Sub-4-Santa Part 2/Sterling Scholar

this week, we had the Kiss It competition that started, the Christmas tree decorating, and the slave auction.

--for the first one, it goes like this: a boy and a girl from each grade get some kind of a bucket or something and they each go around basically begging everyone they see to try to get more money than the other person in their grade. at the end of Kiss It, whoever has the least amount of money has to kiss a mystery animal. so the idea is that you want to get the more money than your opponent so you won't have to kiss a fish or a ferret or a snake, etc.

--i'm pretty sure the Christmas tree one only started last year. anyways, every grade sets up a Christmas tree in the main hall and decorates to the best of their abilities. then a neutral panel of judges comes and decides who has the best tree. i think the winner gets like $100 in their class account. (actually, now that i think about it, i'm not sure this is really a part of S4S...) i do have kind of a problem with this one, though. see, last year when i was a junior, there were like 7 or 8 of us that got together at like 9 at night, we set up some Christmas music, and we just had a grand ol' time. our tree was sooo cute, all set up like Christmasy and Cowboyish. unfortunately, a mom from the senior class came in and did the seniors tree and it was like... amazing. gorgeous. however, we did not feel so awesome about having to split the prize money with them in the end, after we tied. and again this year, we had a little decorating party with the senior tree, but guess what happened? the juniors tree is SO cute--but i don't know any juniors that would go to that extent to do that much work on a tree. turns out, a mom did all the work again. it's an outrage. ugh.

this is our awesome awesome tree that actual seniors spent like 2 hours on last night. i love it. (:
we had some leftover stars that flash back and forth, so Kira (our Senior Class President) decided we should decorate Senior hall, as well as our tree!

--finally, the slave auction. this year, i was nominated to be one of the slaves. whoo. if you don't know what that is, i'll explain: a boy and a girl from each grade is "auctioned" off at an assembly, and whoever pays the most (you can have up to 5 people that get together and buy someone) gets to have that person as their personal servant from Monday-Thursday. like, they can make their servants dress up in whatever they want, make them breakfast, give them piggy-back rides to class, etc. well, i went for like $120 or something to a group of kids that i pretty much never talk to, which was a little weird for me. one of them is a girl i work with, and one was the guy i went to prom with, but still... at one point, i was up on the pedestal thing being auctioned off, and my friend Rhees, who'd already bought the freshman boy slave with 3 of his friends, hollered at the auctioneer "hey, can we trade Matt for Jennifer?" i was rootin for yes, but K.O. said no. shoot.

Monday was the auction, and Tuesday & Wednesday, i didn't really have to do anything, just bring some baked goods that Judah and Dalton asked for. but then on Thursday (my last day of enslavement), i was required to wear a Tweedle-Dee/Dum costume. a legitimate one, with a big ol' hoop around the tummy and everything. fortunately, i only had to wear it 1st and 2nd hour. then i had a practice Sterling Scholar interview, so i had to wear professional attire (that was called for by Mrs. Yates and Mrs. Quarnburg, not my owners). after my interview though, Alex (she's the one i work with) told me i had to wear like a Tinkerbell outfit--complete with wings--for the rest of the day. (by the way, i did NOT photodocument my costumes. i uh... "forgot.")

we had an assembly 6th hour for the slaves to present their cakes and poems that we were supposed to make for our owners. yes, i was still in my Tinkerbell dress. i'd made my owners a 2-layer devil's food cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. this is how my poem to them went:

Last Monday came full of ice and snow.
that day would be rough, as you all probably know.
We had our assembly, i went next to last
To be sold to whoever threw out the most cash.

Christi it was that kept bidding higher.
(Rhees, Dason, Judd, & Craig tried to get me, but they'd already hired.)
Judah and Dalton were also a part,
So was Alexis to make slavery start.

Day One wasn't bad, i just wore a sign.
Day Two i brought brownies, & cookies the next time.
Day Three, i got a suit that made me want to cry.
"Wear it tomorrow," they said. i thought i would die.

And so i came today dressed as Tweedle-whatever...
I may have lost my self-respect and dignity forever.
Now here i am dressed as a fairy of some kind,
But soon i'll buy you back... and revenge will be mine.

that last line needs some explaination, i think. see, in order to keep owners from going crazy and making their slaves do anything TOO outrageous, there's a catch: no matter how much the slave was bought for, if the slave can come up with $25 on Thursday, they get to buy back ALL of their owners for Friday. so i did, and i had Judah bring me a cake, Christi had to wear the Tweedle-Dee/Dum costume, Alexis had to dress up like a "prep" (she absolutely hates anything name-brand), and... well, Grygla didn't have to do anything. i'd run out of ideas when i got to him.

the makings of the most chocolate-y cake i have ever, ever made.

moving on. Sterling Scholar has officially started. i did really well on my practice interview, and then we had like a presentation to tell us about what we should and should not do in future interviews. it was neat. i'm pretty jazzed about Sterling Scholar, to be honest. i'll regret saying that in a few months, but oh well. we all even got our pictures up in the hall finally! whoo!

they always hang senior pictures of the Sterling Scholars in each category in the main hall of the high school. this is a shot of Jamie Croteau (Dance), me (English), and Chelsea Vreeken (Family & Consumer Sciences). we even got new picture frames this year, so we're lookin pretty legit! (sorry about the glare, though. not much i could do about that.)