Is the glass empty, or is it half full?

I remember sitting in the lounge on the first day of grade eight. There I was in the front row, listening to Mr.Wiens talk about our wonderful years to come. Silently wishing in my head that he’d stop and we’d get to see our lockers already! I’d be lying if I said that I gave him my undivided attention, or that I felt as if everything he talked about was of importance. But what I can say is that during that speech he gave us the best advice for beginning a new journey. He told us that “high school is what YOU make it”, and that piece of advice has been engraved into my head permanently ever since. The way I look at it, Spirit Weeks are what students choose to make them. I understand that they aren’t always easy or convenient to participate in and sometimes you may feel that you simply just don’t want to take part in them. But remember, you’re only going to get out of them what you put in. At the end of the day, Spirit weeks are what you choose to make them. They can be an opportunity to dress up and have fun with your friends or they can be a hassle; it all depends on your perspective of the situation. Student Council can come up with millions of different spirit days but whether they are interesting or convenient are determined by you. It all comes down to your individual attitude and how you choose to look at things. So, are Spirit Weeks an opportunity to have fun or are they a waste of effort and time? You tell me; after all they are what you choose to make them ;)

The Aging Spirit AKA As Time Moves On

Like everything else as we grow and change, our views on things change. One of the things that changed for me was my interpretation of Spirit Week. I realize that in its purest form Spirit Week was designed as a way for people to show there love of there school; to raise "Palmer Pride". However each person may interpret that in their own way, I for one interpret it as being able to say what school you are from without any embarrassment for care for harassment. Anyway continuing on, I'll explain how spirit week for me changed as I grew. Well not literally, I haven't grown a centimeter in years. Anyway, as I was saying, when I first came to Palmer, I didn't know anyone and was just glad when school was over because I could get rid of the awkward feeling that came when you were in an environment where every single person was a stranger. I felt lost and afraid because I had no life line to hang on to. So it came as no surprise that when the first Spirit Week came by I eagerly participated. However as the year progressed, I saw less and less of Spirit Week. The simply reason would be that I thought that it was stupid and pointless. A viewpoint that many carry at this point in time.
However in grade 9 it had less to do with that and more to do with accessibility. As many of us know, some of the Spirit Days and Events are rather inconvenient. Things like pajama day and come dress in your Halloween costume. Neither of which I had. It had less to do with my feelings and more to do with practicality. I participated in some because they were convenient and not in others because there were troublesome. I think that might have been worse. Instead of choosing either side I merely waded in both ends and didn't pick one. Now this year, Spirit Week has become something that I acknowledge exists and i also acknowledge that it is a way to create memories, but for someone like me where as time passes memories that were fuzzy to begin with completely disappear, I don't think I'll use that a medium to remember. It's just that there are so many other things in the school that are a whole lot more fun than Spirit Week. I know that in the future I might regret it, but to begin with I suck at planning my future. My past has been chipped away by the ruthless waters of time, my future is uncertain and it's existence is questionable, so I turn to the present and make the most of it.

Why don't the incentive guys have spirit?

Whether people participate in spirit week depends on their interpretation of “spirit”. People have false sense of information and say that spirit week demonstrates Palmer spirit, and more importantly, Palmer pride; but how does wearing pyjamas to school or bringing bananas shows other outsiders that you are from Palmer? The intention of spirit week is to add more color to a normal-day school live. For those who participate in spirit weeks, it provides them with more excitement. I belong to the larger group of people whom do not participate in spirit week. Why I do not participate is due to a combination of multiple reasons. I believe spirit week is too childish. That is just my opinion, but I can say that the majority of the non-participants will have the same idea. Whether or not to participate in spirit week also depends on the environment and social circles, and peer pressure plays a crucial role as well. In my case, participating in a spirit day will make me look out of place. I seriously cannot imagine myself dressed in pyjamas in school, nor will I expect any of the boys in incentive. Now talking about incentive, I observed that incentive guys are extremely not involving in any school activities. Many of us might want to participate from time to time, but that is against the “tradition” of our gr10 incentive class, thus resulting in being afraid to be out of place. This is why nobody dared to start it off. If one day a few of us (incentive boys) agreed to take a step away from tradition, I can predict a chain reaction from the rest.

Spirit Week With or Without the Spirit

Spirit Week is an interesting concept, to say the least. As it’s name suggests, it is supposed to be about school spirit, in our particular case Palmer Pride. But in the end, Spirit Week generally winds up devoid of Spirit. Rarely is anything actually about school spirit. By no means am I blaming this on anyone, nor am I saying that our school is the only school at which this “Spirit Week without the Spirit” occurs; I am simply saying that the Spirit isn’t there, which results in activities which are generally uninteresting to many people. Now at this point in my discussion, many student council members might take offense. They might say something similar to: “Excuse me, but I put my time and effort into planning and running Spirit Weeks, do you realize how disheartening and hurtful what you are saying is?” To which I would have to reply: “Yes, I understand. At the last school I attended, though we had no student council, we still ran Spirit Weeks. The teachers handpicked students, like myself, from their classes to be the student leaders. I ran numerous Spirit Weeks at that school, each with varying degrees of failure.” Welcome to the twenty-first century people. The world sits at our fingertips with our technology and our made ready to use products, whether they are frozen pizzas or toy trains. We never have to get off our seats for anything; we never have to work to do things for ourselves. Our teenagers are a group of lazy, passive, stereotypical robots. Occasionally one student comes along who is bright, passionate, an outside-of-the-box type person. Someone who is very one-point-O. These people are different; these people have Spirit. These are the students that bother with things like Spirit week. They know that years from now the grades you got won’t matter to you anymore, instead you will look back and say: “Remember that time that I dressed up like a Christmas Tree in high-school? Those days were the best.” So what are we doing waiting on our couches for the world to come to us? Spirit Week is a principle we can apply to real life; we have to be active, spirited participators in our world: we can’t just watch life as though it is a movie! Good things may come to those who wait, but great things come to those who take a step out of the comfort zone and reach for them.

Pride, Prudence, and Conceit-are these what we celebrate? Or is it more?

  Spirit Week holds no difference from the Olympics-both are events to celebrate the so called "pride". If one is to appreciate one, there is no point not to appreciate the other. I cheer for both for they hold values that are important to some: honor, perfection, and unity, but not the others. In a society that fits narrowly under the category of "open-mindness", I will say that Spirit weeks are some what important to the Palmer Community. Spirit week is not about making friends-that is too weak a purpose for anything-but rather about unity and smoothing out the rough textures we see daily. It is like Santas breakfast, where atmosphere of friendship can be established between each small communities that share the tiny space under the Palmer roof. It brings the once seperated groups, such as Incentive/Nonincentive, grade levels, racial ethinics, people-in-the-same-class, togather. Ever wondered why the Olympics is brought back from its thousand years of sleep? Why are we wasting such tremendous amount of money on celebrating festivals? We humans need to be reminded that we all share a bond and helping one is similar to helping yourself-regardless of how we are to be subdivided, we are still one.

Up, up, up and spirited away!

Spirit Week is what the Student Council put effort into so Plamer students could show their "Palmer Pride" and perhaps meet new friends and get into trends. I personally do not participate when a Palmer Spirit Week occurs inasmuch as others may (same as half the school). The notion that I do not participate in these events is very simple, but the mechanisms of the many reasons is complex.
It is my psychology that drives myself to avoid such occasions. I am an intrapersonal person, so I make little friends. The friends I make are tightly selective and perhaps over time rejective. I lose contact to old friends and make new ones (no offense intended to my current friends). My spirits are between my interests and I. I contact friends via face to face and only use e-mails for extracurricular organisations and sometimes my father's friends. Although I do not communicate much outside of my home, I am still a happy person, living contently in my safe home. As I have stated before, Spirit Week is for people to gather, show "Palmer Pride" and perhaps make new friends. This is not how I make friends or show "Palmer Pride," thereupon I hardly participate during spirit week.

Spirit Week

After thinking about your comments in class today, I thought Spirit Week would be a good topic of discussion. We have people in our class who help run Spirit Week, as well as people who do not participate in Spirit Week.

Here's your topic:

Student Council puts a lot of effort into Spirit Week here at Palmer.

Some possible topics to explore:
Do you participate? Why?
Are Spirit Weeks important for Palmer’s community?
How do you feel about Spirit Week?

These are just some ideas – you can write a paragraph on anything involving Spirit Week and Palmer.

Please keep your responses to ONE paragraph this month. Pick one idea, and stick with it!

Due: Jan 15