High school: the best years of your life. The years of bad hair days, tears, friendships that last forever, broken hearts and backstabbing. Yeah, it’s a blast, something that I personally love doing everyday of my teen life. However, there are people out there who don’t appreciate it as much. And usually they are the new kids. Freshmen, those terrified faces, the silenced words, yet somehow pity is taken upon them because they don’t quite know the social structure. But eventually they will.

The National Honor Society at St. Dom’s took it upon themselves to be the welcoming committee, and held a freshman fun-night back in October. At 5 p.m., myself, my partners and about 25 NHS members stood in the cafeteria, waiting for tiny people to run through the door at any second. Slowly they arrived, at first anyway, at about

5:30 it was somewhat like a bomb full of kids exploded. An estimated 30 freshmen were there. Until 8 p.m. that night, the freshmen were going to learn how, or rather who, we are here at St. Dom’s.

A tad bit of our imperfect side shone through. Crab soccer, the assassin, finger painting, and even rock band were done throughout the night. And pretty soon our school was a track for myself and my partners. We ran for an hour, back and forth, trying to capture every moment of everything happening and somewhere along the way I lost my shoes. As 6:30 p.m. rolled around, I knew things were not going to be pretty.

Eighteen pizzas were carried in the door, along with 10 bottles of soda, and by 6:45 p.m., 15 pizzas were devoured and five bottles of soda had vanished. As we ate, you could hear the delicate sound of heavy metal mess ups and the screeching of people trying to hit those ridiculously high notes on Rock Band.

Seven o’clock leapt upon us and, unfortunately, I was ready to pass out, but my partners in crime were still going strong. Flashlight tag was next and for this I drank four cups of Pepsi, resulting in an all night sugar rush. As we walked outside, the leaders of the group decided that it wasn’t dark enough out and that turned into another hour of Rock Band, a huge game of Duck, Duck, Goose, and of course Knockout.

Eight o’clock hit and that was the end of that. My partners and I were out the door in a heartbeat. All in all, it was amazing and the students and teachers did an amazing job with the whole gathering. Although, next time someone else is crashing the party to do a write-up! Thank you all so much for letting the three of us observe and participate!

And lastly, class of 2012, welcome to Saint Dom’s and trust me when I say nothing – not even high school – is as bad as it seems. Enjoy your four years here because they will be gone before you know it!