I’ve been through it four times, well almost four, more like three and a half times if you count June Week. I have dressed up as a cowgirl, an ’80s rocker, a hippie, and monochrome. I have watched and filmed several airbands, and I have spent one Thursday night a year shouting down the hallway as we decorate. This is MFS Spirit Week: no different than before. Except this year felt different. 

I have been a WordsWorth staff member for four years and have experienced the thrill of Spirit Week. There is always the excitement of being in the front of the crowd taking pictures and getting a first row view of the events as they happen. 

This year, as Editor-in-Chief, Spirit Week was different. My day started at 7:30 am, in Van Meter Hall. My peers worked hard to make sure we had everything loaded: graphics, script, anchors. We all worked until 8:15 making a Spirit Center video for alumni, parents, and students. 

During the day, I was organizing both supervising responsibilities and creating content. I needed to decide who was filming, who was taking photos (on phone or on a professional camera), who was on script for the morning, who was tweeting and doing social media, who was getting quotes and interviews, who was writing the recap article, who was on equipment, oh, and yeah, enjoying Spirit Week, too. 

As EIC, I also had to do what wasn’t done that day. If someone doesn’t have the equipment or tools to complete a task it falls on me or my Co-EIC. I forgot to do some things sometimes, like posting on Flickr, but once I arrived home I had finished everything. I fell asleep early because of the next busy day ahead of me.

“Do you even stop to eat or breathe?” my mom asked me when I got home on Tuesday night. Realistically, I did, although Spirit Week meant eating lunch during the period after lunch or skipping it for a day. And, I did breathe; it just fogged up the camera screen I was shooting on. 

Spirit Week has always been a marathon for WordsWorth staffers, but combined with the sentimental aspect, it felt different and weird this year. I wanted to be behind the camera taking pictures, but I also longed to be on the sideline mosh pitting when the senior team B won the tug-o-war rematch. 

I was pulled into a choice, journalism or senior year, and for much of last week I didn’t feel like there was an in-between option for me. I had a responsibility, but I also wanted to celebrate my last year of high school. I wondered, was covering Spirit Week for Wordsworth a satisfying enough way for me to celebrate?

I left hallway cleanup to do Airband video editing, which is the most watched video and/or article on MFS WordsWorth’s website each year. People who graduated years before texted me for the airband videos. Parents watch them and students gather at the Spirit Week dance just to catch a glimpse of themselves or their friends dancing on stage. It is a big deal, and we had five hours to edit the videos and get them out before WordsWorth staffers got bombarded with (more) texts and questions. I sat in the auditorium enjoying my last airband, while knowing I had hours of work ahead of me. 

Spirit Week events were over, but the WordsWorth staff still had to edit the videos. As we piled into Computer Lab 2, we began editing angles, matching soundtracks, and making the well-known Spirit Week videos. It felt as if it was the biggest event of the week for me and the staff rather than hallway or tug-o-war. We had this responsibility on my back, and despite the technological challenges, the videos needed to come out. 

This year we were there from 2:45pm till 7:45pm and once finished, we went fifteen minutes late to the Spirit Week dance. I was relieved and happy for the editing staff, but the job was still not done. Spirit week totals needed to be tweeted. I fell asleep that night at 10:05pm, the dance had ended at 10pm, the tweet had gone out at 10:01pm. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love this job and want this to be my career, but this first person account of Spirit Week shows that it is the craziest week of my school year. Sure, I had a different four years of Spirit Week experiences than my classmates, but I love it and wouldn’t want to not be a journalist during Spirit Week.