Usually, I find Spirit Week really irritating.

The weeks move so slowly after winter break that I'm usually not in such a good mood. I'm tired of waking up early, coming to school, doing homework, and sitting in classes full of teachers and students who are in just as lovely a mood as I am.

Then, all of a sudden, it's apparently Spirit Week and I'm supposed to put in some kind of an effort to wear a ridiculous outfit in order to show my school spirit for no reason at all.

This year, however, was a little different.

Some of the themes were totally ridiculous (Animal Day? Look Ugly Day? Career Day? Tell me — how do you dress up as a writer/actress/director/singer/famous person?). I did, as usual, enjoy Twin Day. Sarah Lake-Rayburn and I sported shirts we had made over the summer proudly displaying our love of and sadness for the loss of one of the Weasley twins from Harry Potter. Even with only one enjoyable and worthwhile dress-up day, the week was quite fun.

On Monday, I was busy at lunch so I missed the festivities there, and the sack races on Tuesday were pretty funny, but the really entertaining days were Wednesday and Thursday.

On Wednesday, the human pyramid races, paired with commentary from Zoe Schein, were quite hilarious, as well as the fairly intense chariot races. Everyone was running into walls, getting tangled up, falling off the "chariots," and totally cheating, and it was extremely amusing.

Thursday featured a frozen t-shirt race, which included several people putting icy balled-up t-shirts down their pants in order to thaw them. Then there was an exciting dance party on the second floor landing in the south stairwell.

The best part about the week, however, wasn't the dressing up or the random activities. It was - for lack of a less corny-sounding term - the spirit. Even if the week was seemingly pointless, and was still another week of school with tests and homework and classes, something made it different.

Maybe it was the music played extra-loud in the south stairwell during lunch and passing periods (which was actually really nice and should be done all the time), or maybe it was being amused by the few people who dressed up. Whatever it was, it was a nice change from the usual solemn and depressed attitudes that are usually to be found shuffling around Uni.

So I think it should be like Spirit Week all the time. Except...not. Maybe we could start some random all-school lunch time activities. Clubs could sponsor them. For instance, there is a juggling club. They could do a juggling show, or a contest, or something. We could have a specific day for it. You know, Spirit Thursdays, or something.

It would be something more short term for everyone to look forward to. Something to distract us from our countdowns to spring break (43 days including weekends).

While I have a strange feeling that the past week's spirit was caused more by the promise of a snow day-inducing winter storm than the fact that it was called Spirit Week, I still think it would do us all some good to have some spirit all the time. Since we unfortunately can't have a snow day every week, we can do other things to keep people entertained.

I think having music in the hallways is a start, at least during lunch. Though dancing down the hall to Newton's "Streamline" (the song that used to be on Six Flags commercials, and on that Pepsi commercial, you know, with the whistling) made the time between film study and poetry quite a lot more fun, it wouldn't be necessary to play it during every passing period.

I would like to conclude by asking StudCo to please come up with some better dress-up themes for next year. I think we could deal with "Crazy Hat Day" or "Forget to Brush Your Hair Day" (I think that could be SUPER entertaining).

Also, in case you were wondering...
17 days (including weekends) until Agora Days
43 days (including weekends) until spring break
16 weeks, or 112 days (including weekends), until summer vacation