The decorations are down. The dress up days have come and gone. The football game was won. The dance is over. This is the week after homecoming.

During the five days days of Homecoming week, students walked into school through doors adorned with colorful representations of their classes: freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Now, they walk through the plain, nondescript doors seen during the ordinary weeks of the school year. Eating lunch in a cafeteria decorated in vivid reds, blues, greens and yellows is now only a memory. The daily excitement of participating in activities after school––like boys’ volleyball, powerpuff football, and cheering on sports teams––is no longer present. Sitting in class this week, students are coming to terms with the annual letdown after homecoming week.

After a week full of exciting events, dress up days, and a lot of hype, students at BSM are faced with one of the harshest realities they can imagine––school work. Teachers tend to assign significantly less homework during homecoming week, allowing students to participate in the events. Because of this, coming back to school can be a rude re-awakening to the world of homework and responsibility.

Waking up the Sunday morning after the dance is perhaps one of the most disappointing feelings that students experience year after year. Students have just returned home after a late night spent in a mosh pit filled with a bunch of hot, sweaty teenagers and absurdly loud music, unless they took the more laid back route and sat by the bonfire or watched a movie in the theater. Unsurprisingly, students typically use sleep to recover from the dance, including sophomore Nels Birkeland. “I slept until 3:00 on Sunday,” Birkeland said.

Coming back to school on Monday morning is even tougher for students. Senior Henry Wolfe recovers with a classic strategy. “I slept through my first hour, homeroom, and second hour. I also slept through lunch,” Wolfe said. 

Homecoming week has come and gone, and it’s clear that much of the spirit of the student body at BSM has been taken with it. Hopefully, though––once the students all recover––they’ll find that although coming back to reality is hard, BSM is even stronger as a community because of the shared experience of homecoming.