Phew! Busy week’s over

Last week was the single busiest week of my high school career thus far.

I'll start with Sunday. Sunday was the final perfor- mance of this year's TVAC variety show, 'The Good, The Bad, and Everyone Else.' I was in that production.

I hurried to the dressing room half an hour before the show started, shucked off my street clothes and threw on a full-body leotard, a green shirt, a leather belt, a pair of canvas boots and a boyish wig. A few swipes of earth- tone makeup later, I was Peter Pan.

Over the course of two hours, I dashed in and out of the dressing room. After a relatively successful rendi- tion of "I Won't Grow Up," I changed into jeans and a plaid shirt to play a few bluegrass tunes, then into a pistachio-green pea coat for "Seasons of Love."

I swapped the pea coat and jeans for a go-go dress and pink tights to dance in "You Can't Stop The Beat," finally changing back into my bluegrass clothes for my last set.

As fate would have it, I wasn't done performing quite yet. Because the next day, I got up bright and early and traveled to Colfax for an Honor Band rehearsal.

It was a long day. Be- tween practicing three diffi- cult pieces of music, I silently cursed John Phillip Sousa and those obnoxiously high flute trills of his. But the rather intense hours of practice ultimately culminated in a successful performance. I went to bed at 11:00 that night, exhausted but satisfied with my day's work.

Going to regular classes would have been a big shock on Tuesday, but the sopho- mores didn't go to regular classes that day. Instead, we took the HSPE, our state's standardized test. Failure to pass means failure to gradu- ate, although students do get three years - and thus three chances - to successfully meet standards.

I spent most of Tuesday writing an expository essay. (I'm not sure if I'm legally allowed to tell you what the prompt was, but let's just say that I would very much like to have a long talk with Mr. Randy Dorn. Focusing on that prompt was the single most mind-numbing way I've ever blown five hours of my life.)

On Wednesday, we wrote persuasive essays. This time the prompt was somewhat in- teresting. Regardless, it took me nearly the whole school day to finish up.

That night, I rode into Walla Walla. My mother dropped me off at DeSales High School. Along with eleven other students from my school, I was inducted into the National Honor Society.

On Thursday, our class took the reading portion of the HSPE. It didn't take too long, but it was by far the hardest part of the test.

When I came home Thurs- day night, my brain was exhausted. I could barely think, which was a problem because I have Knowledge Bowl practice on Friday mornings. So on Friday morning, I dragged myself out of bed and down to prac- tice. Then I shuffled between classes, picking up the homework I'd missed on Monday.

But I didn't finish that homework that night. In- stead, I put it off until Sat- urday, when I worked on geometry problems in the car on a trip into the Tri-Cities.

After all, I reasoned, my brain deserved a little break.