Campus celebrates Valentine’s Day with Love Week

Carissa Tsui, Kasmira Lada, and Nathan Jiang
February 16, 2023

The advent of Valentine’s Day is an environment of love at Palo Alto High School. Hearts are strung up all over campus, accompanied by various other decorations of pinks and reds. With Valentine’s Day came Love Week the week before, one of the most enjoyable events of the year, filled with fun and festivities celebrating all forms of love for everyone.

Valgrams have long been a Valentine’s tradition at Paly. For $5, a student can send another student a Valgram consisting of an adorable stuffed animal, a personalized note, and a packet of Fun Dip, all stuffed in a small pink mesh bag. The stuffed animals can range from a heart-patterned, baseball cap-wearing snake to just a cute little dog. These are hand-delivered by the Associated Student Body officers  to students’ classes during second period, or during first for any students with second period preps.

Two students string beads together to make bracelets. Jewelry Making was the Tuesday Love Week activity, and according to ASB Publicity Commissioner Samantha Fan, a hit. “Jewelry Making was… [a] success, in which a lot of people made jewelry and we laid the mats out on the quad and it was kind of like a picnic,” Fan said. (Photo: Carissa Tsui)
Although some students get Valgrams for their partners, many people such as sophomore Janya Jain get Valgrams for their friends to show their appreciation.

“My friends and I bought Valgrams for each other,” Jain said. “I really like the concept, and the execution was good too. I like that they [ASB] offer stuffed animals since they are something that we [students] can keep for a long time, unlike flowers.”

According to ASB Publicity Commissioner Samantha Fan, Valgrams are the most popular event of the bunch.

“It has been such a staple in Paly Love Week,” Fan said. “But I also think a new hit this year that we welcomed back was Matchomatics.”

Matchomatics, an event in which students fill out a questionnaire and are matched with other peers depending on their answers, was revived this year after not running last year due to what ASB officers described as incidents of unwanted attention and misuse of information.

Senior Uri Ponte was one of almost 500 students who participated in Matchomatics this year.

“Matchomatics is a pretty cool concept,” Ponte said. “You might have never known who you would have been matched with before, and you can connect with people you don’t know, so I think it’s kind of interesting.”

Senior Jason Yang said his results were surprising.

“I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know half the people on here,” Yang said. “I kind of just did it for the fun of it, so I am a bit confused, but it’s just a fun little activity.”

Students pose for Friday’s Polaroid Photo Op activity. The Polaroid activity was one of the most popular in Love Week. (Photo: Carissa Tsui)

The lunchtime events for Love Week included Banner Making on Monday through Thursday, Jewelry Making on Tuesday, Appreciation Notes on Wednesday, Karaoke on Thursday, and Polaroid Photo Op & Ring Pop “Proposal” on Friday.

ASB Freshmen Vice President Kiara Yoon was one of many ASB officers working to put Love Week together and helped run the Appreciation Notes activity.

“It’s a bit stressful [to run], but it’s nice to have everyone be able to enjoy a lot of romantic and platonic relationships,” Yoon said.

Overall, according to senior Ash Mehta, Paly had an eventful Love Week and Valentine’s Day.

“Love week was really fun,” Mehta said. “I liked the atmosphere and the different activities were a lot of fun. I loved seeing the heart pickup lines scattered around the school.”