A Bell-Shaped Curve

Up from bed, down the stairs. Bread goes in, toast comes out. Put soap on, wash soap off. All that is in my mind is the quiz that will be returned today in school. With nothing to look forward to, life is bland.

The moments leading up to the returning of the quiz are tasteless as well. Open my locker, close my locker. Stand up, sit down. Unzip pencil case, zip pencil case. Grab the returned quiz, release the returned quiz. Close my eyes, open my eyes.

But our moods are subject to change at all times. My countenance is suddenly altered by the perfect 20/20 score like a calm-blue sea is creatively sculpted by unexpected gusts of wind. While I blithely read over the successful quiz that was just returned, I sponge the sanguine checks-marks off of the bone-white page that seemed so ice-cold the day before, letting that good feeling permeate through me. My backpack is hollow like a gourd as I effortlessly hoist it onto my back, and the tumultuous, chaotic crowd of subbies outside the classroom seem to lift me like an air flow gives a paper airplane one final boost. I am soaring above everyone; soft, down feathers supporting the rigid exterior feathers, my hawk-vision piercing every piece of prey that averts its beady eyes from me. Each bounding step that I take clears me even further from the cloud cover that tries so doggedly to hold me down. Pristine oxygen floods my lungs and my mind is purged of all its fatigue. Gone is the familiar drowsiness that affects everyone. Everyone but me.

Just like a cross-country runner that starts the race too fast, I lose my adrenaline and "runner's high" after I settle into the race. I stop noticing the surroundings that I had been paying close attention to during my euphoria. Things go back to normal as I trudge through the rest of my school day. A single question lingers in the back of my mind: What defines me if simple events influence me like so?

Escaping the daily grind

"Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"-Ferris Bueller. 

I have never watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off; this quote from the movie was written in blue, high up on the wall of the student lounge. As the last precious minutes of my free period were trickling away and the next class becoming a reality, this piece of advice really sunk in. I realized that my school year so far has been too similar to the free period that just flashed by; it never occurred to me to lift my head from what I was doing and glance around at my surroundings. If I had studied for another two minutes till the bell rang, my eyes would not have set on this revelatory message. With a sinking feeling I was suddenly cognizant of my high school career coming to a close, with just under two years left before college. Time was like my schedule today, moving at a relentless speed and waiting for no one.

I have been living in the dark for so long, literally. With cross-country this fall, I have been waking up and going to bed well after the sun has risen and set. On the days that the sun lights the road instead of the headlights, I am clutching the steering wheel of my Dad's old Honda Civic with my three-month-old driver's permit under my seat, trying to drive as smoothly as possible.  In class, staring out the window is a one way ticket to daydream-land, so I refrain from doing that. This lifestyle doesn't give me much time to "stop and look around once in a while". 

My saving grace came in the form of a headache. One morning, after puking my guts out the night before because of a cross-country race, I was in no shape to drive to school. While sitting in the passenger seat of the Civic, I groggily stared up at the sky, and realized that I hadn't done so in a long time. Dark, sinister clouds blotched the sky to my left, while some peculiar, elongated clouds to my right contrasted beautifully with the light blue sky. It was like a free art gallery, just above my head, that cycled through its art pieces at a rapid pace. This work of art was crystal clear with no blurred colors around the edges, illuminated with perfect lighting, and I had it all to myself. At that moment I was thankful for the short break from the monotony of life. All is well.