Don’t be afraid to go wild!

Normally, I am not a proponent of self-inflicted humiliation, but the glorious week at the end of October is an entirely different matter. For one week I wear tutus, don party hats, and tuck in my shirt, among other heinous fashion faux-pas. I scream until, as one senior put it, “my throat feels like it got into a fight with an angry cat.”

On a daily basis I rate average on the spirit meter. Of course I want our teams to win. I’ll even attend a basketball game if the mood strikes. But to be sure, I am far from a Cave member. Yet, miraculously, homecoming week brings out a different side of me.

Homecoming is the seven day stretch where it is okay to sport a scuba suit, or a mountaineer’s outfit, to create a character that informs your accent for an entire day, to rock the hell out of an immensely atrocious outfit. Somehow for a large portion of the school, feather boas become commonplace for a week.

But homecoming is not just about boys wearing pink and girls wearing pants up to their chests with suspenders; homecoming is about coming together as a class and as a school. For one week people feel uninhibited enough to jump into a giant crowd of people they rarely speak to and cheer for their classmates. During homecoming people feel unified despite their many values, views, and appearances.

Some argue that homecoming is a division of our school – that people take the colors and numbers too far. Yet, all one needs to do is look at a sophomore and a junior playfully throwing gum at each other in the yard and this argument becomes obsolete. On the surface homecoming divides classes, but underneath it draws our school together by exposing underclassmen and seniors alike at their silliest and most spirited, something that makes students of all grades more comfortable with each other.

These shining moments of unification among such vastly differing parties both within and among classes are things few and far between in high school, and therefore should be taken advantage of. For this reason I implore you to get in on the excitement.

Dress up with abandon, cheer with gusto, and have a rocking good time. Throughout the school people that have rejected homecoming in past years are wearing pink footie pajamas and orange boxers and, much to their surprise, they’re actually enjoying it. Give it a shot and join them for these next few days: GET SPIRITED.

11 Responses

1. 6:51 AM on October 31st, 2007Yusef:

   one word, no.

2. 10:34 AM on November 1st, 2007Anonymous:

   where’s the brown people!!!! we need diversity!!!

3. 10:52 AM on November 1st, 2007Shef:

   uhm..hey Yusef…don’t be lame

4. 7:36 PM on November 1st, 2007violet rose:

   i agree, and had a great time today! go cougars!

5. 6:48 AM on November 2nd, 2007Yusef:

   Tell me Shef, how am I being lame. By chosing not to dress I don’t look like a tool like most of those who do dress. So while you go on about how cool you are for telling me I’m lame, I’ll be happier with myself as a person for not buying into this whole business.

6. 10:05 PM on November 2nd, 2007You're cool.:

   How would you look like a tool? What are you buying into? You’re just dressing up, having a good time in High School,Where you CAN mess around and be goofy.You say it like the high school is trying to make us buy a product. It’s for the student entertainment. I dont know how you get this Idea of a “business”.

7. 1:22 AM on January 2nd, 2008me:

   Sounds to me like Yusef is more like a loser than lame…

8. 1:24 PM on February 16th, 2008Yusef:

   Well, then you can all be conformist. Do what the group does, it always makes the proper decisions. Feel free to call me a loser because I value my individualism. Cheers!

9. 11:14 AM on April 14th, 2008albany kids:

   talkin DEEP!!!!

10. 4:56 PM on May 11th, 2008lol:

    conforming to nonconformism

11. 11:36 AM on January 2nd, 2009Anonymous:

    08 08 08 08 08 08 just stfu

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