

And, for all the instant indignation, there have been many more off-putting student crazes. In the spring of 1939, for instance, a craze for swallowing goldfish swept America.  It all began at Harvard on March 3, 1939, when a student called Lothrop Withington Jr boasted to his common room that he had just swallowed a goldfish. This gave rise to a modest goldfish-swallowing contest in the dining hall.

The word soon spread around other colleges. Frank Hope, a student from Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, called Withington ‘a sissy’ and managed to swallow three goldfish, having first sprinkled them with salt and pepper. The next day, another student swallowed six.

Harvard retaliated, upping the ante when a student called Irving Clark swallowed 24 fish. The contest then accelerated, with the University Of Michigan scoring 28, Boston College 29, Albright College 33 and MIT 42. Eventually, the record peaked at a truly horrible 300 before the craze died out, as crazes do.

Or do they? Some do, but some don’t.  Look at our store room, Mouldy cardboard boxes are full of items which, at one time, were the Latest Thing but are now like relics from the olden days:  Rubik’s Cubes,  some Filofaxes , electric pet chicken,  a toasted sandwich maker,  Cabbage Patch Kids,  a bean bag, and a novel by Dan Brown.

Some crazes look as though they are here to stay, but then, for no apparent reason, they disappear. Just imagine how wacky the first man to wear a tie around his neck must have seemed! Friends would have crossed the street to avoid him, he would have been blackballed from all the smartest clubs, and experts would have muttered: ‘It’ll never catch on.’

The train, the car, the newspaper and the television were all once just passing fads, and perhaps one day that is what they will prove to be; it’s just that some fads pass quicker than others.

Meanwhile, we should be wary of writing off ‘milking’ as just another craze…..lol……..  Yes, it may go the way of other crazes, such as streaking and seeing how many students can squeeze into a phone-booth and swallowing goldfish.

But who knows? In 100 years’ time, milking may be all the rage, and instead of gathering for a game of Scrabble or monopoly , we will gather to pour milk over each other’s faces, before going in for dinner

11 comments:

  1. This one definitely wont catch on here, it's not like flip flops or crocs....hahhaa......

    So sticky & in our weather, no one will do it !!! The Gold fish thingie is so gross!!!

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  2. Why waste good milk??? Might as well drink it hor???? Then afterwards all the cleaning up to do, hair, clothes, body!!!!
    This ang mo kids are nuts! No wonder their economy like crambling!!!

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    1. Haha.... that's why they said spore students no fun!!!
      We never try crazy things, never even entertain the thought of doing something way out!!!!

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    2. Who say????
      ... remember that law student who did that sex video just a while ago???
      Plus that guy who wrote to people staying in Senyosa cove , asking for a car????
      All these quite unusual & crazy leh....

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    3. First of all both these guys are not even Sporean! That guy who ask for a car- is he a student???

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    4. You're right!!! Both from neighbouring country leh... Cant remember the car guy, maybe not student but he's in his 20s, that I remember!
      How about the girl from law in the latest "expensive prizes for grades" scandal?

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  3. This craze is from England ya?? So pointless really!!!

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    1. But isnt that the point, being pointless???
      lol....

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    2. The point is to be pointless????? Goodness.... no wonder they are in crisis!

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  4. Pointless is just pointless, why the need to demonstrate? Is like if you are stupid, that's it, what's the point of proving you are stupid? Get what I mean????

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    1. But dumb people always do stupid things which further prove how dumb they are- it's a fact! If not how do we know who are the dumb ones...lol......

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