Junior Year in Review, Part I: The Final Day
So today was my last day as a Junior in high school. I'm ecstatic that it's over. Now it's time to get back to music, art, video games, astronomy, and whatever else I had been planning to do before all this homework.
As usual, I have summer assignments:
- Two books to read (English)
- A report to type on lab procedures and then some problems to work out (Chemistry)
- Eight large pictures to paint or draw (Art)
Yesterday was the last exam day, and I didn't actually have to go to school because I didn't have any exams left. I went anyway, for reasons not entirely clear to myself. By the end of the day, I was glad that I had attended, since I ran into people who (as I only realized once I talked to them) weren't coming today. So, I had a chance to say proper goodbyes and everything, which was nice. Saying my goodbyes was probably the most important part of these past two days.
Yeah, I know, even though I'll be e-mailing lots of these people all summer and seeing them again in the autumn, parting words are still a nice formality to observe.
I decided today that my farewell to my retiring French teacher would not be an Elvisfish1 drawn on his markerboard. I got really close to it, though. I was about to pick up the marker when I realized that I wouldn't have a chance to see his response. So instead I found his desk in the department office, and we chatted aimlessly for a few minutes.
Footnotes
- The Elvisfish is something of an inside joke. April Fools' is known as "Poisson d'avril" to the French. So every year, for this event, this teacher passes around little slips of paper with drawings of fish for us to slip into unsuspecting classmates' bags and stuff. Two years ago, I came up with the idea for Elvisfish while doodling on the back of one of these slips of paper, and I started giving drawings to some of my friends who were taking French. Last year, when this teacher left the room to get something at the beginning of class, I ran up to the markerboard, drew a huge Elvisfish (in green), and returned to my seat. He noticed a few minutes after he returned, and even though nobody told him, he clearly knew who had done it.