I’ve written a lot of articles on this blog. When I started writing this, I had 69 of them live on Inside A Wandering Mind. (Correction from future me as I edit this much later: 74 now.)
That’s a lot of articles, and there’s a lot of variety in the content that I’ve been making for the past three years throughout my high school career. It’s pretty chaotic, but I would say if you look at it closely, it generally splits into two categories.
One, there’s the academic stuff like Biometaphors, Course Review, and my STEM articles. I already spend most of my time working for classes and competitions, so it was practically destined to be an important part of Inside A Wandering Mind. Two is something completely different: traveling, which is one of my favorite things to do when I’m not bogged down with the burden of schoolwork. This blog will take you through all my experiences in traveling from the past few years— in three successive summers, I went to Vietnam (2023), Japan(2024), and Canada(2025).
Traveling and schoolwork are two very different things, but there’s a sort of middle ground to it that I’ve never really covered until today. What about traveling for something academic? It’d be sort of like a combination of the two major themes that occur on this blog— one between categories that would otherwise never associate with one another.
And what better way to synthesize those two than by traveling halfway across the country for a competition? (Spoiler Alert: And also to take advantage of the fact we’re flying halfway across the country just to visit a new city we’ve never been to before. That was definitely something on my mind.)
It all started about a year ago, when I was still in 10th grade. (and thus, approaching the end of the glorious AP Chemistry experience) I was approached by a friend, who invited me to join what would become one of the most enjoyable 60-hour periods of my life.
Apparently, for the past two years of my time in high school, our school had been participating in the WUCT, or the Washington University Chemistry Tournament. How am I only hearing about this now? I thought to myself. WUCT, if you’ve never heard of it, is a day-long marathon competition with four separate rounds, each lasting an hour. It starts with a grueling individual exam. The next round is done in pairs. Then they hand you a short lunch break before doing another hour-long exam in a much larger group of six, and after that, there would be a fast-paced round that they called Breaking Bonds, which is by far the most uniquely designed of the four rounds.
But of course, the best part about it was that it would be taking place in Missouri, thousands of miles away from where I live in California. It turns out that Washington University, despite its name, is actually not located in the state of Washington. It’s located in St. Louis, which is set right on the Mississippi River, on the border with Illinois.
I didn’t hesitate when the signup forms were released ten months later. Joining WUCT was certainly a good resume booster, but it was the experience of it that I was really looking forward to. Traveling thousands of miles for a competition was something I had never done up to this point, and I wasn’t going to let the opportunity to do so slip away. It wasn’t long before the roster filled up with familiar names, forming an intimidatingly well-qualified team.
First, there was my genius friend Sumedh, whom I’d become close friends with in AP Music Theory over the past year. The two of us had studied for the USABO together and endured the struggles of our high school’s hellish swim and dive program in each other’s company. He is easily one of the most brilliant academic weapons I’ve ever met. (and there are many that I’ve crossed paths with) Name just about any academic skill, and he’s probably better at it than you are.
Then there’s Celine — she holds the title of best piano player I’ve ever met. (Believe me, that’s no small feat) We’d spent the last two weeks of our lives trauma-bonding through AP Calc and juggling five APs’ worth of deadlines. The obligations had put us both through a lot of stress, so we were very eager to do something interesting without that constant pressure to do well. In fact, Celine and I started talking a lot about tourism as soon as we discovered we’d be going on the same flight path to St. Louis.
Next up is my friend JJ, who I had already spent months studying with during the horrors of the Great AP Chemistry Struggle. Every night before a big test, he and my friends JK and CZ would come over to my house to study with me. We would then spend the next two hours struggling through practice problems and correcting one another while slowly eating whatever snack my parents had provided for us that day, and at the very end, when none of us could take another five minutes sitting there studying, we would all take turns complaining about how hard the class was and storm off home angrily, praying that the AP Chem Gods would be on our side.
And lastly were two boys whom I was only vaguely aware of in the school, NB and MP. Celine and I didn’t know either of them at all, but Sumedh and MP were close friends already. I was sure they’d work together well. I didn’t think I could ask for a team much better than this— we may not have been the best, but we’d definitely give the competition a run for their money.
Unfortunately, our clean, shiny new roster didn’t last very long. JJ had a robotics commitment he needed to attend, and had to drop out. To make matters worse, NB fell ill literally the day before our flight was scheduled. This meant we were down to only four people. We expected that, because of this, we would be allowed to team up with another two people in the tournament to form a full group of six. It could be anyone– good? Bad? Terrible? (Spoiler alert: We didn’t get anyone extra.)
We didn’t want to sit around, waiting to find out. As Spring Break began, everyone started their own separate preparations for WUCT. Everyone was wondering what our strategy was going to be for the competition, and we spent several days discussing how we wanted to approach each round. The group chat for the competition started buzzing with activity. Sumedh and I yelled suggestions for strategy from different pool lanes in the middle of our Spring Break practice. A game plan slowly came together.
The individual exam was performed… well, individually, so there wasn’t much strategizing we could do as a team there. The topics exam, the second round, required the team to divide into three pairs and each take a test based on a certain theme: the options being Lasers, Movies & TV, and Exercise. Because there were only four of us now, we knew that we would most likely have to give up on one of the topics and divide into two pairs (those two pairs being me/Celine, Sumedh/MP), while gambling our success on the last topic to the two randoms. (that we never got) Choosing which topic we would do ended up being a lot more complicated than you’d think it would be, because everyone started overthinking which theme was most optimal for team success and what kinds of problems each exam might contain.
I can’t even fully explain why, but the most attractive topic to everyone right off the bat was the Lasers exam. Looking back on it, I couldn’t even tell you exactly what I thought might be covered in Lasers. Atomic Structure? Thermochemistry? Maybe Electrochemistry? I didn’t know much about lasers. It’s just that something about the vibes of the word “lasers” just gave me the feeling that it’d be straightforward. Celine and I both felt pretty good about it (even if we couldn’t describe our feelings), so we agreed that it was our top pick.
MP and Sumedh, however, had the same thought. They wanted to take Lasers as well and claimed it before Celine and I could; we were left with the scraps— TV and exercise.
Both seemed equally open-ended. I was pretty stumped on what to choose for a while— Sumedh and I speculated during swim practices about what each topic might cover. “It’s probably going to have something to do with Breaking Bad,” Sumedh predicted when I told him I was considering the Movies Category. (definitely not a prophecy or anything) I thought of a more literal meaning to “TV”; could it have something to do with how our televisions work?
Maybe?
I didn’t know what it was going to be; the more I thought about it, the more I felt that movies could be about literally anything. What would exercise be about… my instincts went to biochemistry first, and then thermodynamics. I didn’t know very much about biochemistry, so I immediately got the feeling that Movies was probably slightly better. The fact that it could be about anything probably meant that it was going to have a lot of variety, which was more favorable to someone like me who hadn’t done anything chem-related in over a year. Even if there was something I didn’t know how to do, I’d at least have several backup questions to try. We’d have to be relatively lucky on what the overlords of WUCT wanted to throw at us, but it was probably the safer option.
For that reason, Celine and I declared we’d tackle Movies and TV for the second exam.
Then came the full-group round. Our whole group agreed quickly that there was no way we would finish the exam if we all tried to take one at a time as a group.
Because of this, everyone agreed to split up again into the same pairs as before and cut the test in half immediately. Sumedh and MP would take one half while Celine and I took the other before meeting again towards the end to ask questions and see if there was anything the other side couldn’t do.
Lastly was Breaking Bonds, the fastest-paced and most complicated of the rounds. Every team would work together for the last one and take on a single set of three problems at a time, each varying in difficulty. The number of points given in each Breaking Bonds packet corresponded to the level of difficulty; Easy questions were given one point, medium was 4 points, and hard was 7 points. They were all graded right on the spot, and scores would be shown live for the entire hour, up to the last 5 minutes. Every question was all or nothing, and you couldn’t tackle more than one at a time.
With our plans for WUCT set, there was nothing to do now but wait for the day that we would all fly to St. Louis and actually compete.
And travel, of course. Obviously travel.
The trip started very similarly to that of CANEDA — It was about 3 a.m. that my dad and I packed our bags into the car and headed over to pick up Celine and her mom. The entire place was pitch black; the neighborhood might as well have been abandoned as my dad and I silently drove up to her driveway.
The two of them were the only ones on the street when we reached their house. As it turned out, Celine had spent much of the night previously working on an essay for one of her classes and told me she’d only gotten an hour of sleep. She looked surprisingly alive for someone so sleep-deprived. We put her and her mom’s belongings in the back of the car and immediately set off on the long car ride to the airport.
I’d expected that there would be absolutely no conversation between anybody in the car since Celine had only gotten an hour of sleep and it was basically the middle of the night. This was how it had been during CANEDA: a long, awkward silence with the occasional comment; any attempt to really get everyone talking was like talking to a wall at this hour.
What was surprising, therefore, was that everyone talked more in the car than they had previously on the CANEDA trip. The conversation jumped from topic to topic as we eventually left our community and got on the highway down to San Diego International Airport, going on about academics, our strategy for the exam, and, most importantly, the logistics of planning this trip to St. Louis.
Before long, we had arrived at the car parking center and were heading towards a shuttle that would actually take us to our terminal— what followed was one of the least eventful two-hour-long time periods of all of the travels I’ve ever documented on this. I spent some time just talking normally to Celine as we walked through the airport, got through security, and ate a quick breakfast. It seemed like an eternity had passed by the time we were finally boarding the plane to our layover in Austin.
I then proceeded to experience what must have been the most boring two hours of my life. We were assigned seats on the plane, so I was separated from both my dad and Celine. Unfortunately, this meant getting placed instead with an older-looking woman in business clothes who spent the entire flight looking more interested in something on her iPad than she did with some trivial high schooler. I spent part of my time during that flight trying to do some work for my classes, but got bored with that after about an hour and just took a mediocre nap before sitting around again, waiting for the time to pass by.
It took a while and a trip to the restroom, but eventually the plane landed, and we got off and met up with one another. Celine and I sat at the entrance to our next gate in Austin, waiting for our next flight to St. Louis.
As we sat there, I suddenly remembered something important. I turned to Celine and said to her, “I think I’ve got an idea for how we can decide on dinner tonight.”
“How?” She asked curiously.
I explained to her that I had a friend who had been to St. Louis the summer before. I’d told him at the time about my plans to sign up for WUCT in St. Louis, and he replied that if I ever wanted any good food recommendations, to come and call him. Well, now was the time. I pulled out my phone and reached out to my friend in DMs.
Hey
You remember how I told you that I was going to St. Louis and you had restaurant recommendations?
I’m headed there now
Where should I get dinner tonight?
Celine was looking at restaurant recommendations through Tripadvisor on her phone, so I turned back to join her in judging the most popular restaurants that it offered. Before we could decide on our favorite candidates, however, my phone buzzed again. I was pretty surprised. It had only been a moment.
Oooooooh
Hold up, lemme see if I still have them
“He’s sending it,” I announced excitedly. A second later, the expert of St. Louis Food flashed onto my screen.
- Cate Zone
- Cafe la Vie
- Brasserie by Niche
- Pappy’s Smokehouse
We searched through our options with the care we usually reserve for tests.
Cate Zone was a Chinese place near Washington University, conveniently close to where we would be having our tournament in less than 24 hours. Cafe La Vie was one of the fanciest restaurants I had ever seen in my life; it offered private dining rooms with French food so well made that it might as well have been a work of art. Brasserie by Niche was another sophisticated French place. As you can probably imagine, Pappy’s Smokehouse was exactly what it sounded like: a restaurant with extremely filling barbecue.
We spent some time going through the options. Celine and I both really liked the option of Cafe La Vie; the online pictures of the fancy interior and all the delicious food looked pretty irresistible, but we were also captivated by Brasserie by Niche.
“Well, we’ve got two nights at St. Louis,” I reminded her. “We could just hit one of them tonight and another tomorrow.”
We agreed to continue discussing which restaurant we wanted to visit until we concluded. For now, though, we had another two-hour flight to look forward to; this one going from Austin to our final destination, St. Louis. My luck with seating couldn’t have been more terrible that day, because I ended up, once again, in an empty seat without my dad or Celine; it was another hour or so of sitting with a 30-year-old couple who had no interest in talking to me.
I fell asleep pretty much right after takeoff and woke up somewhere over Arkansas. After that came a mix of staring out the window, watching the scenery pass, and napping. We continued to fly North; I watched the Mississippi River pass in and out of view, as cropfields moved below us painfully slowly. I couldn’t access the wifi from my phone for some reason (“I was able to access the Internet just fine,” Celine said to me afterwards. “I was doomscrolling during the flight.”) so the next couple of hours were as colorful as a black-and-white image. I attempted to pull out my computer to work on other projects in my spare time, but the stuff I had access to was pretty limited, and honestly, I was just too lazy on that flight to get anything done.
I very slowly watched the little dot on the map representing our plane travel in the same direction for two hours or so, and it was a really long time before I felt it turn. We had made it all the way up to St. Louis; it took some time, but eventually, I noticed out of the window that buildings were slowly replacing the fields. I had been waiting for this moment for a year.
The sky was overcast and cloudy, which was not the most representative of my mood that day. I was really eager to see what was happening. I could see at one point, under the plane, the huge buildings of Missouri’s most sprawling city beneath us. I was very excited to start exploring; it was something I’d looked forward to for over a year. In a couple of hours, I’d be down there…
We went through all of the immediate post-landing stuff quickly. Restroom, exiting the airport, taking the shuttle to the car rental, and eventually getting into our car…
Finally.
At long last, the time to explore St. Louis had finally come. This was the part that Celine and I were really looking forward to; we began to drive through the suburbs of the city out towards the downtown area, which was about twenty minutes away from St. Louis Lambert International Airport. There was one immediate place that we had on our minds, the one icon of the city…
The Gateway Arch.
Probably the most famous Arch in the world, and in all of America (except for maybe the Delicate Arch in Utah. I still need to visit that one at some point.) Stretching for hundreds of feet in every direction, it formed one of the most defining parts of St. Louis’s amazing skyline. Don’t miss it if you travel to St. Louis. It’ll be a huge disappointment. (hi Sumedh) As we got closer, I continued taking pictures of… well, pretty much any interesting building within view that I could see. Basically my old CANEDA habits were coming back for the trip.
Eventually, the downtown of St. Louis came into view from afar. And along with all of those skyscrapers, that meant we could see…
“I think I can see it, that’s the arch over there!”
“Oh, yeah, there it is!”
“The Arch?! Wait, where? I don’t see it…”
“Look, that way,”
“Oh! Yeah, I see it now!”
The arch looked distant at first, but its size and distinctiveness in St. Louis became more and more clear as we approached it; the Gateway Arch wasn’t anywhere close to the monstrosity of the Tokyo Skytree, but it was certainly impressive in its own right. Everything always looks bigger whenever you visit it in person, and this was no exception.
We drove a block around the arch, looking for parking before we headed out to go explore. Aaaaand of course all the closeby ones had to be taken already. Great. Because of this, it was decided that Celine, her mom, and I would all disembark for now while my dad headed to get another parking spot a few blocks away.
We ended up getting dropped off on top of this highway, which turned out to be a tunnel that ran right below the square in front of the arch, which I thought was pretty cool, so I took a picture of it from above:
But before we turned our attention to that huge Gateway Arch, we noticed that there was another pretty significant structure nearby; it was the Old Courthouse. It reminded me a lot of the Congress Building over in DC, only this one was a bit smaller. We took some pictures from behind this little square that stood in front of the courthouse, called the Luther Ely Smith Square, before finally facing the most famous arch in the world.
In front of the arch was an underground visitor’s center and a huge area placed on top of it with a large grass field. It’s impossible to exaggerate how large this place is; there were dozens of people on the field that afternoon, walking around, going on picnics, and enjoying the sunlight. Everyone here looked tiny compared to the arch; if the arch were a person, everyone would be ants. Small is an understatement compared to how I felt when looking up.
And the best part about it was that the arch wasn’t just some big, hollow structure; it actually had an interior. If you were interested, there was an elevator up to the top, which offered a look at St. Louis from a completely new perspective. I’d already imagined taking pictures of the skyline, the traffic, maybe even creating a really long time-lapse of the sunset up in St. Louis, just like what I had done in Toronto.
As we entered the visitor’s center, I found myself already imagining that the pictures I’d taken there would be one epic picture for the cover of the article with a large text, “WUCT” placed in front of it… that’d be the centerpiece of the article, the one thing that would always come to mind when I remembered back, reading these words…an iconic picture that
wasn’t taken; of course it wasn’t, or you would’ve seen it on the article’s cover before even reading the first word. Here’s a few other Arch pictures in compensation…
We’d come too late to actually reach the top— tickets had sold out for the day. Instead, we decided to check out the museum that sat directly below the Gateway Arch, which basically gave a rundown of St. Louis’s history as it went parallel with all of the other eras of American History, all the way up to when the Arch itself was made.
The entire place was filled with all sorts of things from St. Louis’s past: wagons, boats, and other everyday items from hundreds of years ago. There was even a full-scale replica of a log cabin from the 1800s alongside Native American teepees. Every corner of the museum also had some kind of interactive activity tied to its history. There were also several smaller models of the Arch (we were right under it, duh) some of them including the surrounding terrain and even parts of St. Louis City. Celine found this little microscope activity that depicted bugs, butterflies, and other little creatures that are native to the area.
After looking through the whole museum, we decided to visit the one other famous place that I knew was in the area: Monk’s Mound. It wasn’t technically even in St. Louis, or even in Missouri. It was actually all the way on the other side of the Mississippi River, in Illinois. To be honest, this place isn’t the most flashy at first glance. What makes it interesting is the backstory.
You might (or might not) already know that most of the largest civilizations in the Americas before Christopher Columbus were all concentrated down in South and Latin America; think of the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas. Until the British came knocking on North America’s door in the 1600s, it didn’t really have any massive civilizations on it— at least nothing on the level of the Aztecs.
This place, Cahokia, is about the closest North America ever came to matching the scale of the empires in Southern and Latin America. Probably the most famous remnant of Native American times is the mound itself, the largest Pre-Columbian Pyramid north of Mexico.
We didn’t know it yet, but there was one more surprise waiting for us at the very top of the mound. When we arrived at the historic site, I quickly snapped a few pictures of the info boards about Cahokia. If you want to read more about this place and if the picture quality is good enough, here you go:
From far away, the mound itself looked a lot like some oddly shaped hill in the middle of some incredibly flat ground. It didn’t turn out to be the amazing monstrosity that some historical sites tended to be. For a moment I even almost regretted even asking everyone to drive out twenty minutes into the countryside.
Cahokia wasn’t the biggest structure ever, but it was sizable enough that I could already anticipate a pretty impressive view at the very top. Maybe this wouldn’t be a waste of time.
I took a picture just about every few seconds as I made my way up, as if every single step took me to a different universe:
The view absolutely did not disappoint once we made it up to the top. You could see forever; any significant structure within about twenty miles of Cahokia was entirely visible and available for picture taking… and since we just so happened to be a short distance from the city of St. Louis…
Looking in the westward direction was like looking at some masterpiece of art; there aren’t any places in the area where the view gets any better than this. And an even bigger miracle—-sunset was approaching! The views in other directions weren’t too bad, either. It kind of felt like looking at a carpet of houses, trees, and roads that just went on without end.
Watching the sunset from on top of the largest mound in pre-Columbian America was one of my favorite moments from the entire trip. Another huge plus I found about this place was that most people don’t really visit it. Cahokia isn’t like the Tokyo Skytree or the CN Tower (CANEDA TORONTO ARTICLES ARE COMING OUT SOON!!! Or maybe they’re already out. I’m not sure, but you SHOULD read them if they’re out), where there are so many visitors that getting a ticket for yourself is a real pain. It was incredibly empty; the entire time, there would be only a few people at most climbing up and down the mound to get exercise. We didn’t have to shove past another person every time we wanted to take a few steps or get a picture; we were free to move around pretty much wherever we wanted.
By the time we had gotten back down to the bottom, Celine and I agreed that it was finally time to eat something—- I hadn’t realized it for a while due to my excitement, but I was starving. I hadn’t eaten on the plane, and neither of us wanted to get lunch when we could be using our remaining hours of sunlight taking pictures of the Gateway Arch. Now, though, the sun had already set, and we both agreed it was finally time to choose which of the four restaurants we were visiting.
Ultimately, we settled on the Chinese Restaurant again, called “Cate Zone”, largely because of its proximity to our hotel.
We went all the way across St. Louis one more time, watching the buildings pass in and out of sight. I took one last photo of the Gateway Arch (which would be the last time I saw it this trip, unfortunately) and noticed around this time how distinctive the city’s architecture was. There were a lot of red brick buildings that I hadn’t noticed before. It was a recurring theme throughout the city that would resurface spectacularly when we visited Washington University the next day.
The restaurant turned out to be pretty far outside of the city— far enough, in fact, that the view of the skyline and the arch had disappeared below the horizon. We were much closer, however, to the university where we’d be competing in just 14 hours.
So was my friend’s list good? Had he made the right call?
Yep. This was certainly the right call. The food was great. One order and ten minutes later, they came on a few large plates and bowls. Everyone eagerly went to serve themselves and enjoy a good meal after a long day. (but not before Celine and I took pictures) Everyone ended up eating a lot that night, but here are the highlights, otherwise formally known as all of the dishes that I took remembered to take pictures of before everyone ate into it.
Firstly is the standard Fried Rice. While it was pretty good, I already eat this for a lot of meals on various trips that I’ve taken on this blog before, so I won’t sugarcoat it and act as if it was the highlight of my dinner.
The next one I remembered from the photo was this soup made of chili and fish. The fish was really flavorful and soft; it was probably my favorite part of the meal. Celine didn’t think much of it (it was really spicy), but I ended up taking extra pieces of the fish from the soup once I had my first serving because I enjoyed it so much.
And there was also lamb soup and black pepper beef— the lamb one wasn’t really spicy, but still retained that warm character. I liked both the taste of the soup and the meat inside it, but honestly, I still prefer the spicy one.
It was getting late by the time we finished our food and were leaving the restaurant. The sky had now changed into a completely pitch-black. There was a lot more to do; Celine was interested in visiting a Botanical Garden in the area, but that would have to wait. We drove up to our hotel and checked into our individual rooms, where we spent the rest of the night cleaning up and sleeping.
The hotel room itself (at least for me and my dad) was about as memorable as the fried rice at Cate Zone. It wasn’t sizable and extravagant like the ones in Bangkok or Phuket. It didn’t have S-tier views that we got at Niagara Falls and Sapa. There was only one decently-sized bed, a small restroom, and a table. And the view… Well, let’s just say even the one in Boston (which was situated in front of a dumpster) was probably better. All we could see were the parking garages just outside of our hotel, which was definitely not the most interesting thing to see when you’re staring outside the window. It was so trivial I forgot to even take a picture of it. Or was it my sleep deprivation?
“I think I can see our car from here,” My dad announced casually as I prepared to take a shower.
Once I was done with that, I gave in to the temptation to go ahead and sleep. I’d gotten up at 3 AM, after all, and tomorrow would require a lot of energy. I could do my last-minute prep tomorrow.
Zzzz…
Zzzz…
Zzzz…
And that would be at breakfast. That’s where I met Sumedh for the first time on the trip (who was staying at the same hotel as us) and Celine as well. Our hotel provided breakfast, so we knew that’s where we were going to be eating as we all stared at our phones, looking at previous WUCT exams to see if we knew everything and questioning each other repeatedly on every topic we came across. Celine and I also filled Sumedh in on all the fun he’d missed yesterday: our visit to the Gateway Arch, The Monk’s Mound, and the Cate Zone Chinese Restaurant.
And at long last, it was now time for the competition to begin. After briefly returning to our room and brushing our teeth, our families met up in the car again and headed out to the university. We got our team checked in, and I met with Sumedh and MP once again. There, we were given a WUCT-themed bag, a T-Shirt (which we all put on quickly), and a few opportunities to take some pictures as a team.
After this, all the competitors were taken to a nearby lecture in the same building, where an opening ceremony was held. It mostly consisted of the staff who organized the competition discussing what we would be doing today, how this competition started, discussing some of the teams, so on and so on. Once it was over, they told us that some students from the lower division (including us) would be moved to a new lecture hall just a short walk away to take our individual exams.
Our group stood and walked with the rest of the crowd, following the directions of the staff escorting everyone. Here we go, I thought silently to myself.
We walked outside of the building and right back in through another door into a different lecture hall, this one much smaller than the first. It was honestly something I might not notice on the building if I was walking too closely.
Everyone chose a seat; our group chose to sit close to one another like usual. I took a deep breath as I took out my pencil, eraser, calculator, and periodic table. I wouldn’t be leaving this room until I finished the Individual Exam. It was going to be difficult. There were going to be questions that went completely over my head, leaving me hopelessly confused.
All I could do was hope I was prepared enough. The next time I left this room, it would all be over—
“Wait,” I turned suddenly to Celine. “Do you think they’d let me use the restroom before we start?”
“Probably,” She replied. But it was about to start. I had to be fast.
I ran out of the room quickly to the restroom to do my business, trying to clear my mind internally. Just because this doesn’t count towards my GPA doesn’t mean I won’t try my hardest. I told myself. I’m giving my all into this so I don’t have any regrets.
I re-entered the room and sat down, waiting for them to hand the test over to me. I took it and wrote my name and ID down, taking deep breaths. Now I wasn’t leaving the room until it was all over.
This was it. The competition had started.
The next time I looked, the timer was depleting.
59:59.
59:58.
59:57.
59:56.