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Towards the end of the summer, we were informed that in order to enroll in Nikan’s middle school, we were to pass an entrance exam. This would be similar to our previous finals although all questions would be multiple-choice. There wasn’t much studying to do given the vast amount of material that it covered so the best option was to simply go with what we had learned and knew. The morning of the exam I was dropped off rather early and as I stood in the schoolyard scoping out the new environment and the few students- all new - already there, one of them seemed familiar to me. Apparently the feeling was mutual as he looked at me and waved me over. It was Bijan.


I hadn’t seen him in about a year but we picked up where we had left off. We talked about all of the people we had known (I told him Hamid was also attending this school to which he responded, “The vomit guy?”) and funny things that had happened to us in the past which in itself completely eased any tension we were feeling prior to the exam. However I was brought back to reality when as we walked in the exam hall I asked one of the teachers (that I later learned was Mr. Jalaeifar) if all previous Nikan students would automatically be admitted. It was a stupid question, answered by the mere fact that we also had to take this entrance exam, and I probably did so just to endear myself to him. He simply shook his head and responded, “No.”

The exam had various sections and we got a break in between where students would discuss their answers. For the math section, one particular problem drew heated debates. The time for scrambling one egg was given and the question asked for how long it would take to scramble a dozen eggs. Many of the students assumed it could be solved using proportions. Others, in particular one student whose name I later learned was Golshani, argued against it stating that it would take the same amount of time as one egg as all eggs would be scrambled together and it would be stupid to scramble one egg at a time. Others said the problem could not be solved as it was like stating someone’s height at age 10 and expecting his height to double and triple by age 20 and 30 respectively.

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