Anyone who went to middle school or high school in Florida probably remembers the Florida Writes test we had to take in both eighth and tenth grades. I had quite a few teachers tell me I was a good writer when I was in school, but I never thought much about it since math and science were by far my favorite subjects. However, when I got a 5.5 out of 6.0 (in increments of 0.5) on my Florida Writes test in eighth grade I was surprised and proud. It made me think that my teachers weren’t just being nice when they praised my writing skills! But even though my test score was just 0.5 points away from a perfect score (and I was one of only two eighth graders who had received it) it wasn’t high enough to deserve recognition at the Cobb Middle School year-end awards ceremony. I remember a girl named Julia who earned a 6.0 on the test got a certificate and I was extremely jealous. So when Florida Writes rolled around again in tenth grade I was determined to improve my results. I have absolutely no memory of what the topic of the test was or what I wrote about. I don’t even remember how confident I was that I would get my coveted perfect score when it was over. I guess I completely forgot about the test for a long time (it took forever for them to be graded), but the day we got our scores back was pretty funny. I remember sitting in Mrs. Gaskin’s English class one day, socializing before the bell rang, when my friend Gabe walked over to my desk, gave me an evil glare, and said, “I hate you.” With no further explanation he walked away and sat down at his desk. I was completely bewildered. Thinking back on it, Gabe probably had more than one reason to hate me at any given time, but I had no idea why he decided to articulate the emotion at that particular moment. Then it all became clear. During class that day Mrs. Gaskin revealed our Florida Writes scores and I was thrilled to learn that I had achieved the perfect 6.0 score that I had wanted so badly. Gabe wasn’t so happy. Turns out he had seen the results on our teacher’s desk before class and he wasn’t at all pleased that my score was higher than his (though I have no idea what his was). Sixteen years later his reaction still makes me laugh. Gabe and I were very competitive in other subjects, but I never would have thought he could hate me because of Florida Writes!