My Twenty-Fourth Week as a Senior

The last week of school before the March Break was quite an interesting one. We weren’t sure how COVID-19 was going to affect our senior year and whether we were going to have another strike before the break or not. Regardless, it was the most eventful one this semester.

On Monday, I came to school a little early to work on my Writer’s Craft short story presentation before class started. In Calculus, we did more questions about optimization in Science and Economics. They’re pretty basic questions about minimizing cost of production or maximizing the volume of a box or minimizing the distance to me travelled between two points. During my spare, I finished my math homework and worked on the presentation. At lunch, my partner and I ran through the presentation one last time. In Writer’s Craft, our presentation on the ‘A Basket of Apples’ by Shirley Faessler was first. It was pretty nerve-wracking, but we got through it. Hopefully, I get a good mark on it. In English, we watched some more presentations before getting to work on our essay assignment. The essay was an informal one, about a belief we have. We had to present three sub thesis and two arguments for each sub thesis. I wrote about my belief that doing things for the sake of the experience makes them more enjoyable. I gave the examples of running for elections and entering competitions.

Tuesdays are still not officially late starts, but I love my spare period because I got to come late. In Calculus, we did a review for the Chapter 3 test. At lunch, I helped sell tickets for the UCC Luncheon. How it works: each UCC team brings in food from the country they represent and sell it for a certain amount of tickets. Each ticket is 50 cents each, and a good meal is 15 to 20 tickets. We sold a lot. In English, we had our first Writing Crash Course session. She gave us a lesson on using appositives, adjectives out of order, vivid verbs etc. She wanted us to use a little of what she taught us, in the crash course sessions, in our essay. In Writer’s Craft, we continued having presentations. It was fun because I got to sit and control the slides. I’m still a 7-year-old at heart and I like to control the computer for someone’s presentation.

Wednesday was the day of the UCC Luncheon! I was excused from class for three periods out of four. During the first period, which would have been Calculus, I changed into my ethnic outfit, a green lehenga for anyone curious about it, and helped set up the photobooth. During the second period, we went around to all classes and sold more tickets. At the Luncheon, I walked around and took photos of the teams selling their delicacies. We took a lot of pictures of ourselves, as well. Since I was excused from my third-period class, I decided to spend it in the library. My feet were aching from walking in my stilettos, so I got a chance to relax for a while before heading to my English class. We listened to the final presentation and then moved on to our second writing lesson, which was about conjunctions and adverbs and using a semicolon properly. I took a nap after school because of how exhausted I was.

Thursday was a shortened day with shorter classes because of the Parent-Teacher interviews in the evening. In Calculus, we had a test for Chapter 3. I dreaded it because of how unprepared I felt. I had only missed one class, but this chapter was harder than the previous ones. Since the class was shorter, our teacher gave us about 3/4th of the test. The rest would be completed in the next class. At lunch, we had a SAC meeting to discuss some upcoming events. In English, we did the third and last part of the Writing Crash Course. It was a lesson on Commonly Confused Words. She gave us definitions of the words and examples of them in a sentence. It was a slideshow on Google Classroom for us to finish on our own, so I completed my booklet in about 15 minutes and spent the rest of the class working on my essay. In Writer’s Craft, we had some presentations, but I left a little early. In the evening, before I left for the meetings, TDSB announced a two-week extension of the March Break. So, schools are out for 3 weeks. This really had to happen in my senior year. At the interviews, my teachers were worried about how they would cover the semester’s work in such a short time. Besides that, they only had good things to say. After I came home, I finished my English essay and studied a little for the Math test.

Friday was the last day of school before the 3-week long March Break. In Calculus, we spent the first 40 minutes doing 4.2, which was basically more graph sketching. Then we did the last part of our test. I got stuck on the last question and spent 10 minutes overthinking what the answer could be. The answer was probably the simplest one on the test. I spent my spare giving my essay for English some final touches. I printed it out and at lunch, I highlighted all the devices and writing techniques I used. In Writer’s Craft, our teacher gave us a huge package of assignments to complete over the extended break. In all honesty, I love nothing more than a package full of instructions and information. I may be the Amy Santiago of my life. In English, we submitted our essays and spent the rest of the period watching Hercules and playing board games. I played Guess Who and Checkers with my friend. The only homework I have from English is to read my ISU.

I’m writing this about a week after schools closed and there’s a lot of tension about what’s going to happen to the school year. Some sources say we’re not going back to school on April 6th, while others say nothing has been decided yet. Either way, I won’t really be having any in-school time for a while. I’m not sure what will happen to my weekly recounts but if you want, I can post about what I do during the break. I would love to hear what you have to say. You can email me at rueshi25@gmail.com, DM me on Instagram (@studywithaarushi) or comment under this post. I hope you are staying healthy and safe in your homes. Have a wonderful week. -Aarushi