What is it about the Student Government organized Spirit Week that gets the students so pumped up? Is it the intense competition between the four grades? The lunch-time activities? The after-school activity battles? The homecoming football game? "Students get so excited because it's a time where your entire grade comes together to compete against the other grades," says Chelsea Dolchin ('07), who has been involved in Spirit Week for the past four years. Each year in November, the whole school joins in Spirit Week activities and games. A theme is chosen by class officers and advisors which will be used to develop the Spirit Week dances, booths and banners. Each class chooses a sub-category, which corresponds with the overall theme.

Click 'Read More' to view videos from East's Spirit Week 2006.

After a night of anticipation and excitement, the classes of Cherry Hill East were finally able to hit the dance floor and showcase their long-awaited performances at the Spirit Week Dance Competition.

Many have compared the heated rivalry between the class of 2007 and the class of 2008 to the brutal hostility between the perilous L.A. street gangs, The Bloods and The Crips. Others have speculated that the gap separating a victor from the lowly position of second-place might be so indiscernible that a recount, similar to that conducted following the 2000 Presidential Election, is ultimately inevitable. Nevertheless, comparisons and speculations aside, the events that occur during this scholastic year’s Spirit Week will undoubtedly alter the lives of all of those involved. A plethora of students and teachers alike have devoted hundreds, nay, thousands of tedious, back-breaking hours, to make sure that every final detail of every single event is intact. For the student not deeply involved in these activities, Spirit Week may present itself as a sequence of trivial events, whose official outcome is just as meaningless as the means of getting there. However, this is simply not the case. What is at stake is much more precious than one’s grade-point-average (GPA), or even one’s SAT scores. The only feeling other than happiness that can be held to such a high level importance is pride. That feeling you get, looking over the disappointed faces of your defeated nemeses is obviously worth more than that perfect 7.0 GPA or that faultless 2400 SAT score. Pay no attention to the strident warnings of 18th century novelist Jonathan Swift, who argued in his satirical masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels that pride is mankind’s most appalling and unforgivable flaw, because eventually Swift lost his mind and expired soon thereafter. After all, having a high opinion of one’s self is truly necessary. Brace yourself. With this much pride out on the table, it is almost a certainty that we are all about to witness a battle of the ages. The only question left unanswered is, who will be Bush and who will be Gore? To listen to some fun interviews and more information on Spirit Week, listen to the audio clips attached to this story.