It started at 9am and it was a two hours and thirty minutes exam. Amazingly I found myself done within one hour and 30 minutes. Was it because I was excited to write my last Grade 12 exam paper? I think I was just enjoying the paper and the questions were much more understandable than the past term’s questions. It happened that I was the first one to finish writing with an hour still to go. What was I going to do with so much remaining time? Sleeping was not allowed nor going out, what else did I have in mind? Finally, I thought I always wanted to be an author, then why not write a short story perhaps about the year-long journey that I had?

My classmates and I met 2018 since I had just relocated to the school in the same year from a school in Bushbuckridge. My first year felt like we had grown together, the laughter and happiness I had was pleasant and adorable. It felt like walking from South Africa to the United States of America, it was long and tiring but exciting at the same time. As a matric student, it felt great to be in the class of 2019. We knew that soon it was going to be transforming moments for us. The pressure I had nearly made me to give up on school but thinking of the desires that I had of changing the circumstance around me made me love education regardless.

I have experienced all the good weak relationships and heart breaks. People fight over a little stupid matters that they could sit down as matured people and bring a solution to. But, they fail and see separation as the best way of solving challenges.

As matrics, we come across things we did not expect. Exams show us flames from June to November, there is no time to rest but only study. If you did not like studying you end up enjoying your books and it becomes a habit because you owe it to your gigantic dreams and goals. Dr K. L Mapaila once said, “There is no escalator in life” meaning we should walk step by step and climb the ladder to reach our destination. It is not easy to be patient but patience brings a huge reward that is worth more than silver and diamonds.

I truly learnt to be strong, to be consciousness and to have power to get what I want as there is no one who would know and get me what I want. The best is to stand up and be a hard worker for there is a great reward that you will get at the end of the day.

We really need to be strong for we know that one day, some of us will cry and will rejoice. As we were writing our last paper in Grade 12, we knew were all going to go our separate paths. Yes, we loved each other therefore goodbyes were going to be the most difficult things to give.

I do have people I love, and I know how it feels. We are going to separate and head into different pastures of the world, some surely are going to lose their lives, paralyzed because we all know that the world we live in is so cruel. Goodbye is goodbye until we meet again. Our love is unconditional and it will endure forever. I salute the class of 2019.

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