“We’re All in This Together”

Doris Koay

April 20th, the day after JSB, early morning at 8am.

As most Dalat students were sleeping in on their lovely day off, seniors gradually arrived at the campus, still half asleep. As a Dalat tradition, seniors are supposed to treat the juniors to an After JSB Dinner to appreciate their hard work and effort that resulted in a fantastic JSB.

The day started off with a discussion among the sponsors and the seniors. Papers were filled with the funny details that had happened the night before: “Putting yourself before others,” “changing microphones during a speech,” “kicking the sponsors out,” “calling for Table 2.” Laughter arose from time to time as we recalled memories from the previous night. The discussion then proceeded to talk about the theme of the dinner. Ideas started filling up the tiny whiteboard: “Sherlock,” “Scooby Doo,” “High School Musical,” “Mrs. Bernhardt’s Revenge,” and more.

The discussion was put to a halt as the theme of the night was finalized, and everyone headed to their assigned committees. There were three committees appointed for the day: food, entertainment, and decorations.

Without further ado, the food committee left to the local market and started chopping for the veggie platter, which would be served as the appetizer later that night. The entertainment began another meeting right after the discussion, as they need to work quickly on the storyline and script to have enough time to rehearse. The deco team started running around as they moved every prop that the juniors had used for the event to the chapel.

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and that’s true. Although it does take a lot of hard work to try to finish everything before evening, the seniors had tons of fun and laughter while preparing for the dinner. Seniors were dismissed at 4:30 pm after the final rehearsal to take a short break and get changed into our class shirt.

“Honestly, it was very tiring because the seniors had to wake up very early right after JSB. But since the juniors spent so much time and effort on JSB, I thought that we also should respond to their hard work. The seniors also had a lot of fun as we prepared for it, and it definitely brought back a lot of good memories from our junior year. I hope that they had fun on the After JSB dinner. I think that it is a very good tradition, to show gratitude to one another,” said Vivien Lee (12)

5:30pm April 20th

As everyone gathered back at the chapel, the food and deco committee could be seen running around, trying to unwrap the veggie platters and salsa, and making final arrangements to the tables to make sure that everything was perfect for when the juniors entered. The entertainment committee was busy doing final amendments, and are finally ready for the juniors at 6 pm sharp.

The juniors entered the chapel, filled with applause and cheers as they proceed to find their seats. They had also changed into their JSB class shirt when they arrived. The atmosphere was very cheerful, and waves of laughter could be heard time to time from the chapel. Jokes were made, and all seniors, juniors, and sponsors had a lot of fun.

The After JSB dinner ended with the high school musical song that everyone has heard of, “We’re All in This Together.” There is a verse in the lyrics that speaks, “Everyone is special in their way, We make each other strong, We're not the same, We're different in a good way, Together's where we belong.”

In both the senior and junior classes, everyone is special and unique in their own way. No one is good at everything, but when we all come together, we make a strong and unbreakable bond.