<p>“Opie, I believe that event is the Eighth of May”</p>
<p>Could be…
maybe they liked it so much it was a three day event… </p>
<p>At my wifes school they had more wheatfields than fountains </p>
<p>My kids are absolutely stodgy compared to their parents at their age… maybe it skips generations?</p>
<p>[Paul</a> Soglin: Waxing America: Mifflin Street Block Party: Rewriting History](<a href=“http://www.waxingamerica.com/2007/05/mifflin_street_.html]Paul”>http://www.waxingamerica.com/2007/05/mifflin_street_.html)</p>
<p>[Mifflin</a> Street Block Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mifflin_Street_Block_Party]Mifflin”>Mifflin Street Block Party - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>cocomom, I totally get where you are coming from but have to echo everyone else. When I was in college there was a ton of weirdness and I was fresh off the turnip truck truck. I never chose to participate in any of the drug life and easily found friends with a similar lifestyle. I avoided the nudey weirdness too. My first Halloween, there was a party where a whole herd of men were wearing nothing but ties. Another woman was dressed as an ovary and was being pursued all night by a bunch of people dressed as sperm. My room mate took a drink from some random guy’s thermos but even this farmer’s daughter knew that that was stupid. Anyway, my point is that that you seem to have raised a level-headed girl so if she still loves this school and doesn’t feel that she would be totally uncomfortable there, trust that she will be fine.</p>
<p>FYI you can check out campusdirt.com to get a general idea of sexual attitudes and party atmosphere on campus. It is not a scientific measure at all but its student reported data can be used as a source of additional “fit” information for your D.</p>
<p>It reminds me of a scene in a movie where a teenage girl complains to her dad about her college social scene:</p>
<p>Girl: “I hate the people – all they do is party, drink and pee off the balconies.”
Dad, trying to be indulgent “Weelll - but what do the girls do?”
Girl: “Dad – those ARE the girls!”</p>
<p>I can understand college students doing this stuff. What I do not understand is the college approving an activity that involves dancing, eating, or anything else with fire, unless it is a bon fire with safety measures in place. Maybe I am just getting old.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, you are probably getting old. I know I am.</p></li>
<li><p>It looks/sounds way more dangerous than it is. Which is part of what makes it attractive, of course.</p></li>
<li><p>As you can tell from the number of people on this thread whose kids/others are doing it, it’s pretty popular.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s cool. You would probably love it. Certainly all the adults in my family did the first time my nephew put on a show for us.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>White gas is coleman fuel/petroleum ether. It burns HOT and risks of burns are greater not less than when using kerosene or other fuels. It burns clean and without smoke, so it is often used indoors, but to say it does not burn someone quickly is so not true. I think that someone fire dancing who ended up burning off their protective ski mask and bra came pretty close to getting hurt! I would hope this was not intentional. Wow, an LAC taking on the responsibility of kids fire burning to the extent they are burning off their clothes. The nudity doesn’t phase me. There is alot of “burlesque fire dancing” going around.The danger of burning off ones clothes during fire dancing is another story. I can tell you, those doing it in polynesia and New Zealand are not intentionally burning off their clothes. Neither are fire dance troupes.</p>
<p>I have to say I’m honestly shocked at these planned activities at a University!</p>
<p>I am by no means underexposed…I went to college at Syracuse University and NYU and lived in Greenwich Village for 15 years. I have never heard of anything like this. My s is at University of Miami and he has never mentioned any activity of this sort. I’ve never even heard of fire dancing! </p>
<p>I can understand your concern over this. I have to say that I would be as well. I would not be comfortable with a university promoting activities with nudity. I would call the school and find out more about these activities and whether the school is even aware of them. You need to get more of the picture here and then you can make more of an informed decision.</p>
<p>Even though we may have raised our children with good values and they assure us that they would not partake in such activities, when they are with peers and off at college, they are very heavily influenced by what goes on around them. Frankly, as a parent, I am becoming less and less enamored of our college educational system and feel it is much less about academics and responsibility more about partying, drinking, drugs and hookups.</p>
<p>Ok the burning thing sounded bad to me too. It’s the idea that parents will be uncomfortable with some activities that I think is normal. My hubby learned to eat fire at his LAC, but in a class with supervision.</p>
<p>Nudity, in and of itself, is not dangerous. Some would even say it’s natural.</p>
<p>My first thought was " was this Reed?" ;)</p>
<p>Re:fire dancing. I’d agree that it is really surprising that someone intentionally burned off their clothing, and also that they let a prospective student (or any student without training) swallow fire. There’s a fire spinning/dancing troupe at my school too, so the concept of a school approving one doesn’t seem to be odd, but ours puts a TON of emphasis on safety, to the point where they have a professional come in and talk before people new at it get to burn — if you don’t go to the talk, you can’t spin. This is, of course, because the leaders of the group don’t want people to get hurt, but I assume that it’s also part of the agreement with the school. They NEVER let anyone whose not a member of the group or otherwise trained play with the fire. </p>
<p>But yeah, as JHS said, it’s not really that dangerous, not if you train well and have spotters around. My boyfriend spins, and the only time he’s really hurt himself was by smacking himself in the face with his staff — but what hurt was the metal pole, not the fire (which didn’t touch him)! I definitely know more people who’ve gotten injured via sports than via fire sinning, so I don’t find it surprising that the school promoted it — it really is an artform, and quite wonderful. (I actually find it more surprising that they promoted the clothing optional movie, which is the kind of thing my admissions office likes to underplay to prospective students). </p>
<p>But anyway, as a student at the type of school your D seems to be looking at (intellectual, quirky LAC), I just wanted to assure you (as others have) that while craziness does go on, it really is easy to avoid if it’s not your style. People at my school, at least, respect people’s individual choices, whether that is to go to naked parties or not, smoke pot/drink or not, etc. and I think that kind of respect for individual choice is something that you generally find at “quirky” colleges (not to say that it’s necessarily lacking at other types of colleges).</p>
<p>One of the problems of overnight hosts at small colleges is that the type of person who is likely to VOLUNTEER to have prospies stay with him/her is likely an extrovert. (How many introverts do you know who would sign up to have a complete stranger spend the night in his/her room?) So prospies tend to get exposed to a more party-hearty personality type than the “average” student at that school.<br>
And on another note; it’s kind of funny that at several top schools, the kids complain about the total lack of sex and dating. These are the same schools that host NOD (Night of Decadence - kids wear saran wrap and/or risque clothing), nude movies, sex celebrations, streaking, etc. There was a great article about this in the New York Times, if I remember correctly that was something about “johnny going home alone”… I can’t remember the exact title.</p>
<p>I’m having trouble envisioning how it is possible for a woman to burn her bra clear off her body without suffering some very painful burns in sensitive parts of her body.</p>
<p>I can’t say that fire dancing and naked movies are “par for the course” at my college - and it would definitely freak me out if they were! We’re a nonreligiously affiliated well respected LAC and I don’t know ANYONE who would wander around burning off their clothes or randomly get naked for a movie. We definitely go out, get drunk, there’s one memorable dance every year where the theme is “wear as little as possible” but it’s generally girls in bras and boyshorts, about the same as a bathing suit would cover. Nobody was in a g-string last year… damn. Self-confident kids at that LAC your D visited!</p>
<p>^^^^courer–that is JUST what I was thinking . . .</p>
<p>So it’s safer to be drunk than naked?</p>
<p>^^don’t know about that, bethievt, but the combo can get you in trouble . . .</p>
<p>Probably safer to be drunk than burn your clothing off…</p>
<p>Edit: Just to clarify, when I said that we got drunk, I meant that we’re not a conservative school (except apparently when it comes to getting naked…) Just because everyone was emphasizing that it was “par for the course” for kids to go firedancing and go to movies in g-strings… definitely not par for the course here.</p>
<p>when my daughter stayed at Reed- it was with the RA- as most of the visits are. The RAs are fairly responsible level headed kids- thats why they have that job.
Her host- was studying for midterms, so she was mostly left on her own. As most other students were also studying for midterms- she found the most activity at the library and in Commons where she found a professor to chat with.
Their fire dancing is probably after Noise Parade which I think is in the spring.</p>
<p>I thought I was pretty hip (though using the word hip probably proves that I am not) but also had never heard of firedancing before. Burning clothes? I don’t get it…</p>