On a hot afternoon on Friday, Oct. 9, a crowd of seniors gathered around the Student Lunchroom (SLR) to eat ice cream and socialize with friends. “We had our secret senior spirit week this past week, and the theme was ‘chill, because it’s college app season’ and we kind of wanted it to be something everyone could [use] to relax,” says senior Lea Tan, the secretary of the Senior Class Council. “An ice cream social went along with the theme, and everyone likes food.”
The secret senior spirit week is why seniors were walking around in snapbacks, aloha shirts, and birthday hats the week of Oct. 5. “All of our days were actually [related] to ice cream flavors to match the ice cream social, so there was birthday cake flavor, shaved ice… stuff like that.” says senior Takuya Miwa, who is a member of the senior class council.
On Monday, seniors put on their sporty clothes for “Soft-Serve Monday.” On Tuesday, seniors donned a hip-hop inspired look, including bling, shades, and snapbacks, for “Fro-YO! Tuesday.” On “Shaved Ice Wednesday,” seniors wore hawaiian shirts and other tropical gear. On Thursday, all of the seniors dressed up in party hats and brought balloons to dress for “Birthday Cake Thursday.” On “Cherry Garcia Friday,” seniors donned their red and black.
Many seniors showed their pride throughout the week. Some seniors, however, were slightly skeptical at first.“I just thought some of the days were a little bit hard to dress for, but they turned out being fun,” says senior Allegra Aguiar.
The ice cream social was also the senior class council’s own spin on the spirit week. “The secret senior spirit week is a tradition,” Tan says.“[But] they don’t always have events. We just decided to do that.”
Although the spirit week theme was “chill”, there were a few complications. “We wanted to make it on a Thursday after school, because it was a short day, but the SLR was being used for a college meeting,” says Tan.
Despite the issues, the senior ice cream social was still simple and easy to plan. “We just took [the money for the ice cream] out of our budget. We only had to buy the food and tell the PTSO,” Tan adds.
The success of the secret senior spirit week seems to have energized the senior class council.“We did well for our first spirit week. It was inspirational.” says Miwa. The senior class council also seems encouraged by the senior ice cream social. “I think it was pretty successful,” adds Miwa. “It was our first event of the year. Around 100 people showed up, maybe more. It seemed like a lot of people had fun.”
The senior class also seems happy with the senior ice cream social. “It [was] an event to just hang out with friends,” says senior Olivia Fong. “It was fun.”
