2nd Year, 07/July House Cup Challenge

## Description

Under the summer heat and overall holiday mood it brought along, not to mention other stressful, injury-heavy and combat-intensive events that took place leading to the summer vacation, the 2nd Year July Edition of the House Cup Challenge happened quite differently from previous ones. Instead of the regular challenges that would send students into an effervescent and feverish competition to win the trophy for their houses, the Academy opted to put the House Cup Games on hold and offer students other fun activities to celebrate summer and give them time to fully and properly recover.

## Event Details

Students were offered the chance to prove their creativity, as well as their mastery of language by participating in a poetry competition: **The Poetry Proving Grounds**. There were five total rounds with different style and theme requirements that would challenge even the most skilled of students! The first round required a limerick about House Amare and the second round was a haiku about House Curat. For the third round, students were asked to submit a tanka about House Volo and for the fourth round, a cinquain about Fidelity. For the final, the participants were allowed a style and theme of their choice. After each round, more and more students would be eliminated, until only two would be left in the final.

While the poetry contest was proceeding as planned, something strange happened to the Academy’s portal network. It could have been the heat or some other magical malfunction; regardless, everything got turned upside down, as portals started taking people to unintended locations. That unfortunate mishap has remained referred to as the **Teleport Scramble**. To help with the situation, students were asked to assist with mapping out which portal lead to where, so that the network could be un-jumbled and brought back to normal.

Other than that, everyone was encouraged to show off their prettiest or most interesting beachwear and spend time outside having fun.

## Event Outcome

**The Poetry Proving Grounds**

Quite a few students showed interest and submitted their sign-up limericks. After the first round, only a few students got eliminated. As the rounds progressed, the selection process became more and more difficult as everyone brought forward their best poems and the elimination process, more ruthless as the number of participants would halve and halve again until only two were left: one from Curat and one from Fidelity. Their style of choice for the final was the free verse and as theme they went for encompassing all four houses. The Curat participant, Isabella Lotus, showed the most creativity, unique use of language, and wittiness and became the winner of the competition!

For those interested, some of the submitted poems, including the winner's, as well as other works by Academy students can be enjoyed in the Academy's Poetry Corner of the Library.

**The Teleport Scramble**

Students put on their metaphorical explorer and adventurer hats and ventured into the unknown. As some of the portals lead to more dangerous locations, those who aided with the mishap proved their courage. Eventually, thanks to all of the collected information, the portals got stabilized.

**What happened to the House Cup Trophy?**

Since the regular games did not take place, there was no winner of the trophy. With the start of the new semester, the trophy which had spent the previous two semesters in the Fidelity Common Room was moved to the Headmistress’s office, awaiting a new iteration of the competition between houses. Its ribbons, as well as the colours in certain areas of the Academy turned from Fidelity blue to purple.