Stužková

Last Saturday, the half of the fifth-year students celebrated their Stužková. To explain Stužková, we can say it is a mixture of prom, graduation, and parent's night.

The night began around 6:30 p.m. when the students entered into a reception hall in dresses and suits. Each of their names is called and each of them go to receive a green ribbon from their class teacher. This ribbon, I believe, symbolizes hope for the students in passing their exit exams. They are congratulated by their class teacher, the god teacher, and the vice-principal. The class teacher is the teacher who checks their grades and attendance over the five years. The god teacher is something like a god parent, we might say.

Then the select students give speeches to their families and the teachers, and then the class teacher gives a speech, and then a parent gives a speech. Fortunately, I seated myself next to a Slovak colleague who could translate these speeches for me.

After the speeches, the students dance with a parent and then dance with a teacher. We had to dance a waltz, and I had never waltzed before. So, prior to going to the reception hall, I had someone teach me how to waltz in three minutes. I was excited to show off my skills. Nevertheless, when I walk on the dance floor with the student who was supposed to dance with me, she says, "You don't have to waltz. We can just move from side to side." This was a real heart breaker. Imagine me standing up there ready to show off my skills and she tells me to just move from side to side.

Finally, after all the speeches and dances, we got to eat. It was past 8 p.m. The food was delicious. Dinner began with an appetizer: ham and whipped cream. When I think of good appetizers, I think of ham and whipped cream. Then we had soup, followed by chicken and rice. I was satisfied with the meal. I'm not a good person to ask about how good food is though because I'll eat anything.

After dinner was an informal program. The students performed many skits, dances, and songs. A few stood out. First was "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" by some students. The teachers said to each other, "Well, they don't need no education. So I guess no school on Monday then." The next was eight-person "song" routine in which one person begins the "song" by saying, in Slovak of course, what his job is like and then the next person follows but the first person continues as well. Imagine something like "Twelve Days of Christmas" but each day of Christmas is said at the same time. The best was probably the belly-dance routine. If you cannot see in the above picture, I am wearing a pink tie. I planned on wearing a blue tie, but I encourage by my friends to wear a pink tie. So I did. Nevertheless, a few of the students gave me a hard time about the tie. They said it looked "homosexual." Ironically, not a half-hour later, one of them was belly dancing in girl's clothes. Their dance was rather humorous and I made sure to point out the hypocrisy in what the student said earlier. Perhaps the student have learned something about stereotypes and the neutrality of colors through this experience.

The informal program did not get over until after midnight, when a second dinner was waiting for us outside. The only thing better than dinner is having two dinners. The second dinner was similar to the first, but I didn't mind at all. After the second dinner was the dance which began around 1 a.m. and ended around 5 a.m.

My roommate Larry was able to dance the entire four hours, non-stop; however, I was not this strong. I have to commend the guy. He's 61 years old and danced longer than anyone else, and, to put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, he did all this dancing after losing his big toenail during the dance. How does that happen?

At around 4 a.m., the DJ said the dance was over. Then the students started a chant which began with "one more song" and continued to "two more songs" and "three more songs" and so on until the DJ continued playing music. He stopped at 5 a.m. I was dead tired. As I looked around the dance floor, I noticed the number of students was doubled by the number of teachers. How does that happen? We're old. They're young.

The dance part was nice because not all of the students danced and I had an opportunity to talk with them. With some of the students, I talked about the differences between prom and Stužková. This was an interesting conversation because one of the students studied in Canada the previous year and then got to experience both of these. From my observation, prom is very individual and Stužková is about the particular class of students as a whole. At Stužková, no one has a date. Their boyfriend or girlfriend might have been invited to sit with their family, but they do not come as a couple.

I finally returned home at 5:40 a.m. The students were very thankful that we stayed with them until the end. My experience with Stužková is not over, however. Two weeks from now, I will get to celebrate with the other class. There's nothing I enjoy more than staying up until 5 a.m. with a bunch of students.