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Excellence Award in the 'Legendary 2012' competition

Three hundred and sixty five days. That’s how long I have.

See, in all my years at school, it somehow never occurred to me that I would one day finish it. No longer is that day coming in a few years, or a few months, or even a few days.

It’s today.

Not three minutes ago, they handed me a sheet of paper that held on it a few words to certify that I am no longer a student. Somewhere, in those perfunctory lines of text, I was almost expecting to find a hidden message, telling me what to do now. Telling me how to be an adult. They never taught us that in any classes, there was never any crash course on becoming an adult. I suppose I ought to look it up. Surely there’s an introductory website somewhere on the Internet, right?

Wrong.

And now my head is full of next year, of what a year of travel might bring. This is the year-in-between, the interlude that will segue from school into university. Next year is supposed to be the year that changes my life, the year that makes me who I am. It will teach me all about myself, and be the year I tell stories about when I’m old and have children. Is that what I’m thinking about now? I’m seventeen years old, and planning on what I’m going to be telling my children about my school years.

Focus.

I’m terrified. I’m standing with a long line of other students, clutching this redundant sheet of paper, watching the rest of them go through the same process as I did a few minutes before. What now, they wonder. What happens now?
I don’t know. I don’t have the foggiest idea what happens now. What am I supposed to bring to the adult world? I’m okay at trigonometry, and I came top in my photography course. Can angles and photography combine to form some sort of job? No, no, no! This is not helping! This is stupid, come on, concentrate. What happens now? I suppose I go travelling. Yes. That sounds good. That sounds like something I could organise.

So I smile as the cameras of hundreds of proud parents flash in my face, I stand with my ridiculous proof of non-student-ness certificate and allow my parents to gush over how grown-up I am and how they can’t believe this day has finally come. I don’t blame them. I didn’t see it coming either.

Okay.

So here’s the plan. I’ll get through the rest of this ceremony, then go home. I’ll plan and research and contact people until I’ve sorted out next year. Because I have three hundred and sixty five days to become an adult, and I can do it.

I know I can.

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Write4Fun.net was established in 1997, and since then we have successfully completed numerous short story and poetry competitions and publications.
We receive an overwhelming positive feedback each year from the teachers, parents and students who have involvement in these competitions and publications, and we will continue to strive to attain this level of excellence with each competition we hold.

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