Red Saturdays!

17 November 2011Rachael K

Code Red: A Saturday Off? This can’t be right. 

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Every. Single. Second. Passes. So. Agonizingly. Slowly. 

This is the atmosphere that encompasses Brentwood classes on the eve of a Red Saturday. Anticipation, expectation, excitement, suspense. All of these emotions are jam packed into a very jittery student body. A general disclaimer for a day such as this? 

Don’t worry students, it is normal to completely lose your ability to regulate fidgeting or focus on ordinary tasks. 

Wow, after a statement like that, one must wonder what a Red Saturday is. Is it a day where we paint the school red? Wear only red socks? Eat only red food? Fortunately, it is none of these things (although some of those ideas could be fun to try).

A Red Saturday is actually a day of extraordinary bliss, as it is a time when students are liberated from regular Saturday classes to enjoy a normal, full-fledged, completely ‘no, I am not kidding you’, honest to goodness, two-day weekend.

A Saturday without classes at Brentwood. It that even legal?

A Red Saturday is divided into two classes of enjoyment: enjoyment on campus, and enjoyment off campus. If students remain on campus, the sole controlled factor of the two day ‘break’ is a two hour mandatory prep session. After this one academic blip, however, students are able to take on the world. Make it their oysters, if you can envision, as students are allowed to go forth, and do, really, whatever it is they want to do. 

For on-campus students, Red Saturdays are also celebrated with special dinners hosted by our very own dining hall, as a reduced number of students allow our chef to flex his creative muscles, and tap into more complicated meals. It’s nice to enjoy an ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ meal if one is restrained to campus life for the weekend. Honestly, I have this little inkling that tells me Chef Sean also finds it easier to prepare his special meals without many of the normal hungry students present to nag him about seconds and thirds…maybe even fourths. 

The other half of the student population breaks open the school gates and spends their weekends away from campus, either with local students, or with parents who are close enough to collect them. Breaking out of school when, ordinarily, students would be dressed to the nines in their number ones, cleaning their rooms, and attending academic classes is a special pleasure.

Sign us up for this normalcy detour, right? No classes or sports to hinder social plans + off-campus adventures + trips to the Co-Op = Sheer Bliss. It’s a Red-Saturday formula. Copyright is still in the works.

While ‘breaking out’ of school sounds a little bit more ‘secret agent’ than what students actually accomplish, ‘breaking’ out of school, just this once, is a completely permissible experience. Faculty members can relax as well as students, as they are released from their regular roles of monitoring and lecturing, coaching and staffing.

That is, unless they have to attend Parent Teacher Conference Meetings.

Alas, all good things come with conditions nowadays. Pills come with side-affects. University acceptances are usually conditional. At Brentwood, Red Saturdays may also be attached to Parent-Teacher conferences. These important meetings, while they do cut into break time, do not last forever. Beginning at 9:30 and ending at 1:00, students, parents, and teachers alike, after completing their commitments, are able to still celebrate their proper weekends alongside friends and family. Complete freedom? Yes please! 

So, students and faculty, family and friends, I encourage you to take advantage of such a real weekend, as it is a rare occurrence in our regular, Brentwood lives. Sleep, dance, sing, read, relax, sleep. It’s your weekend to do with whatever you wish. 

And it’s definitely something worth wearing red for. 

By Rachael K