The Eighth Page

Blue Key Forces Students to Face One Direction: You Thought Your Blue Key Was Bad!

For all new students to Phillips Academy, the week of orientation is full of fun, though it is also admittedly intimidating. Blue Keys play an essential role in this process, making sure all new students get oriented on campus and feel ready to start the school year.

Unfortunately, not all Blue Keys do a good job getting their kids prepared. One of this year’s Blue Keys and serious etymology student, Amelia B. Delia ’14, actually left her motley crew of incoming students more confused than when they arrived.

It seems as if Amelia entirely misunderstood the purpose of orientation. When Amelia first met her new students she told them to stand facing east. Like any good etymologist she knew all too well that “orientation” comes from the word “orient” meaning east. The students eagerly complied and spent the rest of the day turning their head to the east like Justin and T.I. back in the day, while their fellow incoming students played name-games for three hours and couldn’t, for the life of themselves, figure out that they weren’t supposed to say ONE. Although these kids didn’t remember any names and a couple of ankles were strained in the game of duck-duck-goose, everyone at least got some pretty nice tans.

Amelia made her next serious blunder the following morning when she was told to do some team building with her group. Taking this quite literally, Amelia took them to a local construction site to work for Habitat for Humanity, where, as a team, they built real-life buildings. Although the Juniors did not get any more acquainted with the campus or the community, they all built some character (and also a house).

As if all that wasn’t enough, instead of taking her group to Think Fast in Tang Theater that evening, Amelia took her students to the cage where she hurled footballs at them yelling “think fast!” After a couple black eyes, sore jaws and even sorer feelings, Amelia took her kids to get a well deserved meal at Paresky Commons, where, unbeknownst to her Blue Keys she planned to continue the reflex conditioning. Amelia said, “I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself. My Blue Keys are going to have the best reflexes in all the Junior class. If they would stop crying and bleeding like a bunch of prodded calves, they would realize they learned something.”

After an exhausting couple of days, those unlucky new students started their first day of classes without the slightest idea of where any academic buildings were located or any knowledge of school rules. It has become immediately clear that Delia and her crazy antics have destroyed these students’ prospects for successful Andover careers. Not to mention that they were kicked out some of their classes because their teachers didn’t recognize them from their Bluecard photos due to their black and blue faces.

Meanwhile, the Admissions Office has been puzzled as to how Amelia slipped through their comprehensive admissions process and was accepted into the school three years ago. Even more puzzling is how none of her teachers picked up on the fact that she clearly has a serious learning disability.

Oh Amelia!