Throughout the first three years of our high school careers, the seniors have told us all about senior dinner dance. They told how it was the best dance, more fun than junior and senior prom, and how will be one of the highlights of your four years at Gilroy High. They really weren't kidding. This past Saturday was this year's senior dinner dance. Now, for those of you who don't already know, senior dinner dance is not a date event. You are both encouraged and expected to go with a group of people rather than the other semi-formal dances where you go with a date, and everyone in the past years told us how much more fun this was.
It is also pretty much an all-day event. A bunch of my friends met at my house at 1 p.m. so we could take pictures, which is really more for our parents benefit than ours. We then had to be at the school by 2:15 so we could board the school buses. Once we were on the buses, we drove up to San Francisco and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. After dinner, we boarded the boat, and set off on the Bay cruise/dance portion of the evening, and returned to shore around 9:30 p.m. to make the trip home.
This year, we had so many people planning to attend that we not only had to split up the meal into two different sittings, but we also had to look for a bigger boat. The first three buses loaded left first and ate at 4:30, and the last three buses left 20 minutes later and ate at 5:30.
My friends and I were determined to get to school early, at around 1:30, so we could all be in the first group of buses. But with the last people of our party not even arriving at my house until after 1:30, clearly that was not going to happen. But we decided that it didn't really matter when we ate, as long as we all ate together.
So we got on the second group of buses, and we talked and laughed and watched a movie all the way up to San Francisco. We arrived at the Hard Rock Cafe at 4:45 and had to stand outside until 5:30, which was our designated eating time. Some people were complaining about their food, but mine was pretty good.
Once we boarded the boat, it was all smooth sailing. The bottom floor of the boat was the dance floor, the middle floor was set up with gambling tables, and the top of the boat was for enjoying the view of the San Francisco Bay. My friends and I made a quick sweep of the boat and then hit the dance floor where we remained for the rest of the night, taking occasional breaks for water.
Saying that senior dinner dance was fun does not do it justice, but I don't know how else to describe it. Since no one went with dates, everyone was dancing with everyone else and having an all-around good time. The dance floor was, of course, chaotic as always, but you could actually notice the difference in that everyone there was a senior.
The dance flew by entirely too quickly, as they always seem to do. After we had gotten off the boat and were waiting to go back to the buses, one senior got up and made a speech. He talked about our class: the memories we have, the friendships we've formed and the family that we've become. He talked about all the love that our class has for one another, and he finished his speech by starting our senior class cheer of "Oh what? Oh eight!" with the whole class joining in.
Senior dinner dance marked the first of the major milestones of our senior year. We talked about it and looked forward to it for so long, and now it is gone. The rest of the year will fly by from here on out, and then we will go our separate ways. Class of '08, this is our last year; we better live it up.
Deena Morsilli is a senior at Gilroy High. Her column is published every other week on Thursday.
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