My real test

...A, F, G. I fill in the last three notes of the melodic dictation for my Music Theory class, and double bar the last measure with a flourish. I had just finished my midterm for Introduction to the Elements of Music (yes, I am a junior, and yes, at most schools it would be a little late to be taking introductory courses as a junior, but this is Yale.) Little did I know that my real test had yet to begin.

It was a bright and sunny day, warm, mid-70s, entirely typical of Yale 364 days a year. Usually, after my last class of the day, I head back to my room listening to my iPod. I reach into my backpack's outer pocket. Now, before I go on, let me just say that usually I don't put my iPod in this particular pocket. In fact, that day was the first. Usually, I put my iPod in my jacket pocket.

Anyway, I reach into that pocket and my hand bumps into something rectangular and plastic. It wasn't my iPod. Befuddled, I caress it, trying to figure it out, before I realized I could take it out and look at it. And lo! In my hand was something so amazing, so unexpected, so epic, it seemed as if it came from prehistoric times (which it kind of did.)

I held in my hand my old Gameboy Color with Pokemon Yellow. I turned it on.

And that's when I knew my destiny. To catch them is my real test, to train them is my cause.

I traveled across the land, searching far and wide for the ideal location to start my adventure. I vowed, on that Thursday afternoon, to be the very best, that no one ever was. After nearly 5 minutes of searching, I settle on a secret location that may or may not be the roof of Trumbull, and begin my quest.

As it turned out, I spent all night working through the game, toppling gym leaders like dominos and kicking Team Rocket butt with wild abandon. Luckily for me, I had no class the next day, and could afford to spend an embarrassing 8 straight hours (yes, I played through dinner) playing Pokemon Yellow.

Little did I know the journeys on which that fateful first re-encounter would take me. Through grueling battles and arduous training, I endured, advancing steadily towards the pinnacle known was the Elite Four. Finding this was like re-discovering my childhood; back in the day, when I would scramble to level up my Poke Pals at night, so that the next day, during the Link Battle, I would have that one level edge on my friends, only to find that they had gone through similarly intense training and barely winning at the end with my trusty Charizard. Good times.

But, I've spent too much time on this. Lance is waiting, and I can't wait to take down his Dragonite with an overpowered Ice Beam.