in a half asleep stupor… cont’d

continued from previous entry

By the way… I’m an elitist. I know you already are quite aware of that fact, but goodness. Most of the people that went on this trip were from the regular physics classes. You know what? I haven’t had a regular class in the past two years, and I honestly forgot how much I can’t stand the regular kids! They’re loud, obnoxious, immature, rather scary, etc… It’s interesting that I finally had that view for my last day. It was hard for me to believe that half of them were in physics… even harder for me to imagine them in college. Not that going to college was a requirement for physics day. Just a thought.

By the way – good news! Thursday during Calculus Jessie and I were called down to Joanie’s office (unit principle), as were Chris and Sloan. The latter two weren’t down at the same time as Jessie and I, however, due to a test. Auf jedem Fall, we were informed that at graduation, the four of us would be leading the class into the center where graduation will be held. We will then stand on stage until every single person in our graduating class takes a seat, and will then find our seats accordingly. How awesome is that? Because our school’s too anti-biased to actually name a valedictorian and a salutatorian, they’re going to have the four top students in the class do that instead. Naturally –sarcasm- they can’t say anything or make an announcement as to why we’re leading the class in and standing on stage, but we’ll know, our parents will know, and the students will figure it out. I’m genuinely excited and proud… this is what I’ve wanted since elementary school. I’ve wanted to look out at over 700 people and know that I’m at the top… I’m one of the best.

I know it doesn’t matter to a lot of people. I know that to some people it shouldn’t matter to me and it will just be shrugged off. I know that a lot of people don’t think class rank matters at all (and in fact, it doesn’t matter a heck of a lot). But it matters to me. It has always mattered to me, because I had a dream when I was in elementary school. I couldn’t tell you what grade, but it was before sixth grade. At sixth grade graduation, I was crushed not to be valedictorian or salutatorian; I barely even got some of the departmental awards for the two top kids in each of three classes for certain subjects. I felt like if I couldn’t be at the top then, I’d never make it in high school, but I wanted to. When I found out that I was 9th in the class after sophomore year, I felt like that was pretty good, but it was even more of a signal to me that I’d never be number one. But then over the course of my junior year, I made it to 4th. Yeah, it’s not number one, but apparently after the four of us there’s a huge jump in points to the person below me. And it is the four of us that get to be recognized. And 4 out of 730 some is not bad. I feel like I’ve attained a life-long goal… I feel like maybe it wasn’t a waste… I feel like even if I didn’t end up going to some ivy league somewhere, I still did what I wanted. And despite those people who will shrug me off, I know I will be proud of this for the rest of my life. I was always proud of my mom for be co-valedictorian of her class…