Flipping through the study guide that was given to us in class before, trying to go over everything one more time before the test the next day, I was convinced that I was one hundred percent prepared for my first ever test in an AP class. 

After the class I walked out of the class the next day not really sure how I did on the it. I knew all my economic theories and principles that I needed to know but when it came to the actual questions I had no idea how to apply them. It seemed like there was nothing else I could have done to prepare for that test, if anything it was the most I had ever prepared for one.

The next week when we got our grades back in class I was not completely surprised when I saw my score of 75%. There must have been something that I didn’t use that was handed out, something that I didn’t get that everyone else did.

The week after that it was another Thursday night and I was back studying for my second economics test. Determined to get a better grade on this test I had searched up youtube videos for every topic that we learned over the past week. Eventually I had been watching videos for so long that my eyes could not handle the light coming off the screen anymore. Earlier that week our teacher also mentioned the workbook that we got for the class. I pulled it out that night and went through every multiple choice problem in the chapter and the appendix. I even decided to work on some of the true or false and open ended questions, even though my teacher said that we didn’t need to do them.

Coming out of the class the next day was totally different than before. I was confident that I did well on that test. The questions actually made sense when I read them. I understood what I had to use in the different types of situations and problems.

My confidence was proven right when I got my grade of 93% back in the next class. It was clear that the difference between the two tests was what I found and did on my own that was not just handed out in class.

The work at first was pretty straightforward, the groups working on the roof before us had set everything up for us to put on the edging and lay the tin down on the roof. We got to work right away, I started out reinforcing the wooden beams drilled into the roof. Someone in the group needed to do it because of a mistake the past groups had made. I overlooked it as a simple mistake that was destined to happen in a project as big as that one. 

After finishing that and going back down onto the ground I quickly noticed how hot I was after being up there. It was already about 90 degrees and being up on a roof did not help in the slightest. With it being the first day we collectively decided to take everything slow and try to figure out the plan for the week. Everyone in the group spent plenty of time sitting on the cooler finishing all the water and Gatorades that we had. Going home that day not much was finished but it seemed like the work would pick up in the days to come.

The next morning came around and I was back in the squished car much less nervous than I was the day before but still a little concerned about all the new work we had to do. It did not take long for it to go downhill for both myself and the group. We had set up all the different pieces we needed the day before by putting them in different piles based on what the construction plan said. Then the process of laying down and drilling in the tin began and went smoothly.

 Around lunchtime whilst everyone was eating our other advisor Kelly called out to the group saying, “Um, there’s something not right with the tin.” 

Nick ran up with the latter as if a wave was about to crash over this roof and we needed to get it finished in the next 10 minutes. “What could possibly be wrong? We went through all our material yesterday and organized it.”

Sounding extremely confused Kelly said, “The dimensions of the tin are totally different than what they need to be.” 

Reading the packet at the same time Kelly said, “It would be easy if only one of the sections was messed up.” The roof was divided up into three different sections, the front was a normal flat and up sloped section but instead of the back being the same it had a divider up that made up two extra sections with valleys in between them. “See, we don’t have enough for these two, and we can’t add any from the section with extra because the ridges would not match up.”

We spent the rest of that day and the next two after that trying to fix our problem. With a great mixture of constant trial and error, minimal experience within the group, and crazy hot weather nothing was getting done and morale was very low.

Going into our last day we were in the exact same place as we were on Tuesday. Almost all of our heads were exhausted from trying to come up with something to do the past few days, but Nick was still using all of his work experience to figure something out. Just like the other three days, a new idea came out of his very creative mind, but unlike the other few days, there was no excitement because we had all been through this before. 

After about an hour he was done explaining it to the group, it was not hard to tell that no one knew what came out of his mouth, but slowly we tried it. Surprisingly it worked on the first 2 pieces we tried. 

“This has to work, I spent all of last night figuring it out,” Nick said to everyone while we were taking a break. 

It was clear at that point that everyone had a somewhat better attitude than we had had since Tuesday. That was until we got to the next steps of our plan, it was ten times more complicated than anything we had done. I had no belief that anyone in our group could do it other than Nick. But then I noticed that Kinzy, Lucas, Dani, and Chiara were all going right to work even though it was going to be crazy difficult. I decided that I would join them, and even after a week in the burning hot sun, with an abundance of problems, and directions that I was certain I would not be able to do right, once we got going we could not stop. 

The group left that day with the whole roof done, something that I did not even think would be possible when we hadn’t encountered any of the problems.

Once we were doing we went back to the house and ate diner, then there was only one thing that was on my mind, fishing. With my friend, Casey having been there for weeks before he had told me about how great the fishing was just off the shore of the beach that was essentially in our back yard. 

Exhausted from earlier but determined to get use of every night we could I said, “Alright, lets go, no time to waste.” 

We walked out the back of the house with our rods and expectations high we reached he beach and started casting. When ten minutes passed and not even a nibble, I decided to walk over to Casey and as about his luck. Sadly, nothing was different between the two of us meaning something was wrong. 

“It must be because of the storm,” he guessed, “ The breaks must be much farther than it was before. Or the fish just might not be there.” We went back in with nothing but disappointment and a little hope that the waves would calm down in the days to come.

The next morning the waves were the very same which meant that fishing that night would probably not be great. Still, we wanted to make use of the waves so we spent plenty of time in the water. 

While we were swimming around Casey called me over, “Look! Look! There’s bass right under me!” I swam over as fast as I could and he was right, in the water right next to our feet were huge striped bass. That meant that the waves didn’t make them leave and they were still there.

With that information, we went back out that night with some hope that it would be different than the day before. However it was not, it was helpful knowing that there was definitely bass in the water but we could still not get out past the furthest break. We tried wadding into the water but it was pitch black out so we did not want to go far.

After coming back in that night I asked my mom who was coming up the next day to bring the headlamps we recently bought.

The next day was similar to the one before, but the night was much different. That night there was a very different determination between the both of us. We knew that there was plenty of fish, we knew that we just needed to get out past the break, and now we could see the waves before they hit us. 

At first, it started out like before, cast after cast barely getting it out far enough only on some casts just to reel it in past the break-in about two seconds. However, with the very strong light coming from the top of my head I inched forward every time I had an unsuccessful cast. It got to the point where I had taken off my shirt because I was belly button deep and had reached the closer break of the smaller waves that still hit very hard. But once I reached there it was like fishing I had never experienced before. One cast after another we were both pulling in fish like they were already on the hook before we would cast. If it wasn’t for that determination I never would have gotten out far enough to reach the fish that I knew were there.