Students compete for the perfect ‘Promposal’

Before Junior Prom, junior Sahm Rafati slipped into junior Anaka Negin’s room at her house, nervously managing last-minute balloon set up as he prepared for her to enter. His friends helped him rush to tape streamers to the ceiling and blow up balloons.

Rafati put in extra effort to surprise Negin with a unique promposal in an attempt win free prom tickets. One week before his asking, Rafati had talked to two of his friends and Negin’s mother. Rafati’s idea for his prom asking was to decorate Negin’s room and surprise her in the afternoon with a bouquet of flowers and a quirky poster with a slogan he knew Negin would find funny.

While many put in the effort to pull off the best “promposal” for the sake of impressing their peers, others try with the incentive of receiving free prom tickets. It has been a tradition among class offices to create competitions where the couple with the most popular prom asking will get free bids.

Due to the high prices of prom tickets, holding the asking competition was a success as students were greatly encouraged to get creative.

“When she walked in the room, she immediately started laughing and I think she was really surprised,” Rafati said. “The promposal went really well.”

Likewise, junior Nicholas Di aimed to ask junior Sarah Lo in an extraordinary way. Since Lo is a golfer, Di surprised her at the golf course where she was practicing and had  posters lead up to the word “PROM?” spelled out in golf balls.

“I wanted to somehow include a golf theme in my asking to surprise her because she puts in a lot of time practicing golf,” Di said.

The asking itself took a lot of planning to set up and execute, requiring Di to start planning it a week before with her golf team friends, who knew when and where the asking would be most suitable.

In the end, it was juniors Alan Xiao and Nathon Chin, not Rafati or Di, who won the competition. Nonetheless, they both enjoyed asking their dates.

For senior prom, senior Austin Cai was among the first to ask his date, senior Kelsey Kinoshita, by spelling the words “Will You Go To Prom With Me?” in glass bottle messages on the beach.

Two days before his asking, Cai decided to settle on the glass bottle idea and ask his date during the annual Media Arts Program trip to Asilomar on May 14.

The night before, Cai drank several glasses of soda to stay up and finish his poster.

Kinoshita’s friends, including seniors Kanika Vora, Rachel Davey and Julia Vita, also helped coordinate with Cai to make sure his asking was everything he wanted.

“I was nervous during the asking because there were so many people and it was my first asking, but it was great that I did it in front of supportive people I knew,” Cai said.