November is the month for accomplishments and goal setting, both for the ridiculous and the intellectual. In other words, people love creating traditions to look forward to every year.
For instance, a popular November tradition is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. This is a competition where participants must begin writing a novel within the month of November. Each week, the website creators set a word count goal, increasing by approximately 3000+ words a week. The goal for the end of the month is a whopping word count of 50,000 words.
For students who love to write but lack motivation, NaNoWriMo is the perfect opportunity to race to finish that novel. There is no true “reward” for completing the word count goal by the end of the month and winning.
The philosophy of NaNoWriMo is that the true reward is finally writing a novel, ready to edit and publish. Many students take this very seriously, including myself.
Another major November tradition is No Shave November, also known as Noshember, a challenge that is geared for the guys, although girls can participate if they so wish. Basically, they cannot shave for the entire month of November. You shave, you lose. For men, this means they are not allowed to shave any hair for the entire length of November.
Griffin Engler and Sam Griffin, seniors, both made the decision to grow out their beards (As of yet, they are unimpressive. Sorry guys.). “We just thought it would be funny. Tradition.” Engler said. “We thought it would be funny, and we wanted to be a part of it.”
Apparently, it has been very difficult lately for the boys to keep from shaving off the pesky ½ inch beard from their faces. “It is now [hard],” they said with a laugh. “It is really thick.” Griffin added, “I don’t enjoy it anymore. I want to shave it really badly! By the end of the month it’s going to be really uncomfortable!” Ironically, the boys think their beards are impressive.
Engler, after about two and a half weeks of growing out his beard, gave in to his desires and shaved it off, while his companion is still struggling to maintain it.
Girls can also participate in this tradition by growing out their leg hair. Many girl find this impossible to accomplish because of their inherent hygienic desires.
One has to wonder what the point is to growing those new mustaches and fuzzy legs. Well, it is rumored that the tradition of Noshember originated in the desire to honor cancer victims and to raise money for them.
There are several other crazy, juicy November traditions (especially in Great Britain), too many to write about for now. At the moment, it is better to reflect upon the ridiculousness of the human nature and their senseless need to fill their monotonous days with some shade of irregularity.
