School Spirit

by Tamara Calidad

I never had much in the way of school spirit. Wearing the school colors gave me a rash, and I long ago decided that any phrase that starts, "2, 4, 6, 8" and ends with a weak rhyme is simply not worth saying.

They used to force us to attend high school pep rallies, which didn't really bother us because it meant we got out of class. But the truth was, the pep rally wasn't really for us; it was for the popular kids.

The popular kids were the only ones who truly had school spirit, because they were the only ones who felt that their association with the school was worth celebrating. They were praised and loved in this environment; unlike us regular kids, who dreaded the school bell the same way an unpopular prisoner might dread the exercise yard.

School spirit, it seems to be, is a lot like blind patriotism. But with the added horror of those awful school colors.