Back to School

Well, after a week of parties, movies, and lounging about, it's time to go back to school!

I'm still going to be schlepping back to Stalag 14 to work with my Teacher's Assistant class. They have their final this Thursday and it is my civic duty to help prepare them for the vocab part of it. I don't mind at all, actually. Call me crazy, but I love those little freshmen. I am constantly making jokes about it. I say, "Be careful or I'll send my army of freshmen to annihilate you." I then lovingly add: "If everyone had a freshman friend, the world would be a better place."

And it's true; this year's freshmen are completely rad. They are also chill, and H-I-larious. Seriously, they're the best!



On a slightly darker note, I've been waiting to burst into tears all week. I've been waiting for the release that comes from working and working and working to get to a point that seemed to be perpetually far away, and getting there and not realizing it quite yet. Maybe it will dawn on me when I get to school tomorrow (technically today, I guess). It's just... I've never felt like a part of my grade. I've always felt like the odd one out, the third wheel of the whole grade. Everyone else seems to have found their place but me. I had a place in my old grade, a place I liked, and notch that I fit into perfectly. Snug next to the friends I made in middle school, I thought nothing could hurt me. And I was right. Because trust me, the next closest thing to the Spanish Inquisition in the lack of expectation dept. is a tiny little spirochete. I didn't know what hit me.

I really should try to stop dwelling on what's happened. It should be easy now that I'm finally out of school and so close to college, but I'm just wondering when the release is going to happen. Thinking about it makes me sad, and not just sad, but perplexed. It's like I've finally realized what hell it has been. It's like when your drowning in the ocean, you don't stop to think, "Holy shit, I'm drowning", you swimswimswimswimswim until finally you drag yourself on shore, cough the last bit of water out of your lungs and then it hits you: "Holy shit. I almost drowned." And that's what it's like for me right now. I really am having trouble fathoming (pun) what I've been through. Ask Mr. Hill: I've been writing about it for years, trying to puzzle it all out, but to no avail. And now that I've made it, pulled myself up on the metaphorical dock/shore, I'm waiting for the realization to hit me:

Holy shit. I just survived the fight of my life.