People keep asking me if I'm excited about high school. I keep telling them, honestly and blatantly, "No." Somehow they fail to believe me. Really, I understand that some people have been waiting for high school their entire adolescent lives. I'm not one of them. It's rather difficult for me to get excited about it when it's the same cramped building, the same smelly SEPTA bus, and the same people. (Not that I don't love you guys.) I've been more excited when I go to the library. At least there they don't make you read Steinbeck.
     I've finally completed my summer assignments. I did my 119-question math packet early in the summer, although it was laughably easy. I read a book about rural Indian farmers. I wrote an essay about that. I read a book about migrant workers, one of whom kills the other. (Sorry for the spoiler.) Armed with a dictionary, I read a French book of fairy tales that we know already (with the exception of a few creepy and bizarre ones. While struggling through the most memorable of these, I had to look up 'disparu,' 'sang,' and "Pourquoi y a-t-il du sang sur cette clé?"). Ninth grade will most likely be quite similar to eighth grade, which everyone said was easier and more relaxed than seventh grade. (They lied.) Eighth, in turn, was much like seventh, with the exception of the Required Thesis Paper which Everyone Had To Do or you Can't Pass Eighth Grade. (I did mine on Fannie Lou Hamer and the MFDP.) Everyone was glad when it was over. The research paper, that is; not eighth grade. Anyway, school is school is school. I see no reason to be more excited about ninth grade than any other grade. I know some of you will probably disagree with me on this, to put it mildly, but (to borrow a phrase from a favorite book), that's the way the cookie gets completely stomped on and obliterated.