Upper School Assistant Aja Parham began assembling Blue Sheets at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year. Prior to Parham’s reign, Blue Sheets were never particularly amusing. They tuned students into early releases, admissions visitors, and upcoming sports games. A mundane task, Parham hatched the idea of incorporating fun memes, photos, and quotes into the Blue Sheet to make the early-morning memo more exciting. In the beginning, the changes were subtle, but nonetheless thoroughly appreciated. Her signatures included “Motivational Monday” and “Fun Friday.”

This year, Parham stepped up her game, religiously adding daily trivia activities, riddles and memes to every Blue Sheet—in accordance with a bi-weekly schedule. Microscopic Mondays, Throwback Thursdays, Wordplay Wednesdays, Flashback Fridays: the list goes on.

“I wanted to make it more lively and put in different things. Last year, I put in memes and some trivia. This year, I kind of just do trivia the whole entire week,” Parham said. “It’s fun for both the teachers and the students.”

Many trivia items are pulled from the internet, yet the rest are crafted by Parham herself. Movie Monday, for instance, involves Parham seamlessly photoshopping actors’ bodies out of their respective movie scenes, resulting in a ghost-like image of bodiless clothing (advisories attempt to guess the movie). On Throwback Thursdays, advisories view a teacher’s childhood photograph to discern who it is.

Unlike last year, this year’s Blue Sheet trivia is highly competitive, thanks to Parham’s new structure. Every morning, the first advisory to correctly answer the riddle, question or puzzle gets one point closer to winning the monthly grand prize, awarded to the advisory with most wins overall. Winning advisories also receive a shoutout sent with the day’s Blue Sheet.

“There are a lot of people that are competitive,” Parham said. “I’ll usually get responses from both the Middle School and Upper School—about 15-20 responses [each day].” Since the victory hinges on speed, many advisories prioritize solving the trivia over everything else—an ideal way to rouse hearts and minds.

Parham isn’t creating the trivia solely for fun; it also serves a purpose: “Since I made it a competition, a lot of people do read through the Blue Sheets and then do the trivia, so I think the information is getting to people because they’re motivated to get to the end,” she explained.

Above everything else, Parham sees Blue Sheet trivia as a way to brighten students’ days. “I think a little happiness is needed every single day,” she said. “I like to make things fun, and that’s also who I am.”