*on the nose

in 12th grade i took ap english and i had a really hard time with uncovering symbolism. another student in the class was really good with understanding subtext and whenever we had to work in small groups to debrief a piece of literature, he was always the one who told the group what the book was actually about and while it always made sense to me right away, i would get frustrated that i wasn’t able to interpret them for myself. after expressing it to him in confidence once, the student assured me that as long as it made sense to me, that was the important part. whenever we were in small groups, though, and another student would say something that he thought was accurate, the first student would always gently issue his nose a few taps with the tip of his pointed index finger to indicate that the student speaking was “on the nose” and i always really enjoyed that.