For members of the senior class most deeply involved in this year’s Homecoming, Candyland is sometimes proving to be not so sweet with the additional stress that comes with a heavy load of tests, assignments and the SAT on Saturday along with trying to prepare quad day dances and decorations.
“Because we know that the senior class is really stressed, since college apps, school, and SAT’s fall on the same weekend as Homecoming, not a lot of people are showing up to [help out],” said senior Grace Kim, one of the main organizers along with Nina Mohanty, Michelle Wang, and Anthony Sutardja.
Kim expressed her frustration at having to deal with an overload of school work along with the responsibility of ensuring that the seniors would have a perfect Homecoming.
“It’s really difficult having to deal with school and college apps along with this,” said Kim. “I even got sick because for the past few weeks I’ve gotten only around four hours of sleep.”
Mohanty also shares Kim’s stressful load as she is one of the main organizers of the seniors’ Homecoming.
“It is stressful, especially with AP classes, and the teachers really don’t care that much that it is homecoming week,” said Mohanty. “I really do [wish that teachers would care]. We’re going to talk to [the office], but every year we ask and every year they don’t, so there’s not much to do with that.”
According to assistant principal Karen Hyde, because Homecoming falls the week of the end of the first grading period, it is nearly impossible for the administration to tell teachers to go lighter with the homework load.
Another main issue for the class of 2011 is the new safety regulation demanding by the school’s insurance company that means no student is able to go onto the roof this year to set up decorations.
Although the senior class found a way around this novel rule by hiring people to go up on the roof for them, problems still arose regarding the seniors’ centerpiece.
“We’ve had to revise our centerpiece like around five times to say the least,” said Mohanty. “We’re not able to get the manpower to hoist [the centerpiece] up because there is minimum number of people we can hire.”
Even with these restrictions, the seniors look forward to their last and final Homecoming performance.
“Our class has produced two solid Homecomings so far,” said Kim. “I know that for our last one, it’ll be bigger and better and I’m positive we’ll go out with a BANG! BOOM!”