After I got my first report card in high school, my history teacher at the time, Mr. Denaples—one of five teachers that I actually learned things from in those four years—congratulated my class on finishing one sixteenth of our high school career. “Just think about it—you’re one. Sixteenth. through.” A man who’d proudly told us about how he’d skipped his high school graduation, how the best friends any of us will make in life will be in college, and, most memorably, that his beard was older than all of us—he started growing it when he was eighteen and only ever trimmed it after that—it was obvious that his congratulation wasn’t much of a congratulation as it was to prompt the realization that, Holy shit I have 15/16ths of this left.

As I got through high school, that fraction always stayed with me, popping up at random times. After first quarter junior year, Only 7/16ths left. Closer to graduation, 15/16ths done, bitches—my justification for skipping class to go on just-drive-and-see-where-the-road-takes-us roadtrips through Connecticut with friends. And then high school ended, and, along with it, the fractional countdown. 

Until the other day, when I was pulling my hair out about which classes to take next semester. (FYI: Picking classes induces the worst case of FOMO in me. Just putting it out there.) In high school, college seemed like such a far-away, though sure, thing. With a dad who’d made us move to two different continents for his PhD and research, it’d been unconsciously drilled into me that college was something I was going to embark on, but exactly how to get there? It wasn’t until, I wanna say, the summer after my junior year, that I’d really figured that out. Fast forward to today where, in the midst of debating whether I want to take a film history course or an once-a-week, three-hour class on the legal aspects of the entertainment industry, I realized that, come May 11th, I’ll be 4/8ths done with college. And—supporting my belief that college fucks with one’s sense of time—it seemed like just yesterday when I was worrying about having 15/16ths of high school left to finish.