To the 5 Juniors in this class about to take the ACT

Sometimes I take personality tests for fun just to see how close they actually get to describing me

I remember in 7th grade when we took the color code test in CTE for the first time and I was mad because I got white

I wanted to get blue because it's my favorite color and all of my friends got blue 

but white probably fit me better and who cares what test results your friends get
we shouldn't care

I think sometimes we compare our test results with other people as if our test results define who we are

and a test might be able to tell you how many questions you get right and how many questions you get wrong

but a test won't tell you why Viva La Vida still reminds you of that rusty blue Honda

It won't talk about the 2nd grade and the time you slipped through a doggy door into a vacant house with your friends (there were rumors about a ghost, but all you found was an empty guitar hero box)

you almost died a week before your 11th birthday and a test won't know who saved you
but you will never forget

you still hate milkweed and you used to be afraid of wind and water, and most of your friends can't explain that one so how could a test?

It won't tell you why you love Roxberry or the Maze Runner or why you've always wanted to go to Europe

your results might reflect the time you took to study or how lucky you are at guessing

but you are not your test results
please don't forget that

I found crayons at school and I'm never giving them back

I wish I could blame school for taking my crayons from me,

but I can't

I threw away the 24 pack when I looked over and saw the drawing the kid next to me had created - They were like a mini Picasso 

I thought it wasn't fair

(because when you’re young you haven’t figured out that part about life yet)

And their parents were probably artists

so they must have been born with a talent for coloring outside the lines 

While I, I had to teach myself, and I figured out that life isn’t fair

My drawings would never measure up to theirs

So I traded creativity for games and joined my friends on the playground 

because on the playground you just have to make it to the swings before the 6^th graders and when

the 6^th graders steal the swings you just have to run so you don’t become the lava monster and if you get tagged as the lava monster then you make yourself king and play four square

I couldn’t blame school for taking my crayons when I was the one that traded them in,

  

In 7^th grade I could’ve blamed school for trying to force me into taking a music class

But I can’t because thankfully my mom got me out of it

(If you like those kinds of classes that’s awesome too, I just have no musical talents haha)

(I know jingle bells on the piano and smoke on the water on the guitar, that’s all you need right?)

But I will always be grateful that I replaced band and choir for Art Foundations and Art 3D

Because instead of crayons or high notes they gave me paint brushes, colored pencils, pens, markers, clay, and we even made art out out of newspapers coated with watered down glue

The teacher soaked her feet in a bucket but she made up for it by asking me to join the V.I.P. art class in 9^th grade and now my brothers in her class and she still remembers me and thank goodness for teachers who teach creativity and for the bucket I can still crack jokes about

I blame school for making me fall in love with art again,

I think we focus too much on the Act, and the AP Tests and ugh I have to go to Attendance school

But we forget about the doodles we draw in the margins of our notebooks

And we don’t remember what shepards room used to look like and we keep forgetting about the knight in the commons and where it came from

And we’re getting English credit by talking about creativity and coloring with crayons

I think the right brain is nothing without the left brain

And I think you can find crayons anywhere, even at school

You just have to try and find them

and once you do

 don't ever give them back