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11th Grade: Making it official

I wish I could wonder how we got here. But I seem to know exactly how, by one step after the other, on and on and on…..


And there’s no whirr of excitement this year, no new books or classmates or teachers for real. Not when they’re talking icons on the screen.

I don’t mean to complain, just acknowledge the myriad ways in which we’ve tackled the situation in such an unprecedented time.

Last year, just when the academic year had begun, I’d written a blog post called ‘On the Annual Whirr of Excitement.’

But nobody could’ve predicted that this year, there would be no whirr, no after-exam celebrations, no farewells, no new-school first days on campus. Not when we all barely managed to lock ourselves in our houses in the nick of time.

And that out electronic devices will be our saviors.

But! I just felt the slightest whirr and on came the need to acknowledge it.

As I was giving away my 10th grade books and making space on my shelves which are to be filled with the books for the new academic year, I: 

1.  Felt great relief knowing I won’t have to go through the study guides for certain subjects for the umpteenth time because in the course of one year, they’d managed to make me sick of them. 

Here's some of them: 

The Gruesome Study Guides

The Other Books (I called them that because our textbooks were terrible in terms of content explanation)

2.  Played a fine game of dominos with the math notebooks I’d managed to fill throughout the course of last year. 


3.   Realised that now, since I’ve changed schools, my notebooks won’t be the embarrassing red ones anymore. (yes I used to find them a little embarrassing)

And some of my former classmates might actually be thinking: ‘Mahek, what the hell? 11th grade has been very real for us!’

And I agree. I have had enough conversations with my friends about 11th grade academics and its rigor to not disagree. But for me, a week and a half of school followed by a month long summer vacation, that was the provisional period.

Now is when it gets official. Officially.

And I'm ready to plunge in.

Let's go!

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