Sincronia de...desenrascanço

A referência ulterior foi-me enviada por mail e é elucidativa do País que (ainda)somos.

"Desenrascanço has a role in the academic juvenile sub-culture in some educational institutions. In some universities and politechnical institutes, the older students known as doutores (Eng. doctors) teach Desenrascanço to freshmen (Port. Caloiros) in a ritual, well known as Freshman Reception in Portugal. It is alleged that this skill is taught (informally) in the Portuguese universities since the 14th or 15th century. The freshmen are ordered to do the most impossible things. They must comply or they will be punished. To solve the problems (desenrascar-se) they must be really inventive and/or have a very convincing reason when they cannot do it. Normally, if they cannot or if they are not smart enough and find a boring solution, punishment is done. The punishment is supposedly done under the Praxis rules (Port. Código de Praxe) and aleggedly no harm can be done to the student. But they can get dirty, do a lot of exercise, and do embarrassing things in public or end up doing nothing and standing still for an hour. Freshmen perform this ritual because they want to be part of academic groups to have fun in the continuous parties these groups organize and to generally have lots of helping friends. In the rituals, the doutores are dressed in black (in 19th century traditional clothes) and freshmen dressed in white (normally a shirt and blue jeans nowadays)."