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Summer vacation!

That’s it! The 2004-2005 school year is over. O-V-E-R.

Yesterday my exams were pretty hard. In world history, I had to answer some pretty deep questions, like “What has been man’s greatest achievement?” (World trade, I said, for allowing the exchange of information and ideas) and “What has been man’s worst failure?” (I said the Second World War, for bankrupting Britain and weakening France, encouraging those countries and other colonial powers to decolonize too rapidly and carelessly [after which former colonies became today's third world countries {this had been a recurring theme in our lessons}], and also for kicking off the Cold War.) And other stuff which I now forget.

The Spanish exam was kind of hard because I didn’t know some of the words. It was written by the county; go figure. I’m sure if the teacher wrote her own exam I would have aced it.

I took the next two exams today. Algebra II was a very hard exam. Once again, there were things we did not learn on the test. I’m talking specifically of a probability-related question. Sure, it was easy, but that’s not the point! Much of the exam was hard, anyway. I worked until the bell, by which time I had gotten to the end of the test, but only after skipping several answers. I had to Christmas-tree them. There were maybe four or five (out of 80 questions). I’ll never know the exact grade I will have gotten on that test; exam grades are stored as a letter, which could signify a number anywhere in the range of 10 percentage points. Using my handy “Assume-the-worst-and-you’ll-never-be-disappointed” method, I’ve calculated that I’ll probably get C, or, if I’m lucky, a B.

Finally, in English, I had to write an essay, have it proofread by other students, and rewrite it. Easy.

And that was it! We counted down the last ten seconds until the final bell of the year (courtesy of my friend Gilbert, who keeps his watch synchronized with the bells). There was much mirth in the halls, papers strewn about, the usual stereotypical business. And, just like that, my sophomore year is over.

Continuing a sort of tradition from last year, I have a few things to say. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the friends of mine who don’t go to my school — Alex, Kevin, and Sean — for being my friends in spite of it all. Next, I’d like to thank my friends who do go to my school: Andrew, Autumn, Billy, Bryan, Caitlin, Danny, Donald, Evan, Gilbert, James (whom I recently met again after several years), Jeff D., Katherine, Kim, Lauren, Mandi, Mark, Michelle, Mike, Nick, Omar, Paolo, Sabrina, Sacha, and Yamilee. Finally, I want to thank the new friends I’ve made: Anthony, Amanda, David, Euridice, Heidi, Ipek, Jeff C., Jennifer, Joe, Justin, Kristen, Nicole, Ryan, T.J., and Tanya.

(Note: for those last two lists, I stretch the definition of “friend” very tight. To me a friend is someone who’ve I’ve socialized with roughly about more than onceish. After all, you’ve got to be great to carry on a conversation with me for more than four seconds. If I forgot you on any of these lists, then oops. My subconscious must be trying to tell me something.)

As for my summer plans, this month I plan to go to Islands of Adventure (more on that later), and later in the month, I’m going to the Keys for a week. That will be the extent of my summer traveling.