The Blind Date Scandal

Peter Lee

On October 16, 2015, the day before the students and staff embarked on a one-week break from school, the seniors finally met their eighth grade buddies for the first time.

            Every year, the seniors and the eighth graders spend time together for the sole purpose to bond as a community. The inevitable segregation between high school and middle school undeniably separates both physical and verbal communication amongst these students. Thus, the seniors take some time of their own to interact with the eighth graders. In the midst of all the fun time they share, the seniors also offer some advice for the eighth graders when they make the daunting transition to high school.

“I don’t even know what he looks like!” cried Yang Sheng-Ting (12), who was eagerly curious to find out who his buddy was.

The seniors choose their buddies from a list of names, and some seniors may know their buddies while others have no clue. In other words, some of them have a “blind date” (only males were allowed to pair with males; females with females).

Before these blind dates this year, the seniors had to first search for their buddies on the basketball court during X-block. After discovering the new faces, the seniors got together with their buddies, grabbed some paper and pencils, and patiently waited for Charlotte Combrink, a Senior Excomm member, to give instructions.

The first game they played was “Two Truths and a Lie” as the buddies pondered and scribbled down the craziest lies and truths they could think of. Next, Combrink instructed everyone to flip their papers and draw out the costumes the paired buddies were going to wear the day before Halloween. While everyone creatively drew out costumes and inane mascots, the Senior Class Sponsors distributed chocolate ice cream for such a sunny day.

Unfortunately, the bell rang to everyone’s surprise as they all wished time could have stopped in evanescent times like these.

“I think it was a good opportunity to bond with people not in the same age group as me,” stated Jong-min Park (8).

Noel Teng (12) concluded, “It was a very nostalgic experience because I remembered when I had a senior buddy who became a very good friend of me. It made me feel like I have a little lion cub to train into a mighty king of the jungle.”

Although the paired buddies sadly departed to their separate ways, they soon realized that school break was just around the corner; and soon enough, the court was inundated with furtive smiles and juvenile anticipation.