Saturday, July 02, 2005
Hmm. The results are here.
Greetings my highly neglected blog! Today is Friday the 1st of July 3:45
PM ( just got up an hour ago ) and it has already been a week since I
discovered the harrowing results of my BAC on Monday. And I'm using
words like "harrowing" for a completely unrelated reason which I will go
into later. Ah yes, the night before the results of the BAC where
supposed to be released I packed my bags for MK camp ( "Mortal Kombat"
Kamp! No, not really. "Missionary Kid" camp. ;-) ) and/or Dakar, not
knowing which place I would be going to, depending on if I passed my BAC
or not. Really easy. Just trade off flashlight and mosquito repellent
for school books and calculator, and I was ready to go either way. Was I
nervous? No, not really. If I had to go to Dakar and do the BAC all
over, I had to go to Dakar. If I didn't have to, great. And so it was
with an uncertain future that I laid down to go to bed that evening. The
next day started late for me, because for some reason I didn't sleep all
that well, ( I wasn't nervous, was I? ), so I woke up and ate my
Lunch/Breakfast and sat down to wait for 3 o'clock when we would leave
to see the score at the French school. That was a fun wait. And then
when the time came, off we zoomed! The whole family came ( except
Melanie who was already at camp ) We got there just on time and were
disappointed to find out from the guard that the results would be posted
when they were ready to post them, and unfortunately they where going to
be ready any time between 3 and 5 o'clock and we couldn't even come
inside the school until 4:30. This was not only unfortunate because it
meant I would have to wait even more, but because it meant that if I
/did/ pass, the 6 hour trip to the camp in Dalaba would be out of the
question because we would be driving in the dark a lot, and that's a
no-no here. When it got to 4 o'clock and the results still weren't
posted, we pretty much decided that the camp trip was pretty much
screwed. So we went inside and stuff happened ( excuse my lack of
enthusiasm in telling this story, I've already gone through it like ten
times with other people, and now I'm getting sick of it. ;-) ) I went up
to the technology room ( /our "living room" as my good buddy nicolas
would say, because we spend so much time there. In fact, Nico went there
every day for the entire week after school was over. He's nuts. )
/hooked up with my favorite teachers Mr. Garcia and Mr. LaMola as well
as Nico and we all played a LAN game of Commandos while all the rest of
the people waiting for their grades where sweating it out down stairs
anxiously waiting for the secretary to /hurry up and post those
scores!!/ Nico's Mom was the president of the school board so we asked
her if she could come up stairs and tell us what we got when she found
out. So there we were, sneaking behind guards and hiding the bodies in
barrels when Nico's Mom comes up and says "Congratulations" we both
glanced up from our computers and said "We passed?" She was brimming
over with excitement and pride filled her eyes when she looked at her
son. "Yes!" she said, "You both passed!" Me and Nico looked at each
other and I extended my hand for a handshake. "Good job, you passed." I
told him. "Thanks." He replied blandly. And we both turned back to our
computers to finish our mission, trying to sneak past a pesky gun boat.
Stupid boat. We failed that mission. Darn it. I guess I wasn't that
worried about my BAC that much after all. =) Or maybe I was just tired
of being worried. Whatever. Nico's Mom had found out that we passed way
before they had posted the scores so we finished our mission and went
down stairs to see the official version of our success. Man, when they
put those scores up, the crowd around the board was ten people thick!
And I don't mean that there were ten people around the board. I mean
that a sphere with a radius of ten people surrounded the tiny plywood
even before they pushed their way through to put the results up. And
everyone went nuts! I mean, people were almost getting trampled with all
the pushing and pulling around that thing. Immediately there were
students shouting and whooping and pushing their way out of the mob with
looks of absolutely insane joy on their faces. They ran out on to the
soccer field ripping their shirts off, throwing their shoes up in the
air, hugging each other and shouting their freaking heads off! It was
insane! And then on the flip side, intermingled with all the laughing
and happiness there was also tears and cries of agony. Agony? No, I'm
not exaggerating. One girl started crying and screaming at the top of
her lungs "No! I won't go! I can't go! Nooo!" For the most part though,
the ones who didn't pass walked quietly away from the crowd, found a
corner and sobbed. Sometimes they had a family member crying with them,
but most of the time they just wanted to be alone, preferring to be as
far from the crowd of celebration as possible. There was such a display
of emotions there that I have never before seen in my life. There were
people elevated on the joyous cloud nine of victory whose tears of
happiness mingled with the sorrowful tears of people who probably felt
like their world had just ended. There was the ecstatic girl who was
hugging our math teacher and jumping up and down and laughing because it
really was a miracle that she passed, and then there was the guy with
his face buried in his mother's chest crying like someone had just died.
And me and Nicolas just mildly sauntered over and looked at the board
and confirmed that we did, indeed, pass. I sorta felt guilty not being
excited or anything with everyone going crazy around me, and so I worked
my way over to my parents to tell them the good news. On the way over I
think I got my hand shook and hugged by around five people
congratulating me on passing the BAC. People I had never even /seen/
before were hugging me. I'm serious, it was madness. When I told my
parents they went slightly nuts as well, and both got out their
cellphones to call people and tell them the good news. While I severely
discourage ever experiencing the actual BAC, if you ever get the chance
to witness the unveiling of the BAC results I would highly recommend it.
While the French don't have any celebration of the end of high school, (
they're just like "You passed, now get out of here" ) the grade-getting
was more than sufficient a celebration for me.
So that was my Monday. What a day. As I mentioned, it is now Friday. How
come it took me so long to post about it, you ask indignantly. Yes, oh
demanding public, I have an excuse. ( Here comes the "harrowing" part )
My excuse's name is Ethan. From the moment I get up in the morning to
his bedtime hour, Ethan is /there/. I eat breakfast and Ethan is
/there/. I play video games and Ethan is /watching/. Apparently, Ethan
asks about me a couple dozen times before I get up in the morning. I go
to eat dinner and Ethan tells me that I should eat with him. I tell him,
no, that's OK, I'll eat at my house, and he says, no, it's OK, I should
really come and eat with him. Your saying to yourself "Oh, that's cute,
John is that little guy's role model." If only that was the case. The
guy doesn't do what I do, he /tells/ me what /I/ should do. If I
randomly bump into a police car in GTA2 he tells me that I am a loser
and I suck at that game. Don't get me wrong, he's really not a bad guy (
probably just kidding around with the loser stuff ), and he can't be
going through a really easy time right now, this being his first time
out of the states. ( and Guinea is a doozy of a first foreign country to
go to ) But he has not only worn on my nerves, he has taken a chainsaw
to them and after he has finished tearing my nerves into little pieces,
he has stomped on them repeatedly and then backed a steamroller over the
pieces and crushed them. I hate saying bad things about people, and it
probably has a lot to do with how stressed I've been lately, ( We are
finally moved out of our house, and the Riley's are moved in. And now
Ethan asks if I want to come over to "his" room ( my old one ) and play
"his" Nintendo 64 ( the one that I'm leaving here while I go to the
states ). ) but the fact is, that I haven't written (anything) because
I've been spending most of my time with Ethan. Maybe I just need a lot
of alone time, and that is why I'm so annoyed that I can count on Ethan
being the very first person I see in the morning, and he probably is
feeling kinda lost and very bored ( very, very, very bored ), being here
for the first time, and he talks about his friend in the states who also
was his youth group leader, so was older, and maybe I'm like his
replacement or something, I don't know, but I see an awful lot of Ethan
all day. An awful, awful lot. I'm probably just being a jerk and Ethan
is just a super sociable guy, but sometimes I just feel like screaming.
Grr. Sorry. Unfortunately, because I've been trying to avoid the big
"E", I haven't really gotten to know the other Rileys, but as far as I
could tell, the other Riley that is around my age, Spencer, is a really
nice guy who seems to be a lot like Jonathan Hoover, except Spence seems
to like to stay indoors a lot more and read and play with legos and
stuff. I love the Rileys. Really. Even Ethan. I just wish he would give
me some space. Sorry.
Well, there you go. Other stuff has happened this week, and I would go
into it, but this post already looks like it could be split into
volumes, and so it is with a tired hand that I must type you "/Adieu, ma
cherie, et a bientot."/ Which sounds cool, but means something a bit
inappropriate for this context. Good night my dear, see you soon! And so
I shall, hopefully before I'm back in the states, this comming Monday.
If not, then it's dial-up for me at my grandma Wilkos's house! What ever
happens, see you back here, same place, same John.( Different time zone
) ;-)
// posted by John @ 9:23 AM 
