Music blasted and horns tooted as seniors sped into the parking lot of Compo Beach, ready to celebrate homecoming with the annual motorcade. The scene was of absolute madness, and I meant that in the best way. Everyone was running around and greeting friends and acquaintances alike while gearing up to form a procession towards Staples.

        Homecoming my senior year was an event that I had anticipated since the very beginning of high school. Every year that I saw pictures on Facebook of all of the seniors celebrating only got me more excited to finally participate.

But, having finally experienced it myself, I have to admit that it was a bit stressful.

        First of all, organizing all of your friends to have a ride for the motorcade is beyond difficult. Everyone wants to have a truck to ride in, but the fact of the matter is that there are only a handful of people that drive trucks. There are even fewer people who drive trucks that are legal to drive others.

The simple matter of finding a ride caused so much unnecessary drama. Lots of friend groups had to divide up and find separate people to drive them, which caused tension during a time that’s supposed to be all about the senior class coming together. A decent amount of people also ended up losing their rides last minute, which I can’t even imagine having to deal with in the midst of the chaos at Compo.

Once you actually found a someone to drive you, there was also the stress of having to keep everyone calm as we rode to motorcade. The whole idea is to get rowdy and pumped up for the game, but anyone standing up would’ve resulted in the police shutting everything down. No one wanted to be the kid who ruined things for everyone.

In my case, we also ended up getting lost on our way to the game. You would think that a uniform procession would allow everyone to find their way to Staples in one piece. Somehow my friends and I managed to get completely lost. We missed a sizable part of the motorcade, which was a huge disappointment. But, it was completely our fault there.

Once we were actually at the game, I had a lot of fun. The atmosphere was great and the crowd was super excited after our ride to Staples. It was a great game against Stanford, and the school spirit was nearly palpable.

But, as the night wore on and temperatures dropped, I realized that I completely screwed up by not bringing a jacket. I didn’t want to leave at all, but I also wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about getting frostbite. I ended up running home for a jacket and then coming back to the game, and that whole process was stressful as well. Again, my fault, but stressful overall.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the football games. I love the atmosphere of the whole thing, and I think it’s so fun to dress up and be spirited for our school. But, I wish I had thought about a few things ahead of time.

First of all, find a ride. Seriously, we’re notorious for asking to dances months and months in advance and yet we totally left that to the last minute.

Second, bring a jacket. Seriously. Usually motorcade is earlier, but I had such regrets for not remembering that it’s October now and really, really cold.

Above all, try to just enjoy the experience. After all, it’s senior year– in the end, little things like forgetting a jacket and getting lost on the way didn’t ruin my experience as a whole.