I stalk the halls early in the morning, waiting grudgingly for the day to just get a move on,

Glancing once or twice at the couch that used to lean against the wall,

Remembering back to freshman year, where my confidante and I half-jokingly knew it as the Couch of Invisibility,

Our faithful guardian, obscuring us from the view of the masses walking past, still drowsy from sleep, as we all were.

I don’t miss the couch particularly, even though I can almost feel it beckon to me sometimes,

It served its purpose well, but there is no more need for such a shield.

Besides, I just realized I was late for class.

First period Science.

I plug numbers into physics equations, pausing only to think when it becomes absolutely necessary, for fear I might lose valuable time.

Chinese is consumed of endless frustration.

To have the knowledge is one thing, to articulate it in a foreign language consists of occasional drawling and strangely elongated pauses between phrases, while you wonder desperately how idiotic you sound, on a scale of one to ten.

In third period, a point I make is attributed immediately to the student next to me within a matter of minutes, because, with her blond hair and blue eyes, we are indivisible from each other in a class of fifteen.

My hair and eyes are brown, and my skin olive.

At lunch, the committee, nay, the recruiters, get to their work.

Like vultures and door-to-door salesmen, they alight near those who they have suspected of denying conscription to that event known as “Prom”

I fall under that category, and am assailed and told to buy a ticket, not by just one, but two of the upperclassmen,

I admire their dedication and their work to promote this cause, but I have things to do this lunch, and after about three days of persuasion, I’m wary I may just give in, despite my self-agreement to avoid prom like the plague.
......

Some call High School their “glory days” and look back on the four-year-long event with a sigh suggesting that time has gone by irresponsibly fast,

Others vilify it with horror stories of misanthropy and loneliness.

I cannot sympathize with either, because for me, this place and these four years of my life will not be a tragedy. Nor will they be my Eden.

Don’t misunderstand me. When my sister comes to high school next year, I will tell her my idea of this place’s nature.

That of a battleground.

Form alliances. Make your wit, morals, and whatever skills you may have your weapons in times of conflict. But remember, a strong defense is the best offense.

My battle goes on. In another year I will attempt to engage in combat with the many-headed beast known as IB.

In time, I will know it, like many others before me, as a sort of victory, and an almost-passage into so-called adulthood.

If I have been wasting time with this, forgive me,

But if anyone has agreed with anything I have said,

One last message to you:

It’s all of us against the world.

We attack at dawn.