Graduation.

It's coming. Only two weeks away. I turn eighteen the Saturday before. Then high school, in its entirity will be finished forever. Then I will not feel obligated to come back for anything. The sweet memories will be thrown into the nearest box and packed away and moved to western Ohio, while I go work at camp, and spend the time of my life there once more!

Daddy always said that at some point, I would be recognized for the hard work that I put into the Post Secondary Program. That the two years I spent away from high school, clinging to the last strings of used-to-be-good-friendships, would get me some applause from someone. But I am not a valedictorian. It would be something to say if I had not gotten a B- in Chemistry and a B in Precalculus in the first semester of college, and my junior year in high school. I did not have a million extra tiredless hours to work on scholarship essays and perfect them to masterpieces.

At this point, someone could even put an asterisk by my name, and write in the footnotes that I earned 60 college credits before graduating from high school, and I would be happy. No applause is necessary now. I just want the knowledge of recognition.

I probably will not graduate from college early. My path may end up being two majors, rather than one major and a minor. There will not be a young medical student--a young neurosurgeon to speak of that finished college early. The path I chose to take was the one less taken, so I had to work harder.

It's what I wanted. I wanted the challenge and maturity in learning that Streetsboro High School did not offer. I wanted the credits. To say that I was ahead of the graduating class before me. To be able to say that I was a sophomore in college while still in high school. But everytime I would say it around my fellow classmates, both at Akron and at Streetsboro, I considered myself a boast. Even though I put that hard work into it.

Though I'm not recognized for these accomplishments, I have $1000 I did not have before. Some people have more. They will be able to feel easier about their first semester. Maybe my four years will be shorter. The verdict is in the future. For now, I am content in my humble funds, although each day the money is looming in my face.