“Gotcha”

Last week, the Milton campus was filled with the same adrenaline and nervous excitement reminiscent of childhood playground game, only so much better. The school-wide game of tag or “Gotcha” releases the stress of a heightened pre-break workload and exhilarates the entire student body. At the beginning of the game, the student head monitors send every student an email with a link to their target–the person they have to “get.” The targets are assigned randomly, which encourages students of different classes to interact with one another and form new relationships.

The rules of Gotcha are a bit complicated, but basically to “get” his or her target, the student must tag them, say “gotcha” and ask for the target of the person he or she has just tagged. This person will become the tagger’s next target. There is no tagging is classrooms, dining halls, computer labs, the library, on Centre Street, the admissions hallway, or when a student is giving a tour.

I pride myself in having survived the first four days of Gotcha this year, especially because I made it through three different taggers and escaping them involved taking alternate classroom exits and staircases. Also, I tagged two people out in comparison to the zero tags I had last year (still nothing compared to the taggers who are still in the game with around 18 tags!). In the end, getting tagged was unavoidable as the sister of my tagger was in one of my classes and told him when we had class. I left my third period micro class on Friday only to be greeted by, “Sorry Kate… Gotcha!” On the bright side, now that I’m out and no longer paranoid, I can walk to my classes at a regular pace and can relive my Gotcha experience vicariously through my friends by helping them get their targets. Overall, my Gotcha experience this year has been quite a success and it is now one of my favorite Milton traditions!