The ones who regularly read my blog probably know what “JAS” is by now. It means “killing” other people in a game simular to deathgame, but set at Linköping Institute of Technology is executed as a competition between freshmen at different programs at the school. During lunchtime during the four days from Monday to Thursday this week I and my team of six, all freshmen at the Y program, Teknisk Fysik och Elektroteknik, have been sneaking and running around the school for targets from the other programs to take down.
Back to Thursday. I had prepared a “space suit” to wear to get invincible. I had re-read the rules of the game and found that the space suit needed not to be a genuine to be effective, it only needed to be approved by your game leader. So I asked her if some aluminum foil with duct tape and a helmet would do it, and yes it would! In the game ,a “space suit” gives invincibility, so you need not worry about carrot “knives”, banana “guns” and apple “grenades” any longer.
Just before lunchtime I got dressed up, got the suit approved, and then it was time for some action! At 12:10 sharp the game started for its final 50 minutes and I started running around the school looking for targets. First off was a D-section student who I shot with my banana at the entrance of the C house. A few minutes later I met the rest of his team, who at the sight of me wearing the space suit, decided to run for it. I tried to follow them but was too slow in trying not to get the fragile aluminum foil destroyed. I later heard that most of them were taken care of by my team buddies who were waiting outside just then.
Shortly thereafter, it was time for running again. Just outside the C house I saw one final D student who was not killed by my fellow soliders, and after chasing him to a hedge he could not climb over, I thrust my carrot into his back, resulting in my second kill for the day.
Then finding targets got difficult. Apparently we had already taken out the whole D section team, and nobody else seemed to dare to show up anymore. I was walking around the campus for a good twenty minutes while getting the weirdest looks from people, especially the new exchange students who seemed to reconsider the country they had come to. I must have looked interesting in those reflective silver clothes, a bright yellow rally helmet from the 60′s on top of my head, a carrot held like a knife in my left and a banana held like a gun in my right hand, running around the area. Just look at how I looked:
Hey, I look so good I should change my name to Fuglesang!
Finally I found a TBI (biology) student who first stabbed me, telling me my suit wasn’t valid. I showed him the “approval stamp” on the back of my hand as well as the stickers the game leaders had put on me, before stabbing him back, scoring my third kill for the day. The space suit was approved, and there was nothing he could do about it. Following that event, I found nobody more to kill. At 13:00 the game ended for good and I went back to the headquarters and dressed back into normal clothes to get some lunch before math class started.
During all four game days I scored a seven kills total which seems to be one of the best individaul results in the whole game. As a team, though, we seem to be just around zero points in total, since deaths in your team score negatively. All of our team had a great time during JAS, and it definitely was one of the most odd things you could do during Orientation Week. I hope JAS will be the continuing tradition at one of the finest universities in Sweden; LiTH.
The “life badges” have now been collected and we are waiting for the results which should come on Monday. In the end, all our team agrees it is good to finally have the mission over with, since it was a mentally exerting task to perform warfare while having all the school work hanging over you. But in the end we all had really much fun!
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