Rah! Rah! Siss-bang-boom!!

I never have "gotten" the school spirit thing. It just seems so fake and stupid to me (but then again, I find many of the people who are into that sort of thing fake and stupid).

In high school, I once went to a pep rally, and it was soooo boring. The team ran out onto the gym floor and did some basketball drills, the cheerleaders shook their pom-poms, and we sat on the bleachers and screamed.

So what was that going to do for the team — get them in a fighting frenzy? Come on, that would only work if they were going right into a game; you can’t hold a buzz in check for a few hours! (Plus, this was a girls’ private high school, you can’t really “get down” in a houndstooth skirt, polyester blazer, and knee socks. [And who would we be "getting down" for? -- *Gasp!* OMG! Could we really have been in a hothouse of lesbian lasciviousness? Pat Robertson has been right ALL ALONG!])

I’ve been reminded of this because it is Student Appreciation Week at the Elder Imperatrix-in-Training’s middle school. Some parents got to the school at 7 am today and stood out in the freezing cold until 7:40. They waved banners and shook noisemakers, cheering the kids as they entered the school. Why? Because we are proud of them. How lame is that? No *wonder* kids begin to alienate themselves from their parents in middle school.

There will also be a 6th grade dance during the two last periods of the day today. They sent home a note earlier in the week. Here are some of the choicest parts (punctuation and capitalization as in the original):
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Are you READY??? . . . Get FIRED UP!!
The Student Appreciation Day
6th Grade Cougar Pride Party
will be held Friday

Show you SCHOOL SPIRIT
Wear your COUGAR COLORS

All parents/guardians are invited and welcome to attend […]
Stop by and visit a class, cruise the hallways and/or hang in the lunch room!

[OUR SCHOOL’S] 6TH GRADE STUDENTS ARE GREAT … COUGARS ROCK!!!
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Hot damm, that just PUMPS ME UP! Who WOULDN’T want their ole ladies cruisin’ the halls, hangin’ wid’ da ho’s in the caf’? Am I going to be there? Fo’shizzle, mah nizzle… NOT.

Puh-leeze.

*But I will say that the Elder IT was one of 15 kids who were recognized during an asssembly earlier this week as a (I’ll have to check with her, I don’t remember the exact term: ) Student of Character. She got a school t-shirt, which she is wearing to the dance. She likes her school, just feels this stuff is a bit over the top. It made me laugh because every year since first grade all the district’s schools do this module on “Character Counts” (responsibility, trustworthiness, etc. – there are seven Pillars of Character). Every year it’s the same old thing, and the Elder IT got really fed up with the repetitiveness and hokey-ness of the whole thing. And here she is a pillar of the Pillars! Very funny.