One Week Later

It has been seven days since I received my rejection letters. I seem to be holding up okay, or at least as well as I expected. The fact is, I haven't been able to worry too much about college-related things recently because I am faced with a serious threat to my graduation from high school, and in my mind closer deadline = more important.
So what is this threat to my graduation? It's not grades, citizenship, attendance, unpaid fees or anything else that would normally put someone in this position.

It's online classes.
I know, not very interesting. But unfortunately in order to take the electives I wanted (and which would bolster an application to, say, an Ivy League school, but you know how that turned out), I have had to take multiple classes online throughout high school. Most of them I finished with no problems, but those aforesaid applications consumed enough time that I neglected them this year, and now I must have them finished by April 15 in order to graduate. I at least feel that I have company in this because incidentally, millions of people fear this day, albeit for entirely different reasons.

So here I am, slogging through the last two quarters of Health and Fitness For Life, both of which seem to be unapologetic reruns of classes I had to take in junior high. For something so boring, they sure seem to be able to pack in a disproportionate amount of busywork. Honestly, an entire unit on fat? Really?

Next week I will be able to say whether or not I actually finished (I will finish, it just won't be fun), but to distract myself momentarily I prepared a list of the top ten most interesting things I did in the week following my rejection. This is what I did:

1. Started writing my second book (I'm taking a temporary break from editing the first)
2. Got the class high score on a test in AP Stats (I'm proud of this one because I'm in a class with That One Guy who wrecks the curve)
3. Visited my grandparents for my granddad's birthday (always nice)
4. Built an awesome blanket fort (no really, this entails lashing PVC frames together with rope. I'll do a post on it later to prove it.)
5. Got an extra hour of sleep on Saturday because I no longer have to get up early for swim practice
6. Lost that hour when I had to stay up late doing AP Government homework on Monday
7. Found myself tangled in a huge housing mess with my mid-range school (things are looking better, I'll probably also talk about this later)
8. Wore my Harvard t-shirt on April Fool's day (the day after admissions decisions--people fell for it, too)
9. Successfully got a 16-bit computer game from 1999 running in Windows 8.1 on the new computer (you do not understand how much work it took to save Lego Rock Raiders.)
10. Watched the Rogue One trailer at least eleven times within two hours of it coming out.

If this list doesn't prove how much of a nerd I am, nothing will. But it is my sincere hope that this will demonstrate that getting rejected isn't the end of the world, and maybe motivate a fellow Reject to find ways to see the bright side while I'm at it.

Hic Manebimus Optime!