Loose Ends Fit to Tie

And so, with a gasp and a shudder two mornings ago, students crawled out of darkened hallways, cast aside the shackles of the textbooks and binders that had bound them since September, and walked into the sunlight of summer (metaphorical sunlight, of course. After all, we are still in Washington).

While I love my friends, my teachers, and my school, summer has always served as a bastion of childhood freedom: freedom from drama between friends, freedom from the regular, daily torture of early wake-ups, etc. Homework has always managed to impose itself on my summer enjoyment, seeing as though even before the days of summer assignments, my mother would always gift us with shiny new math, spelling, and reading materials as the school year ended, in the expectations that we would still know how to divide fractions by the end of August. Summer assignments have acually only gotten better over the years: this year, it involves a huge collection of books to choose from, including Dickens and Twain, and last year, Annie Dillard's An American Childhood impacted me to the point where I'll probably end up rereading it again this summer. :) The AP Calc and AP Chem book assignments awaiting me, however, are proving a little less easy to get excited about.

So, in the end, despite the fact that I'm beginning summer after ending, scholastically, one of the worst semesters of my life, nothing will keep me from bounding out the doors of district-mandated school attendance with a spring in my step. I have way too many books on my bookshelf, that have been sitting there way too long, to be in any way sorry to be leaving the school year behind. Things I'm excited to read this summer:

1.Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. We started it in class about 7 days before school ended. It's too good not to finish, right?

2. Mystery books I've been hoarding for forever, in wait for a good vacation on which to enjoy them.

3. Books too long and classic to be fully enjoyed during the school year.

4. American History and Southern Regionalism-based classics.

5. Assorted readings and rereadings that all don't fit one category, but definitely all fit in my bookcase, and therefore, my heart!