But integrals did not prepare me...

...for the hardest part of my AP Calculus test.

My cell phone went off.

My scores have been invalidated.

The 50 others in the room with me should have technically had the same fate.

In the blink of an eye, I became the most hated person in the testing room.

And as I watched an entire year worth of study cease to exist right in front of me, I can honestly say I hated me too.

18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.

25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

John 15: 18, 24-25

My AP Literature Test Simulation

"The eyes and faces all turned themselves toward me, and guided me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room."

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house.

And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre."

Esther 5: 1-2

I wrote my open-ended essay about The Bell Jar. An interesting parallel exists between Plath's Esther and the Biblical Esther in that both stories hinge upon a single moment of judgment. But in Plath's novel, she ends the story without finishing the judgment, allowing the reader to judge for herself whether Esther has truly cracked the bell jar.

A spectacular book. Definitely worth reading.