Miss/Mr. HOL – Behind the Scenes

Miss/Mr. HOL – Behind the Scenes
Adeliene Cromwell

When one isn’t sure where to start, one must start at the beginning. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the start of Miss HOL. I can pretend I recall it. I do remember coming up with the actual concept, the whole thing as it played out over the past two months.

HOL is always in need of new school wide competitions. If you ever feel you have an idea of something new and exciting, find a prefect and start getting an idea put together. (It’s better to begin with more than just a thought.)

Miss HOL obviously came from watching Miss Universe. I remember giggling along with the show with several other IRC regulars, thinking we could probably do that ourselves. I’m not going to act like everyone scoffed at the idea, but I don’t think anyone suspected I was serious. Over the next week or two, I hatched my whole plan out in my school notebook in between classes. I typed it up, ran it by a few people to make sure it made sense, then put it up for the prefects and professors to look over.

It was approved almost unanimously. (I say almost, only because while I don’t remember anyone speaking out to me about not approving it, there could have been someone.) Shortly after I began the hunt for judges and contestants. The idea to keep the judges secret was not originally my own. It came from Prof. Miette, who eventually became my Slytherin judge. I agreed with the idea to keep them secret for many reasons. The last thing I ever wanted to be said about Miss HOL was how corrupted it was or anything of the likes. I wish I had taken a screenshot of the night I did the judges applications. It was a serious mess. I may have the piece of paper somewhere with all the charts and notes I made while trying to decide on judges.

The funniest thing is where we actually ended up doing all of our dirty work. We couldn’t do it on the HOL forum, as it showed names when they posted. Going through emails would have been too difficult, and too many google docs would have made me (and other judges) cry. So thankfully, Ashlee came up with a brilliant idea. We crowded into a secret room in the dungeons. Ashlee set up all the restrictions and codes so that only we could see it (as well as any Slytherin admin that cared to look. Since they didn’t know it existed and Ashlee did most of the forum work, we felt safe in this.) It was named “Secret Squirrel Business.” I’m not entirely sure why, though it quite often amused me. It was just as amusing to realize the irony of doing all of our dirty work in the Slytherin Common Room.

If I could do the contest all over again, would I do anything differently? Definitely. I mean, I chalk this contest up to a big success. It brought loads of people together for a good time. I would have been more prepared…more ready for everything. While two weeks per round seems like so much time, it really isn’t at all. I found myself wanting to rip my hair out quite frequently. I would have turned off the auto-update for the spreadsheet. I didn’t realize it was doing it, nor did I realize people were actually checking up on it in between rounds. It ended up causing more problems than it should have, to which infuriated me. The whole contest ate up much of my time too. I fell quite behind on anything else related to HOL, including being a good student teacher. Of course, I do realize how to correct all of this before it runs again next year. Yes, we don’t expect Ronja to carry the crown forever! (Though good luck getting it back from her…)

Miss HOL was not without its drama, but nothing ever is. I am pleased that most of it was behind the scenes or away from my eyes mostly. There are those who may think we came to the wrong decision as to the winner, and to them I say PSHA! I am more than pleased with the winners. They are brilliant people and model HOL students. And Ronja is quite a wonderful person. I must embarrass her even more. While I was often bombarded with emails telling me of the errors I had made or the issues with the competition (not a round passed without me getting at least three of them) I equally received as many emails or PMs on the forum from Ronja and Niniel. They both reminded me to breathe, how much they loved me, the great job I was doing, and more importantly, not to let this stress me out. Sometimes the message was simply a hug. I got a few from others not in the competition, (I remember several from a Ms. Tarma Black too!) but both of them were quite consistent.

Sometimes kindness goes a long way.

Now it is time for me to go back into hibernation for a year while I wait and plan for next year’s festivities!