An Actually Somewhat Grand Finale

My last day of high school is now over.

Well, technically, it's still underway--I have a month of internship before I graduate. But no more classes. No more awkward lunches with Peter (though, really, I need to just get comfortable talking to him, because if I don't get over myself prom is going to have a high suckiness potential). No more terrible talent shows, no more "quiet in the halls", no more permissions to enter public spaces of the building.

Not that hacking is going to be allowed, just that it'll be different. I look forward to the entire experience.

That said: no more homework, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks.

On the plus side, though, my beloved friend Julie wrote me a poem that was read aloud during the pilgrimage. I'm typing it up here so that I don't lose it, because it was far to sweet and far to lovely for me to let myself forget it.

Her name's but one way she is always known:
Her purple hair, her brains, her happy tone,
What other ways are there, the color green?
That, too, is a descriptor often seen.
And our Tea towers over most of us,
Though when we comment, she may make a fuss
And say she'd not prefer to be so tall.
Admittedly, she tends to trip and fall,
The only little drawback to her height.
I know that she has college in her sight;
She'll be somewhere in [redacted] in a year,
or sunny Cali. She's a pioneer
and has a plan for the electric grid:
Flow batteries! She just received a bid
To spend two years and start a company,
That's far beyond the reach of you and me.
Between these two she now will have to choose:
Start college, save the world? She cannot lose!
Oh, our Tea, we all know, does love to read
Those math and physics texts, though she will plead:
It doesn't suit her to be just a geek;
Conviction's what you hear when she does speak.
Politically, her goal is women's rights:
One of her main concerns is thus the plights
That girls, when in her field, will sometimes face.
Impostor syndrome: they feel out of place
And never understand what they can do.
She says: if I can do it, you can, too!
In many classes, Tea, she always draws;
Her doodles on her paper are not flaws,
They're simply an expression of her thought,
And still she takes her nots. She really ought
to concentrate a little more in class,
But does well anyway: give her a pass!
Before she graduates and leaves this school,
She'll be on internship at someplace cool:
For four weeks she'll be in a bio lab 
And know cells microscopic as a dab.
Before I also say goodbye and leave,
I'll tell her she'll succeed---to just believe.


This continues to make me all warm and fuzzy inside. It also seems to sum up a lot of what I do, which makes me love Julie all the more for knowing me so well. For the record, any of the rhymes/syllable counts that sound silly were created by me in an attempt to account for changes in my name and location.

I also wrote my own little piece for Yuma.

Oh dear Yuma, from not quite here, his hair's
Not long nor short and neither is it fair---
It's black! His glasses once were rimmed in wire
But then they broke. He used some glue and fire
To make them whole, but bought a different pair.
Today, more stylish glasses he does wear.
He serenades beloved Gin upon
His uke or small guitar. When she bent on 
A-polishing his nails, she made them shine
Gray-silver like robots of his design.
Each week he spends much time a-working hard
To train the frosh to be of high regard.
I say---a lab partner beyond compare
Except, perhaps, in Gretchen, to be fair.
He's great at stats and all things math. I think
His random samples are quite neat. The clink
Or thud of Frisbee falling to the ground---
It is to him familiar a sound.
I wish you luck in measuring the height
Of rolling coins. Do keep your smile bright.


I think I should win some sort of prize for the number of hints to my identity I managed to squeeze into it without being obvious about the hintiness to people other than Yuma. Regardless, the pilgrimage was quite fun, and now I've got the poems recorded for posterity. Good is good.