Chris Quazzo

I had my doubts going into Latinpalooza, partially because I knew very little about what it actually was, but mainly because it sounded like an overly ambitious way of bringing the whole school together for a culminating 125th celebration. But—except for a few minor things—I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by how it turned out. For those of you who weren’t there, Latinpalooza was a gathering of all divisions of Latin on the turf field, replete with music, performed by student and faculty bands, Latin paraphernalia, and sandwiches. It may have been a little excessive (ie. human-sized 125 cake made of balloons), but I think it was a good way to show a little school spirit.

I was interested to see if we’d show some more spirit and enthusiasm for our school this year than we normally do because it was a special year for Latin. Normally, I think we tend to lack pep at our pep rallies and spirit on Spirit Fridays, which I think is because Latin has never really been that animated and lively in the past.. However, this year I think we’ve stepped up our game in terms of showing up to things like sports games and Latin-sponsored events. And I think you can see that in the turnout to Latinpalooza because even though it was more or less optional to attend, an impressive amount of students actually showed up and enjoyed themselves.

I think we need more things like Latinpalooza, regardless of the number of years our school has existed, so that we can take a moment out of all of our hectic academic and extracurricular lives to just celebrate a school that we should feel proud to attend. It’s so easy to get caught up in the stress of our classes and focus solely on what we see is wrong with our school that we can sometimes forget that our school actually isn’t so bad after all. If there are more opportunities to celebrate the positive aspects of our school—maybe sans those CXXV sunglasses that are impossible to see out of—we might begin to show a little more Latin spirit and maybe even open up to repair some of the division and isolation that has become a serious problem in our school’s community. I understand that not everyone may love Latin as much as someone else, but I feel like everyone has to have at least one thing about our school that’s worthy of celebrating. And even though we may have slightly ripped off Parker and its annual “Parkerpalooza” celebration, I think we can still show the community around us that Latin is a really special place. ]]>