Oh, high school

So I've been harking back to the Days of Yore recently and rehashing high school with certain people. High school? Yes, the period of my life during which I ate HoHo's for breakfast, sat by the garbage can and played guitar before school in the morning, and wrote a song to "Ozymandius" to get an A in English. This was also the time in my life when I wore a blue and BRIGHT ORANGE track suit to school as an outfit because I am cool like that, I discovered The Indigo Girls while being driven home by Lisa one afternoon, I was "the universe" for Halloween, and I left orchestra to go to the bathroom every single day at the exact same time.

It was a glorious period, clearly.

And in high school we took the PSATs. Oh, standardized tests... you're more terrifying than walking through the Commons. Standardized tests... I will never conquer you. I will never be an amazing test taker, I will never put enough effort into tests, I will never... Oh yeah! I'm done with school! I don't have to do that ever again!

I believe I have tried to erase the memories of these pre-college tests. Let' see... for the SAT the most I remember was driving all the way to Battle Creek at the buttcrack o' dawn for it (thanks, Dad!) and seeing Courtney Minifee there (what up, Courtney! Kindergarten to tests for college!). For the ACT I remember breezing through the English parts and getting to the science section and very seriously considering just leaving it blank. I mean, I know what a tree is, I know the words "nucleus" and "inertia" but don't ask me to put them in context! Science? Not my thing.

I don't really remember the PSAT whatsoever. Ooh, I remember filling in the bubbles of my name ("ok, emily, don't forget that in your full name there are two y's and those are the white bubbles... make sure you have two white bubbles at the end!) and the date and John Hancock-ing the sheet. I remember answering a few questions like "Do you like to organize your things?" and "When you ask a question to a group do you feel confident you will get an answer?" and stupid things like that. I remember thinking the PSAT was stupid. A test to see what I'm supposed to do with my life? How the crap are bubbles A through D going to pick that for me? Who's the oracle behind my scantron?

So I took my hour and a half, dutifully filled in each bubble to the best of my ability and a few weeks later we got our results. I felt a little nervous and a little giddy as I flipped to the page with my future job.

Ladies and gentlemen, what was I, Emily oohIhopeIcanbeasingersongwriterbutifnotiwouldlovetoownmyownbusiness Findley, going to be in life?

A meatpacker.

A meatpacker.

A meatpacker.

So I think part of the reason that I live in France right now is to prove that dang PSAT wrong and go and speak the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of French and eat the animal products, not stand among them.