Ryan Sok DivisionTechEditor|Gahr

Region 8's 'Night in a Thousand Paintings' formal was hosted at Hawthorne Memorial Center on Saturday, February 18th from 5:30 to 8 pm. Given that this was the first formal dance in three years due to the 2020 pandemic, I was really looking forward to the event. A week prior, my friend and fellow Division 13 North news editor Lauren Uy and I, decided to plan and record a special performance of Kesha's 'Tik Tok' for this day... and it arrived. Coming into the venue with a Dutch Bros latte I had no expectations until I walked into the main auditorium to a dimly lit atmosphere with table and fairy lights, flower decorations, and a warming ambience. It provided an opportunity for me to socialize with friends from my home division but also those from the other divisions, like Clairose from Division 13 South and Khoiriyah from Division 13 West. For this event we were served potstickers, coconut shrimp, and pizza as food options. But the most important aspect: the dance floor. Music from various artists and genres like Ice Spice, Cardi B, and New Jeans had everyone bussing out by the stage, and me and Lauren even used our prop money guns to spray (small) amounts of replica $100 bills on people. Why did we have them in the first place?! Our Tik Tok performance! After the crowning of the formal court (shout out to those who won), our host Janelle announced the performance while Lauren and I crawled backstage recharging our money guns. We sent the backing track over to Denise, the audio engineer, and show time. The experience was pretty funny and embarrassing but still fun, as we sang to our pre-recorded backing tracks and acted like we were BLACKPINK on stage. The key highlight from our performance was at the final chorus, 'Now the party doesn't stop til' we walk in' when we finally unleashed the Benjamins all over the floor and had everyone hyped. The Laur n' Ryan experience. Thanks to our LTGs and advisors this event was a success, but simultaneously this happened to be the last region event of the term. Bye seniors!