Senior Reflection #2 - Looking Back (With strained eyes)

I was deceived. Senior year not only failed to be the liberating and relaxed year I had been so consistently promised, but it probably topped Junior year for levels of raw stress, though I'm mostly to blame for that. In an effort to uphold the pretension I've always worked to define myself by, I made the rash decision to enroll straight into AP Computer Science without any previous experience whatsoever, drawing leverage from my long history with the robotics team. But wait, I'm an animator on the robotics team, so yeah, dead in the water. While comp sci has been relatively easy to maintain grades in due to the content-focused tests that could often be conquered with last-minute memorization, it's easily been the most frustrating class of my high school career. I've never been used to things not instantaneously clicking, and there wasn't a single spark for quite some time. On top of that, I somehow rationalized AP Physics despite 85% of my previous year with Ms. Fantino being spent playing hangman tournaments. Again, it wasn't particularly difficult to do well in the class, but to fully understand concepts such as rotational inertia that I had never been exposed to was rather frustrating. Stress in economics came from the inevitability of the AP exam, given 40% of our class was taught through such economic examples as Bud Light commercials. Thank goodness I always had orchestra, I suppose.

Taking six APs certainly had its benefits, however, including an inconceivably bloated GPA that always makes me feel as though I'm lying, and the hope that I'll be jumping straight into Calculus 3 next year. And would you look at that, Hopkins doesn't have a core curriculum, so 70% of my AP credit is absolutely useless. At least we're not paying for it anymore. Looking back, I'd have to say the downsides defintiely triumph in this situation, as one less AP probably wouldn't have devalued my application a considerable amount. But then there's the fact that I can walk down the halls thinking about how many APs I'm taking, and that superiority complex kicks right back in and makes everything alright. This is unnecessarily depressing. I grew a beard this year, and it appears to be spreading. Definitely my most notable achievement. And summer should be freeing and lucrative, if Petsmart ever emails me back. If not, it's another two months of mint chocolate chip klondike bars and Netflix. Adventure awaits!