I hate numbers. I absolutely despise figures and statistics and averages. I loathe composites and scores and ratios. I cannot stand them in the least.
I have spent the last four years of my life pouring over charts and data and guides, constantly nit-picking my performances and comparing them to everyone else’s.
I effectively became a robot, possessed by the incessant task of constantly one-upping myself and my efforts; they were never good enough.
Since we’re discussing numbers, here are a few: I have been a high school student for 1,374 days. I have accumulated approximately 3000 hours, the equivalent of 125 consecutive days, of homework, and this estimate lies on the low end of the spectrum.
I will have taken 7 AP exams, 2 SAT tests, and 1 ACT test by the time I say goodbye to Casa Grande. I have a GPA of 3.93, ranking 32 in a class of 343, and have taken 235 class credits.
Now, you can begin to understand why I scorn numbers of all shapes and sizes.
They quickly infiltrate every pore of your being and one cannot help but succumb to the growing mountain of information; I’ve learned to spew, on command, every meaningful digit I’ve ever seen. AP scores? Look just beyond my ACT reading score. SAT performances? Sure, they’re beneath the non-weighted grade point average for grades 10-12.
As the amount of time I have left at Casa Grande begins to dwindle into nonexistence, I am forced to reflect on the past 1300-something days.
During this time, I have learned a great deal of new material, ranging from computer literacy to modern physics; I have written hundreds of essays, analyzing poems and stories repeatedly; I have completed dozens of tests, spending many nights cramming last minute, often to no avail.
And the most valuable lesson I’ll ever take from my time spent within these classroom walls has absolutely nothing to do with numbers.
It lies in the nexus of experiences and mistakes and love and sorrow: the epitome of the high school experience.
While my academic perspective has certainly grown and morphed, it is my social and emotional connections formed with countless wondrous individuals that will continue to impact my future proceedings.
In approximately 95 days, I will be arriving on campus at Yale University, to begin my college experience for the next 4 years.
I will fly my clothing, school supplies, and personal belongings a span of 3,000 miles to a town I have seen only once; and, I will remember the invaluable teachings I have gathered from teachers and students like.
And, at long last, I will be able to forget all of those numbers, that continuous fountain of nonsense and logic that triumphed over my life: I will be human once again.