➵ His Soccer Princess | ✔︎

13

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My pen swivelled around in my fingers, spinning swiftly alongside the thoughts which ran around in my head with no rest. I'm sure my cheeks were stained red because of the slightly humid air which loomed over in the library, but alas sometimes sacrifices had to be made.

I sat on the floor, as oppose to a desk, surrounded by some books and my own notes. The annoying thing about American schools was that they were graded throughout the whole school year. It wasn't something where you needed to retain the information for a long term memory - like two or three years. It was more, hey we learnt this last month, I'll give you a test and then we'll move on.

For that reason, I found the tests fairly easy - but also felt more pressure to actually do well in in-class assessments. It wasn't to say I normally flunked those - I just didn't revise as hard as I did for the end of year tests.

A year ago, Cody and I were preparing to pick three A levels which we would carry on for two years. Now, I was having to do all the subjects, alongside some I didn't even learn in secondary school.

To be honest, I was starting to spend more and more time in the library due to the hidden pressure which American students had to face. I didn't understand why pop quizzes were such a big deal - and now when I did, I wanted to un-learn that understanding. I absolutely hated those things. Walking into a class and having a random test which would count towards your final grade was - well it wasn't easy to deal with.

I'm pretty sure if a teacher gave a quiz which accounted for our end grade and with no prior notice, all the children in the class would revolt against the teacher and call it injustice - if we were in England. As a result, I ended up preferring the English educational system.

Not only that, but it was just easier to deal with, and less stress. Not only that, but it also gave ample revision time, and a social life. Unlike American students. I found it hard to believe that they still had enough time to take a trip to the mall, or something.

But of course I'd say that, since I never grew up with it. One thing I did see though was that Americans were better with time management. It was easier for them to make time for homework and friends.

Anyways, as usual, I was learning myself a thing or two about American history. Because annoyingly, that's all they ever seemed to learn. No Greek history, no Egyptian history. Nothing about the Ottoman Empire. Instead, there was a separate world civilisations class which you had to be in sophomore year to sign up for. I was honestly annoyed at that, because I'd excel in that. But alas, it wasn't meant to be.

I'd walked in at 7pm, hoping to finish by about 9:30 ish. I'd chosen that time because well, the damn sun never used to set. It seemed so weird to me that it just never went to sleep because the latest it would stay out in the uk was 9. What's more was that currently, it wasn't even peak summer season, where the sun apparently sets at 10pm.