The Institute

New Year, New Me. Or not...

     As soon as my eyes opened, I knew I was going to have one of "those" days. I saw that my alarm didn't go off at the correct time and I was thirty minutes late. Today was the first day of junior year of high school. I had to be at school by 7:42, just to run to class and make it by the last bell, but today I also had to get my schedule. The current time was 7:00. I jumped up and ran down stairs. I saw a note from my mom:

"Jace, I had to go into work early, I got called out for a surgery, Your dad has probably left for work by the time you are reading this. Just cut the alarm on when you leave. 

Love Mom"  

     I thought about my mom's day. She was probably in surgery still. As the head of Obstetrics, she got called in a lot. I thought about my dad too, he was probably grading experiments his students performed in at his school. He taught at Stanford in the Chemistry Department. Surprisingly, that was where my parents met. He was a Junior lab TA and she was a freshman working through the pre-med curriculum. They of course waited to date until after the semester, but since it worked out for my parents they wanted me to make Stanford my top college choice. 

     I grabbed some eggs from the refrigerator and quickly made scrambled eggs. I ate them quickly and then ran up the stairs to my room. I found a pair of khaki shorts and and a Harvard Med shirt. I got ready in my room and then went to the bathroom to complete my routine. I got my backpack from my room and ran outside to my car. My backpack felt super light due to not really having anything in it. I got in and turned it on, but then I remembered that I forgot the alarm. I ran inside and punched the code in and got back in the car. I looked at the time- 7:20- I could make it. I cut the radio on and started listening to music.

     On the way to school nothing abnormal happened: the guard at the shack waved at me, the Anderson's dog barked at me, then I pulled out into the main road and drove to school. The drive to school was usually where I thought about what I would be doing that day. Since I would get my schedule today I would need to be early to class so that I could get a good seat. I usually wanted a seat that was on the second row of desk. That way if I wanted to lay my head down the teacher wouldn't realize that I had stopped paying attention.  As I turned onto the road my school was on I could already see the traffic. Today would be worse than usual because of all the people that usually don't have to be in first period having to come to get their schedules. Plus I was running a little late so that added to it. 

     I got to school and parked in my normal spot: third row, fifth park. I tried to park there from the beginning of my driving career at school. It was the perfect spot. It was far enough that I could sit for a minute and not hear all the cars going by, but also close enough that it was not a huge walk to the classrooms. I checked the time again- 7:34. I had time to walk to schedule pick-up. I admired the school, then began the walk to the main office. It would take about two minutes. The school was really big, with grades 9-12 and about 500 in each grade. Since I went to such a big school it, it split into sections for all the class types. To graduate you only have to have 4 of each of the core subjects but you had to have 26 credits to graduate. So for the other 10 credits you could make your own diploma requirements. I got out of my car right as my best friend Kevin parked next to me and got out.

     "Jace! I haven't seen you forever!" Kevin said. I knew he was joking since we had went to the lake last week, "Dude did you hear? The ACTs came in early and they are passing out the reports from the school one with our schedules. I want to get a 33 this time!" Kevin and I were both considered smart at school. We met when we were six in youth soccer, unfortunately we both quit after the season, but remained friends.  

     "No, I didn't know. We need to hurry! I want a 32 this time at least since I got 31 last time. Lets hurry!" I said, we made small talk the entire way there.