Chronicles of CSAP- 4
4. Victory dance
I had thought this joyous day would never come. Indeed, I had feared this was but a dream and I would be faced with more horrors. But no. The horrors are forever finished. Yes, I do indeed speak the whole truth. CSAP is FINISHED! Forever! Unless I fail this year (something I do not intend to do, for obvious reasons) I will never have to sit through the horror known as CSAP again.
But before I can erase all memory of the evil that is testing, I feel it my duty to chronicle the events on this, the last day of testing ever. As I said yesterday, we took more reading and writing today. It was, in a word, dull. Thankfully, I am good enough at reading and writing that I didn't work long enough on the tests to get the "testing reality check," but that didn't change the pain. I am absolutely certain that no sane person enjoys writing essays, and certainly not when they are given three unbearable topics:
Write one way students could improve the community.
Write a letter to the principle of your school talking about a problem and how to fix it.
Write about something you are good at and explain why you like it and what you will do with it.
It was sad. None of these three topics stimulate and creativity on my part, though I did try. I promise I did! The first topic, I answered by telling of the joys of ice cream. (And it was quite possibly the most unbelievably sappy and naive paragraph I have ever written. "Teens and children will come together in groups, united by their common love of the icy delight." I wince even to type that.) The other two were much less sappy and far more boring. I won't bore you with the details, saying only that I lied through my teeth for the letter and went around in circles for the third. I'm good at that.
My main problem with the reading portions of the test is that I finish them too quickly. They give us an hour to complete each test, yet I finish them within the first twenty minutes. It isn't my fault! I enjoy reading, and I am good at it, so it goes quickly. Add on an innate sense of which sentences make sense and which don't, as well as good grammar, capitalization, and punctuation, (though, admittedly, my spelling leaves rather a lot to be desired) and you have a test that is both pathetically easy and remarkably dull. And, when you then have to listen to your classmates moaning and groaning about how they don't want to read two pages, it's even worse. Is it my fault that I want to kill them all? Wouldn't you want to, if you were in my place? (That's rhetorical, by the way.)
Because I finished each test so quickly, I had a good chunk of time each session to dive into Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. Baring the fact that I don't understand half of what the characters are saying, it's a good book, and I don't see what my parents have against it. Admittedly, the story is odd, and nothing much appears to be happening, but that can be overlooked. Add on also that he has a tendency to write about super-genius mathematicians who all understand math and computer jargon that makes as much sense to me as hieroglyphics would to my brother, and you might have a few issues. But, it is still a good book. I like Heinlein. Sure, he might not be my favorite, nor is he light reading yet (though once I've read them all a few times, I suspect he will be), but he's fun. If you want to escape from the dreariness of the classroom, then where better than to alternate dimensions and outer space? Not to mention that Zeb's car is possibly the most fun of all the characters, and she features prominently. I'm all for machines-lib, and it's one of the things I like in the very little sci-fi I read.
But I'm rambling. I'm supposed to be telling you about CSAP, not Heinlein. Though, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I appear to have exhausted the topic. There isn't much to say about it that hasn't been said. And so, I think I shall leave you with what I have. Hope you enjoyed hearing about my experience. If I'm in the mood next year, you might just get the Ages of ACT. Joy for you.
so long, farewell, I hate to say goodbye,
--me
Thank you for reading these.