Tuesday 23 October 2012

Muck-up Day

Some time ago, I heard the story about one class of Year 12s that pulled off what may possibly be the best Muck-up Day ever. For those of you who don't know; Muck-up Day is an Australian thing where on your very last day of High School ever, the Year 12s get to basically do whatever they want. They dress up, have water fights, you name it. Sometimes it goes too far, and there's violence or vandalism, but sometimes there are very clever jokes and pranks. This story is a good one fortunately. It is pure genius.

Many years ago, months and months before muck-up day one year, in one school, a sign appeared on a wall of a building. All it said was "They're coming". After a week, a few more signs began to appear. And after a month, there were quite a few signs up in the school, some of them had just a pair of eyes underneath the words "They're coming".

No one knew what was happening, what the signs were for, or what they meant. This continued on for several months, with the posters becoming more and more frequent and more and more devious.

They began to appear in ridiculous places, on roofs, under tables, in the principal's office. In the last week before muck-up day; there were posters everywhere. By the last day before muck-up day, they covered nearly every wall in the school.

Overnight the posters disappeared. The students in the school came that morning to find no posters whatsoever. But all over the school, something else had replaced them.

Garden gnomes. Hundreds and hundreds of garden gnomes.

They were in classrooms, in trees, on rooftops, glued to walls and ceilings. They were all over the school in every place imaginable.

I was reminded of this story because today was the class of 2012's muck-up day, and at my school, what happened was not nearly as classy, or as legal.

Last night the Year 12s came into the school and vandalised the place. Some people innocently enough just drew on the ground with chalk, nothing inappropirate either.

Unfortunately that wasn't the case across the board. Some students super glued locks of offices and buildings, making the teachers locked out. Some students got up on the roof and emptied the school bins all over the roof.

Worst of all though, someone defecated on one of the lunch tables. All this and the security cameras had figurines glued to the lenses so no one could be filmed.

This morning the Year 12s had an assembly first thing in the morning, when they came out, many of them were in tears. The teachers had cancelled their muck-up day, and many of them were kept from going to the special farewell assembly we had.

It certainly got us Year 11s talking, and thinking about what we would do at the end of 2013, when it's our turn. I just hope no one does anything stupid.

In fact, if anyone tries to anything stupid like this year, I'm going to personally stop them. It's simply not fair that the stupidity of one person affects the entire year level. Muck-up day is meant to be something fun and exciting. A celebration of one's achievements, and the end of school forever. But it's become nothing like that.

A lot of schools in Australia have changed the name to something else now. Some schools call it "Celebration Day", or "Dress Up Day", to avoid the negative association that "Muck-up Day" now has.

I just hope that next year, my classmates and I do something that people will be talking about for years to come. But not because it was distasteful, disgusting, disturbing, or illegal. I want to do something like the garden gnomes. Something that students in the year levels can aspire to do, and something that we can be proud of in ten years time. Something that one day I can tell my grandchildren about.

3 comments:

  1. I cannot wait to hear the stories of muck-up day 2013 CX

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm about to write an entry about how little I care about muck-up day and the end of school celebrations.

      Delete
  2. I truly value the sort of points you post here. Much obliged for sharing us an extraordinary data that is really useful. Great day!
    opsætning af havehegn

    ReplyDelete