A Night To Remember
May 31, 2016
Dancing, memories, and tradition are three words that describe the event long-awaited by high school students – Prom, which occurred for Downey High School’s student body on the 21st of May at the Wallis Annenburg Building at the California Science Center on the 21st of May.
A member of ASB’s prom-planning committee, junior, Angelica Mora contributed about 40 hours of her time to the event.
“The theme is kind of Phantom of the Opera; it’s a masquerade ball, but it’s not really Mardi Gras, because we wanted to be more classical,” Mora said. “The colors are also different because the color scheme for Phantom of the Opera is usually red, black, and white, but since all the dances this year have been those colors, we chose dark hues of purples to create a more ominous tone.”
An essential member to the operation that is Prom-planning, junior, Sunny Gill, worked alongside Mora as a junior representative and labored tediously in order to achieve the goal of creating a lit atmosphere.
“It wasn’t really difficult, but it was just consistently working on it daily. We could’ve made it hard on ourselves if we had waited until the last minute, but luckily, we were consistent and we would meet three times a week, and we had to start working about five months ago with the Prom committee.”
When it comes to Prom fashion, there are generally two routes a person can take as far as fashion goes- orthodox or unorthodox.
Senior, Kat Craig, planned to be especially unorthodox this Prom along with her boyfriend, for the couple to sport Pikachu masquerade masks.
“I’ve always been a person who likes to stand out, especially when it comes to Pokemon, because way back in middle school, I was bullied for my interest in Pokemon,” Craig said, “but ever since I moved to California people are a lot nicer.”
What one wears to Prom represents his or her style, and to be adamant about one’s self-expression is merely exercising one’s right. What started off as a joke between, Sarah Perez, 12, and her friends soon become a mission for the senior- to wear a suit to Prom.
“I jokingly brought up the suit idea to my mom in the car, and my mom was just like ‘I’m not gonna pay for that,’” Perez said.
Although Perez did end up wearing a dress to Prom, she still believes that students should dress in a way that makes them feel comfortable without worrying about what other people think.
Serenity Reynoso, 11, who attended Prom with her senior boyfriend, also had the idea of wearing a Calvin Klein light blue women’s pantsuit. What indoctrinated her to wear a suit are the models of Coco Chanel, who introduced pantsuits to women.
“I’m more of a fashionably casual person, so I’m not all that into dresses and I felt like a suit was less played out – for girls at least,” Reynoso said. “I thought it would be cool to do something different but still really feminine.”
When the final song came to an end, it did not matter what the students wore to Prom, rather, it was the valuable memories they made that shall be cherished for years to come.
“I want to improve my writing,” Jimenez said, “not only for high school English, but for college as well.”
Jimenez chose to take AP Language and Composition because she wants to rectify any mistakes she has in her writing before she writes her prompt to apply to college.
“I chose to take AP Language and Composition because I felt with my experience in Honors 10 and the skills I developed that I would succeed in the class,” junior, Victoria Lopez said. “I like to challenge myself.”
Lopez and Jimenez feels comfortable in her AP class because she is surrounded by students who are passionate to learn and motivated to pursue the same goal.
“I like to write and I enjoyed Honors English 10 with Ms. Kasner,” junior, Andrew Bilodeau said, “so an opportunity to become a better writer in a subject I enjoy was to hard to pass up.”
Bilodeau has taken three years of AP/Honors English classes at Downey High School, similarly to Jimenez. AP Language and Composition includes more discussion of themes and broader concepts, making the class more interactive, rather than a traditional English class. In Bilodeau’s and Jimenez’s opinion it is a more productive learning environment.
Jimenez hopes to develop her writing skills on her writing because she believes writing is a central skill of everyday life and will be useful for her in the future.
“Nobody in this school really knows each other,” Fregoso said. “I mean there are so many students now, so I believe it is possible to have them get to know one another by getting to read each others’ stories on Downey Legend.”
If she is able to promote newspaper to the students, then those students can read stories about others’ lives and view them differently.
“Many people, many stories,” Fregoso said, “and when students pass each other without knowing who they're walking by, mainly because of how they dress or how they talk, it's kind of sad, because one can't simply judge a book by its cover.”
She knows how it feels to walk past students and not know who they are. During her freshman year, Fregoso moved to Downey High from St. Emydius, a private middle school, that only had about 250 students.
“That school was so little,” Fregoso said, “almost everyone knew each other.”
During the middle of her sophomore year, former newspaper writer, Akhila Nalamilli, mentioned the Downey Legend newspaper with Fregoso.
“Angelica is a very nice girl,” Nalamilli said. “Her writing is amazingly done and a great use for newspaper.”
Fregoso's love for writing came to her when she was in first grade; as she started taking tests on The Magic Treehouse: Age of Dinosaurs, she loved the idea of being able to write her own stories and include her own characters and make her own world.
It is not really a goal to write those kinds of stories to this day, Fregoso pointed out. Joining newspaper was to become open-minded and to write actual stories of actual people rather than typing fiction.
“Although it seemed interesting to write what I want my characters to say and how I want my world to work out,” Fregoso said, “I think it's better to write what real characters say and how their worlds work.”
Knowing how she had a flowing passion to accomplish this goal, Norma Fregoso, mother of Angelica, agrees that she can do it.
“My daughter has always been a creative writer,” Mrs. Fregoso said. “Ever since she was a young child, she has expressed interest for writing stories.”
Fregoso's writing also inspired her friends to improve on various things like essays and CQTs.
“Angelica's very passionate and puts all her emotions into her work,” Carolina Marin, Fregoso's best friend said. “Not everyone has the ability to express themselves correctly, and I feel that she is capable of conveying her point thoroughly and emotionally without confusing or misleading the reader.”
With much more to experience, Fregoso patiently waits for what stories she will be writing about in newspaper, and to obtain knowledge about the lives of students, teachers, and the citizens of Downey.
Ms. Reynoso looked beautiful in her Calvin Klein light blue women’s pantsuit. Coco Chanel would have been proud !