So, taking the ACT is a common and dreaded occurrence for any high school student. We’ve all done it, and chances are most of us will do it again and again. It’s an awful, grueling, tedious, mind-numbing thing to sit through, and I’m sure we’d all rather be doing literally anything else. Waste of time and undeserved determinant of college acceptance aside, the ACT test does, believe it or not, provide a thing of beauty.
That thing is silence. Now, it might not be fully appreciated unless you’re someone who gets done early and has to sit there twiddling your thumbs. Frankly, I think most of us are to stressed by the test itself to ever even perceive the environment unless it’s during one of those lulls between tests. However, it’s in those moments of involuntary inactivity that the beauty of the space is observable.
Whenever I’m sitting in that quiet, somber, still room with nothing but my thoughts, I find that, should I be able to keep them from dreading whatever test comes next in the sequence, they can go anywhere. It’s a wonderous thing to experience, on the rare occasions it happens.
Just today, I looked around at the junior class and I could swear that, for a moment, I could see the thoughts of the other students in the room with me. They were all kinds of things: bright, bursting, colorful things that were arcing and streaking above the multi-toned heads of the people leaning over test booklets around me. It was a wonderful thought to have, and I may even make it into a poem, but I know it can never be a full story. So, I brought it here to you, blog world.
I figured, since everyone who will read this likely just sat through the same experience as me, I should share this little slice of wonder I discovered today. It isn’t much, but it kept me from going insane among pi calculations and scientific graphs, so maybe, just maybe, it can help you, too. 🙂
Until next time!
Sincerely, an imaginative ACT victim.
