Chapters & Pages...
For the second quarter of Smashed.. I read pages 109-154. The section was called 'The Usual' and the sub-headings were All You Can Drink and Greek Mythology.
All You Can Drink: This part was about her freshman year of college. Koren entered very timid and scared as to how her experience was going to be, and eventually fell into a lull where she went out all the time and for the most part just thought she was living 'the college experience'. She participated in cheer/dance for a while, but even that got old for her and she stopped going. It showed how critical of a point it was for her life that she had nothing else to look forward to besides her drinking and going out. She had a lot of come and go friends during this time, where the only thing they had in common was their drinking. She found that when she sobered up, they didn't have much to say to one another.
Greek Mythology: This part introduced her to sororities and Koren decided to join one. This was also a very critical part of her life, since drinking was also a major part of this sorority life, starting immediately with the hazing she experienced to be allowed in, and the constant themed parties they threw where each and every one of them would make fools of themselves and wake up with extreme hangovers only to do it again the next night. I believe this was another low point for Koren, she seemed to become a heavier drinker throughout this period of her college life. She mentioned how she started to gain weight from her drinking, and some sort of a depression surrounded her when she was sober. She also experienced a 'blackout' and waking up next to a boy not knowing what happened the night before.
Terminology...
A blackout is a phenomenon caused by the intake of alcohol in which long term memory creation is impaired or there is a complete inability to recall the past. Blackouts are frequently described as having effects similar to that of anterograde amnesia, where the subject literally does not remember what has happened in the recent past. 'Blacking out' is not to be confused with the mutually exclusive act of 'passing out', which means loss of consciousness.
Fraternities and sororities (from the Latin words frater and soror, meaning "brother" and "sister" respectively) are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In English, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in North America, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations. Similar, but less common, organizations also exist for secondary school students. In modern usage, the term Greek letter organization is often synonymous with the terms "fraternity" and "sorority".
What this section of the book meant to me...
I feel that this section of the book was critical for Koren, and me, as the reader. Not only did she experience her freshman year of college, but she experienced a blackout, which is an extremely dangerous part of drinking, but she started to sink into a depression and without her parents around, there was no one there to discipline her or monitor how bad her drinking was really getting. She had to deal with the consequences of her actions and she had trouble doing so. It went from a few drinks a week, to drinking every night with random people and forming friendships where alcohol was the only thing they had in common.
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