I look in the mirror. There’s something different. Not the nonexistent sparkle in my eyes, not the hair that grew a total of around 1 inch. It was, in fact, color. The washed out green was replaced by a dark navy blue. This year could be described as a ‘rollercoaster’. Not a rollercoaster in the sense that this year had its own ups and downs, but rather it just kept going down. Maybe I could describe this year as a downwards slope, a negative gradient. From grades that I have to put up for adoption (as I can’t raise them) to the shocking journey every Monday and Wednesday, from the basement, tired and sweaty from PE, to Math, located on the 6th floor, my IGCSE years are not proving to be bright. As science, a one teacher subject, transformed into a two teacher subject, my brain cells acted accordingly; inversely proportional. As the number of science teachers increased, the number of my brain cells decreased. As the year comes to an end, I would like to thank those who have helped me the most. Other than the obvious choice of my parents, I would like to thank Divesh Shah and his whole Math Vision company. They taught me what others couldn’t. Behind each 7, there’s a company of tutors, carving out their weekends to answer my many, many questions. For this reason, I would like to dedicate each victory in Math and Science to Math Vision and Math Vision only (but, like, really not, I’d like to thank my teachers, too). One thing I look forward to is reaching a grade in which my question is on the syllabus as many times the things I wonder about is “NoT oN tHe SyLlAbUs, ReNeE11!!!”. I would like to think of myself as Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun and melted the wax on his wings, except unlike him, I have no wings. My beautiful, white wings, clipped by teachers unwilling to go over the small stuff. And talking about the elephant in the room: the Internals. God, what a joke. Actually, I do know who I can compare myself to. Giuseppe Garibaldi. Like him, I too failed in many things. The one bright spot, the shining star midst the dark sky, was Model United Nations. Despite the self-pressure to do the best I can possibly do, MUN was fun. But in all seriousness, this year provided me with a lot of new learning experiences, and throughout all the self-deprecating jokes, it’s possible to see that I have room for improvement in which I will strive to complete those goals next year in Grade 10.