Once a year, here, Infinity Institute holds Spirit Week, where all grades participate in some kind of activity every day! This year, there was Monochrome Monday where you would have to dress up in one color, Twin Tuesday, where you find a buddy and dress up the same, Wonky Wednesday where you dress up in crazy clothes, and finally, Pep Rally where all students from all grades fight each other (not literally)! 

This year, Pep Rally takes place on Thursday, December 22. The activities that take place include a  Relay Race, Tug O’ War, Clear the Deck Basketball, Musical Chairs, and finally, Class Cheer. This set of competitions is sure to be a challenge…to all grades! Get through the Relay Race where there are obstacles. Tag your next team member and so on. After your grade gets through that, you must face Tug O’ War, a battle between the grades to pull the rope and determine the strongest team (6th Grade). Tired? Oh no, I’m not done. Try playing basketball and making baskets and if you miss? Keep trying! Who’s the best team so far? (6th Grade) Next up, Musical Chairs. Start the music. When it pauses, find a seat as soon as possible. Do you think you can beat the 6th Grade in the Class Cheer? How about this? You don’t stand a chance. Your whole grade will come together and come up with an interesting cheer that will be sure to catch people’s attention. Now is the suspense. Who ended up winning? 

You’re Never too Young to Win! 6th Grade! As a beloved 6th grader, I will start off by bragging about the amazing 6th Grade Class. As you may have seen, 6th Grade definitely has the trophy in the bag. Our bag. Our class cheer was excellent, if I may say, the best in the entire history of Infinity Institute. There is simply no point in trying to beat us. We have the intelligence, strength, and amazingness that no other grade has. Our advising counselor/teacher, Ms. Anquillano has compiled an excellent dance routine. Have you accepted defeat yet? No? Well, you better because 6th Grade rules! 

The day of the Pep Rally has come. All of the students from grades 6, 7, and 8th grade go to the auditorium/gym. The obstacles have already been set up. The middle school students are looking excited, and ready with the hope to beat the other grades. Knowing that they must try their best, the students are willing to go through the obstacles, in order to get the honor for their grade. Will it be 6th, 7th, or 8th grade? There will only be one winner. Let us find out who it is!

 There is the Relay Race where you must hop through the  hoops, jump rope, and finally shoot a basket! It is the hardest obstacle, in my opinion, involving all of the hard challenges. Ready, set, go! 6th Grade takes the lead with their first player blazing through the obstacle course. Next, the 8th grade is catching up, trying to beat the 6th. With the two last people, the grade that wants it the most must hurry up and get through all of the obstacles before the other grades do. With a few seconds on the clock, the competitors start to hurry, hoping to win this honor. 8th grade wins the Relay Race! 

The next competition is tug-o-war! The strongest and mightiest grade will win! 6th and 7th grade will compete first, pulling the long rope. When the rope is leaning on one side, that grade will win it! Both grades are pulling hard and none of the two look like they are going to give up. I, myself, was one of the people pulling on that scratchy rope, fighting for my class’s dignity. At one point, it looked as if 6th grade was going to win until 7th grade, said, “that’s not going to happen” and pulled it back on their side. This went on for minutes until 7th grade finally pulled completely to their side. Oh, the shame! 6th grade could have won, if we just tried slightly harder. I can tell first-hand that the 6th grade class was quite disappointed that we had not won the first two challenges. However, we were determined to win the next! Huddling up together, we knew that we were going to try our best and we would display sportsmanship even if we do not win. 

Our basketball team got together, hoping to win for the 6th Grade. I must say, unlike the others, our team came quite close! We were aiming, shooting, and then moving on. That was the process. Of course, how could we beat the 7th graders? They are so much taller, stronger, and about better at everything! It came very close but naturally, yes, 7th grade was able to beat us…again. Next, 7th grade competed against 8th grade. I am sorry to say that I knew from the beginning that 8th grade was going to win this quick match. They were even taller than the 7th grade and definitely more skilled than 6th and 7th combined. If 6th grade were to win against 7th, I would be quite certain that 8th grade would be able to crush us! The disappointment felt…disappointing. 

Moving on! Musical Chairs! Ever since I saw this on the list, I immediately became excited. I loved playing musical chairs and I was pretty good at it. I was hoping that this would help 6th grade win at least one. In my opinion, this was 8th grade’s worst. The real fight was between 6th and 7th. It was 2 6th graders versus 1 7th. How we lost I am unsure. I am still screaming in my head, HOW DID THEY BEAT US WHEN WE WERE OVERPOWERING THEM. Luck was not on our side that day. Definitely not. 

At this point, I was sinking with sadness along with the other 6th graders. Let’s just say today was not our game day. Losing all of them? Ouch, that hurts. But, if I were to look on the one good side, when we are in 7th grade next year, we would have a greater probability of beating the other grades. I mean, to be honest, it is not that fair that the youngest children in the school must face the unhappiness of losing because their fate of losing is already decided. I would really appreciate it if you ignored the bragging part in the beginning. Are you thinking, Well, there is still one more to go! Yes, you are correct. There is one more to go. One more chance to embarrass ourselves. Great. One more chance to feel the sadness of losing again. One more chance to…I think you get the point.

Last one. The Class Cheer. If I am being honest, I was quite excited about this one. Until I realized we stood no chance of winning. But, let me admit, this was the most fun one. As I said in the beginning, our class cheer was, “You’re Never too Young to Win! 6th Grade!” I am unable to tell whether this is good or bad but I was the one who came up with the cheer with help from Ms. Anquillano. If I was the one judging, I would pick 6th grade as the winner. But you may have noticed that I was not the one judging. 7th grade was quite good. 8th grade was simply amazing. I mean, the people in class cheer for 8th grade must have practiced for decades to get such perfection. I am being completely honest and you can believe that because I would take every chance to compliment 6th grade, not 8th. So, if I was complimenting 8th grade, you would know that they did really well. 

Now, I do not think I have to add the points up, right? Let’s just admit it. No, 6th grade did not win. 8th grade did. But, 6th grade did very well even if we did not win and that is something even you cannot deny. I am sure that when you were in 6th grade, you did not win because you were probably the underdogs. If you did win, that just means that your grade was straight out amazing. Spirit Week in all, I would say was very fun! Usually, I would be very unhappy that 6th grade did not win in any area, but now, I simply feel happy for 8th grade. They certainly deserved it and I am sure that 6th grade will work way harder in order to really secure that trophy in the bag. I can’t wait until the next Spirit Week!