The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

This was one column I was just sure I would never live to type.

No, I haven't been in mortal peril at any time in the last week, but it sure felt like it. Between the PSAT and the upcoming end of the quarter and Homecoming and Peter Pan rehearsal and generous helpings of homework, I have spent the past fourteen days, inches away from a nervous breakdown.

And now it's finally over.

The PSAT was easier than I thought it would be, which was either because I managed to study my way to success on it or because I fell for all the "trap" answers. The day before the test, I forced myself not to study at all. I relaxed, read a funny book, took a nice long shower, and hit the hay early. As my rotten luck would have it (darn you, runaway four-leaf clover!), a piece of popcorn kernel from my afternoon snack found its way into the wrong pipe and kept me up cough- ing until midnight. And I'm still pretty confident. Homecoming Week was a madcap mash-up of late nights piecing together costumes, early mornings trying to make them fit correct- ly, and bouts of depression that resulted when none of them won anything. (My potted tulip costume did help the juniors take third place in one of the contests, though.)

I participated in a few other contests - the egg pass (I only dropped it once), the dance-number contest (as a screaming fan), andhellip; wellhellip;I guess that was it.

The point tallys at the end were relatively predictable - the seniors placed first, the juniors second, and the sophomores and freshmen tied for third. I would go into a long "J'accuse"-esque rant about how the seniors rigged all the contests, but doing that would cost me fifty percent of my friends, so I'll keep my mouth shut.

My goodness, though - it feels so good to have these past couple weeks behind me. Imagine the most stress you've ever felt in your life, multiply it by the total number of coins under your sofa cushions, and stretch it out over fourteen days. Throw in an unsympathetic little brother and the braindeadness resulting from the Knowledge Bowl meet I had on Monday, and you have achieved empathy. Welcome to my world. Now leave this instant if you know what's good for you.

Wait. Hold on. Back up a bit. There was a Knowledge Bowl meet on Monday that I completely forgot to tell you about!

Let's put it this way - we won.

By a pretty nice margin.

And we didn't even have our whole A-team together.

And I still came out of it feeling like my existence was a big vat of gym-sock- scented black despair, which just goes to show you how despair-filled that week was, because normally Knowl- edge Bowl is the answer to all of my life's problems.

But it's over, and now I'm getting ready to go to a friend's house and get ready for the Homecoming dance, which is looking to be the most fun I've had all school year and certainly a very nice light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

Phew.