Abstract:

This piece is sort of a legend or belief that there could be a pool at the top of Albemarle High School. It is a prank or joke that the upperclassmen pull on incoming freshman.

Main Piece:

“L: For our high school, they tell the incoming freshman that there is a pool on the roof. You guys didn’t have that?

C: No, I’ve never heard of that.

L: So what they tell you is that “oh you can’t get onto the roof, but there is a secret, exclusive pool that if you make friends with the janitors or something, you’ll get to go up and see the pool roof.” So my brother, he’s at SCA here, but he made the video that they show to eighth graders at the end of the year when they come into the school as incoming freshman and, um, he was playing around with Final Cut and they went up to the roof and he figured out how to CGI a pool on the roof to trick all the eighth graders. And at lunch they were all like “omg there is really a pool on the roof.”

Context:

The informant is a 19 year old girl who has lived in Charlottesville, VA for her entire life before moving to California for college. She attended Albemarle High School for all four years and first learned of this “pool on the roof” when she was an incoming freshman.

Analysis:

These kinds of pranks on “new” students or freshmen remind me of initiations that happen at clubs or in Greek Life. I think it is an event that students have to go through and the original belief is what bonds them together as the “new” student class. Going through that shared belief and realization that it is a joke helps bring the students into the community that has also gone through it.