On Friday, November 21, the High School Student Council hosted the first ISSH Hunger Games. “It was something that we’ve never tried before. We didn’t know whether the event would be successful,”said Yoko (11).

The planning began in Ms. Young’s office late in August. “One of the goals of the Student Council this year is to unify the High School. We brainstormed about possible ways to bring all the students together and initially decided to hold a Spirit-Day-like event during a homeroom period in November,”explained Miyu (12).

However, the Student Council decided to take a completely different course of action. Instead of hosting an event during school hours, the leaders decided to host the event after school on a Friday night. “40 minutes during the homeroom period is definitely not enough to hold an event that involves everyone. We figured that having people stay around on a Friday night would be a plausible alternative,” said Miyu (12).

The Executives, Miyu (12), Yoko (11), and Olga (12) then took this idea to the Student Council. The idea was warmly welcomed by the team and the preparations began.

The first step was to figure out the main logistics: Where would the event take place? How long would it last? How would it be funded?

The high school principal, Ms. Young, helped the executives with figuring out which rooms were available, booking rooms, and making sure that all the details of funding were decided. “Ms. Young was very supportive of all the ideas that we had and helped the event run as smoothly as possible,” said Yoko.

The Executives met several times outside of the regular meeting time to tackle the details. Although at first, the Executives considered making the event sports related, they changed their plan when they came up with the theme: Hunger Games.

“Of course I wanted the students to engage physically at the event. But I also wanted the students to get involved mentally. I feel that if we give the students missions, if we make the goals of the event a little obscure, then the students will get a chance to think and get involved,” said Yoko.

To create this obscure, mysterious atmosphere, the Student Council named the event “X”.

Two weeks prior to the event, the Executives began writing the script. “We had to be really careful about how we planned the event. The Swedish school had classes at our school on the same evening, so we were only allowed to use the speakers and the playground at certain times. The introduction, the parade, the times of the games – everything had to be calculated,” explained Miyu.

The Thursday and Friday leading up to the event became very hectic for the members of the Student Council. They signed up for shifts, went over the script to make sure they knew what was going on, chose “hunters” for the big game, and worked on last minute details, such as preparing sign up lists, making the stage, finding hats to pick names out of, setting up the photo booth  and tables for refreshments.

“There were so many things to do towards the end, because many of the rooms that we used couldn’t be used before the event. We ran around the school hiding the bean bags right before the event – otherwise, they would have been noticed by participants,” said Kanako (12).

Despite the tiring preparations, the members of the Student Council didn’t lose their excitement for the night. “This is actually the first High School event that I looked forward to,” said Anna (11).

Finally, the time came for the Hunger Games to begin.

X started off with an introduction done by Miyu (12), Yoko (11) and Olga (12), who dressed up and put on a British accent to match the people of the Capitol. Then, the participants separated into four Districts, according to their grade levels, and prepared costumes for a parade.

As the spirit of each of the four Districts reached its maximum, the Hunger Games began. The participants engaged in a school-wide “tousouchuu” (mafia game), overcame unexpected obstacles along the way, and completed their missions.

After an exciting two hours, District 11 became the winner of the ISSH Hunger Games.

The Student Council received positive feedback from the students who supported the event. “It was one of the best events I have ever attended out of my six years in ISSH. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and all of my friends agree that this should have been thought of sooner. I hope we have an opportunity like this next year,” said Claire (10).