Hidden in ParenthesesIt's been 1.42 seconds since the last time I lied (or, rather, left out the truth). Someone asked me to tell them (again) about my wonderful summer, and I replied, "It was amazing...a truly life-changing experience (but I would appreciate it if you'd stop asking me questions about this because of the ever-present bump). in my throat starts to hurt every time I speak through unshed tears of longing). The truth is, I haven't gone a day without crying since I left Stanford (the place of my dreams). Every day I struggle to remember who I was before I left (and how to introduce the new me to my old world). It's a constant cycle where I do everything in my power to make sure I can come back in two years (God willing) and try not to go back to who I once was (even if there was nothing terribly wrong with the old me). ). My life is now divided into two distinct periods: pre-Stanford and post-Stanford because in the two months (eight weeks, sixty days, 1,440 hours or 86,400 minutes) that I spent there, my life completely changed. My name is Zoé (meaning “life” in Greek). I have three brothers who are pretty annoying (but I love them with all my heart most of the time) and a dog (who I love with half my heart...twice a month). I'm sixteen years old (and still don't have my license), and I attend Deerfield Windsor School, a small private school in Albany, Georgia. (I fondly call it Smallbany, Georgia.) These facts have not changed. They apply to the new me just as much as the old me, but that's where most of the similarities end. I failed midterm and still walked out of a class with an A. (Computer science be damned.) I now know what failure feels like middle of paper...... tion and isolate it from the rest of the problem. The rule is to proceed from the inside out, reaching the final figure once all the excess between the two curved lines has been corrected. They protect this fragile figure from the disorder of the mathematical equation (multiply, divide, add, subtract). In English, I was taught that words in parentheses are meant to be an aside, an afterthought reduced to the end of the sentence. My teacher told me that parentheses are like lesser commas. "If the sentence can stand alone without the phrase, put it in parentheses (this way the reader can skip them if they are pressed for time or not really interested in reading)." I argue that parentheses are necessary, but obnoxious. They sit on the periphery of a sentence and hide truth and fear. Parentheses are the best places to hide. It's the last place people look.