Remember when Halloween was a big deal? When people would plan their costumes out months in advance, throw on ridiculous amounts of face paint, and walk around for hours, just for kicks? Well now we have a suitable replacement: Rally Day. My older sister always told me stories about Rally Day — people knocking down the football goal, campus-wide wars between juniors and seniors, people’s cars being trashed, and various other events typical of the day — but I had always figured she was exaggerating. After all, siblings lie and what kind of school would allow its students to show up one scrap of cloth away from buck naked?
I had my very first Rally Day and dear lord was my sister right. In the very first ten minutes there was a screaming match between the class of ‘21 and ‘20, a fire alarm went off, the seniors started raiding the streets, and everybody was evacuated because it turned out the fire alarm was legitimate. With one Rally Day now behind me, I believe it reasonable to treat the day like a natural disaster of sorts, and one can have plenty of fun as long as suitable precautions are taken and it is understood that in those 24 hours no one is entirely in their right mind and should be handled accordingly. Of course codes of conduct change depending on your school year, so I’ll just cover the rules that need to be followed by my own grade: freshmen.
If you value your personal safety you will not shout your year, advertise the fact that you are in ninth grade, or scream insults at other grades. Rally Day is a time to show class pride, but that’s just not possible for freshmen because of the sizable increase in egging, silly string tagging, and general mayhem directed towards first years on this day especially. But, as I said before, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. It can be quite entertaining to witness the insanity of the school from a safe distance, especially because before too long we will be at the appropriate age to join the madness.
Also, just because we’re not allowed to go completely crazy because of the unspoken laws of the school doesn’t mean we can’t wear insanely shimmery outfits. But let’s face it, we didn’t really put much effort in this year. I came to class and, with the exception of one admirable classmate who was wearing a one-piece gold suit over his entire upper body, barely anybody made an effort. I’m not one to talk; I simply wound a glittery scarf around my head, threw on my only red shirt (which ironically enough had the name of my middle school), and hoped for the best. But next year we’ll be sophomores, and that means we can actually exhibit class pride without being loudly booed by every other grade, so let’s go all out. Don’t just wear a yellow shirt, wear a full golden body suit. Nobody’s going to judge you because on Rally Day, more than any other day of the year, standing out is the best thing you can do.