Dissection.

The term's finally over, and I'm pretty sure I've turned everything in.

I've liked senior year because I haven't had any stress about my grades. Up until now, there's always been that one class that I'd worry might kill my average, but this year (though my schedule's more rigorous), I'm a lot more comfortable. I guess my APs are manageable; Stats is incredibly simple, World History's beautifully unstructured, and Biology and English take some time but aren't what I'd call difficult.

I love my classes, and I've found that I usually learn more from talking with the people around me than I do from the course material. That's definitely a new concept for me. Talking to intelligent people is my favorite activity. There's nothing I like better than bouncing ridiculous ideas around, explicating different theories in literature, science or math-- arguing and listening and reasoning together in the essence of higher-level conversation.

I hope this is what college is like.

Yesterday, I held someone's face in my hands. The container said her name was Alice, but to me she looked like a man; her hair was buzzed and her mouth hung half open. The loose endothelium of her carotid artery dangled from her severed neck, sliced exactly down the middle. The skin and fat encasing her skull felt like mine. My palms distorted the skin of her face while I poked her brainstem, tracing across to the cerebellum's delicate shoots of arbor vitae with one gloved fingertip.

It was intense.

I think I'll elect to be dissected in a cadaver lab when I die.
I want the students who cut me open to have fun. The main rule in any lab is not to make fun of the cadavers (we should respect their gift to science, etc.), but I think I'll leave a note to my dissectors saying they're free to laugh at me as much as they want to. It wouldn't be disrespectful; it'd be like they were laughing for me, the way an interpreter talks for a deaf person. Let's face it: cutting dead people open can be downright hilarious. I think the students who slice through the wall of my abdomen should be able to giggle at the sight of my internal organs. Heaven knows I would if I were there.