Michael's Totally Unbiased Review of the School Cheering Competition

Cheering is a big deal at my school. The students get really into it. Sometimes I wish they put as much effort into studying English as they do into choreographing cheer routines. The students cheer at pretty much every event. Wednesday was special though- it was the school-wide cheering competition, and it gets intense. In fact, there was quite a scandal last year. Most of the students will admit that M4 should have won, however the M2 class won. This year my favorite class M5 was determined to take home the trophy and claim the top spot from their M3 rivals.

The judges this year included several Thai idols (pop singers) and a famous actor who is pretty involved around our school. The competition was fierce, and the school has been in high-excitement mode all week as the classes practice their cheers while trying to keep them secret from the other grades.

the class at one point formed themselves into a lotus

Teacher Kate (a former Baylor cheerleader who was super into this event) and I went down to the assembly hall to watch the competition during Wednesday club hours. M2 drew to go first, followed by M5. As soon as M5 performed, I had high hopes for them to win. They were incredibly well-organized and completely in synch in their complicated routine. M5's theme was "World Cup", and their routine consisted of World Cup songs and country cheers, which brought me back to my time spent in South Africa which was still riding high from its time hosting the 2010 games. Back in 2011, you couldn't go into a store or restaurant in Stellenbosch without hearing that Shakira song.

The other classes were good, but nobody could top M5's routine. In the end, M4 came in 3rd, M3 (the rival) came in 2nd, and M5 took home the giant 1st place trophy. When the principal announced the winning team, there were actually tears of joy from some of the girls. They finally won after so many years. I could tell that they worked hard; they deserved it. I'm very proud of my class! Afterwards they called me over to take a picture with them.

#winners

*Of course, I don't really play favorites. I'm just very proud that my English Main class won the competition. There are students in every grade who I really like*