For some reason, all the screaming I do in my head never makes it past itself and stays discontented in my mind. I stare intensely at the stupid four-digit numbers blinking on the clock. At this point, I've figured out that I have forty minutes left of class. That means two sets of twenty, or four of ten, or 2,400 seconds. I prefer the seconds count. It sounds small and it's contstantly shrinking with every moment.

My teacher is still talking. I haven't been listening for a solid five minutes, but I can guess what it's about. Britain invaded another country in its rebellious teenage phase and started another war. France and Germany got in a slap-fight about their border. America messes up all the systems of measurement-- which make me pause when someone tells me the temperature in Celsius. Look at that! People not gettting along again. I can hear what he's saying, but my mind refuses to listen.

For the millionth time in that lesson, my mind wanders. In 2,340 seconds, I will go to lunch. Tomorrow, at the same time, I will go to lunch again with the same people and eat food I won't remember twenty minutes later. And after that, I go to the same class that I did yesterday after history.

What was it that my English teacher said? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace. Thanks, Macbeth. Because tomorrow I have the same classes all over again, and Shakespeare has unintentionally described school perfectly.

Unfortunately for me, all I yearn to do is get out of class and go to the next one. But when I start that class, my ambitions change to getting out of that class. Then, when I get out of the last period of the day, I have a nice pile of homework waiting for me. It will happen over again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It will happen for most of the year. I will be counting down the seconds until I can finally talk and stand up between class periods.

Which makes me wonder, of course, what I will do with myself in 189,216,000 seconds when I graduate college.