Summertime

They make you handwrite your exams here, and that meaty piece of muscle right below my pinky was cramping and smudging and spitting out as many tangential legislation cites as possible right up until time was called. I didn't answer the question completely, but I was done. Thirty-nine semesters of school. Done.

One to go.

I used to hate afternoon exams around this time of year. I would step into the lecture hall leaving behind a bright--if chilly--day, and when I emerged from three hours of reciting IDs from Thucydides it would be 5pm but completely dark already and a couple layers colder. Daylight savings continues to confound me.

But here in the antipodes, it was sunny and blue and warm when I stepped outside the building. It was how I remember the last days of the year in elementary or middle school. Teachers taking down those wavy construction paper borders that were stapled around bulletin boards. The bulletin boards themselves cleared of show and tell pictures or, today, of concert fliers and student government campaign ads. And then this pure brightness seeping through the windows and bouncing off white walls, in the days when you could rely on clear skies during the Hong Kong or Taipei summer.

Those days in my memory are true, happy days, sprinkled with some bittersweet ones whenever I wouldn't be coming back to the same place in late August. I can only guess that my mind associates those days with all the awesome things that accompanied them: yearbooks, whole-grade trips to Water World, weeklong sleepovers, even, I confess, CTY.

Now maybe I get to add to that list. Late Monday night I touchdown in Delhi, before flying up the next day to Dharamsala and then--so I hope--snaking my way south overland until the Subcontinent goes south no longer. I know little about India, and I hope I understand that I probably won't know much more by the time I'm done. But I know this much: when I look out from my window seat as the wheels of the plane separate from Australian soil, I will remember what it feels like to push open the double doors on the last day of school, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. I will sense freedom, unburdened by the past year and eager to wake up the next morning, or afternoon, without anything to do. I will be anxious. I will be hungry.

And I will be happy.