I think the realization dawned on me about a half-hour after my last final. After almost missing the test and racing through 100 questions in half the allotted time, I was finally in my apartment, letting out a sigh of relief that everything was finished. Then it hit me: I like school.
Of course, any graduating senior feels tense and nostalgic when they leave school. But my realization wasn’t about “school” overall — the friends I’d made, the memories, of course I liked all that and would miss it now that I was leaving. But what I realized is that I actually like school. The papers. The tests. Learning. Suddenly having to read six ridiculously long chapters in one night even though the professor didn’t put it on the syllabus and there’s a Calc test tomorrow.
All that stuff. I liked it.
That’s not to say I never stressed out, or that I never occasionally hated it and wanted to drop everything and run free in a grassy field with the promise to forget the civilized world; the money spent on extra-shot coffees, cartons of Haagen-Daas, and Red Bull vodkas can attest to that. But now that I’ve been out of school for a full five months, there’s nothing I’d like more than to spend the next five days procrastinating on a comparative lit paper, which I will proceed to write between Sunday afternoon and the crack-of-dawn on Monday, high on Starbucks.

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