That's The Spirit!

Schools have these things they refer to as "Spirit Week." Obviously a misguided attempt by officials somewhere to promote school unity and school spirit through random acts of wackiness, Spirit Weeks are often the bane of my existence.

The bane, because I find myself playing along anyway.

The details of the Spirit Week are as follows: a school decides that the feeling of community is lacking and therefore everyone must wear silly hats and costumes and pretend that by doing this, we're all moving closer together as one big family which will graduate in a few months and lose half of the branches of this family tree, which needed trimming anyway.

Get it? Good.

You think it is weird. Me too.

Somehow, I think that making everyone do something strange on scheduled days of a given week out of a year does not constitute unity. I think it constitutes the masses being beaten by a shadow-lurking leadership figure who is intent on making us act like nutballs.

For instance:

Monday was Case of the Mondays. For those of you not into the whole "Office Space"/"must work and then collapse after a week" mentality, we all hate Mondays. We hate them as they make it necessary for the workloads to reload. The week has started again - so we were all instructed to come into school in our pajamas. The number of bunny slippers and tank tops I saw got to me after a while and I left early.

Tuesday was Organization Day. I could barely contain my joy. If you are part of one of the five-hundred-thousand organizations on this campus, including the Harry Potter is Immoral Club, or the Harry Potter Is So Not Immoral Club, or even the No One Cares If Harry Potter Is Immoral, So Why Don't The Two Of You Just Lay Down And Be Quiet For A Change? Club, then you wear the shirt to school. There were a lot of organizations represented on that fine day.

Wednesday is Beach Day. I'll also point out that it is pouring rain outside at the moment on this Wednesday, so everyone is wet, miserable, cold, and definitely not wearing beach clothes. Wait, no, I take that back - all those who are in charge are still cold and miserable, but have decided to wear beach clothes to uphold the tradition anyway.

Thursday will be Class Day. Go online, look up your class colors! Freshmen in white! Sophomores in green! Juniors in fuschia! Seniors in tangerine! Graduates in apricot! Faculty members in teal! Not that any of these are real, but the idea is that if the color is mandated, then it will be worn. Trust me.

Friday will be School Colors Day. So, in a last-ditch effort to preserve the feeling of togetherness that the previous four days of this week have not inspired in every man, woman, and domesticated animal being hidden behind the pipes of the boiler room in the dorm, we will all proudly march about wearing colors of our school and feel proud. Proud to all be wearing face paint, similarly tinted shirts, and generally reminding ourselves that Spirit Week is finally over.

Saturday will be the day of rest. Because there will be at least twelve months until the next Spirit Week, and you have all that time to prepare yourself for the next round.