Band practice was one of the highlights of
the day for me, as was the post teen praise team practice visit with Miranda
and Jacob after they got home from Garden City, but before I go there; let’s
talk football!
No, I am not excited about the upcoming
Super Bowl; though apparently I should be simply because I’m dating a football
player. What the guys that razzed me
about my total lack of interest don’t know, however, is that Michael mostly
plays football because his best friend wants him to play on the team with
him. He does like football, and is
pretty good at it too, but unlike Tim; he’d be just as happy doing other sports
or activities – like music. That’s not
really the point of this side trip, since I do think that some guys are living
in a different era if they think that girls should just wander through life
doing and thinking whatever the men in their lives thing that they should;
though it is possible that they’re just totally delusional. The only reason that I’d have to look forward
to the Super Bowl is that it’ll be the end of football season until Tim puts on
what is sure to be a big push to get ready for the school football season.
Yes, I could see him wanting to start that
the day after the Super Bowl; but I think that Michael will manage to get him
to hold off on the daily practices until July – even if he is still stuck with
the daily weight training.
I really don’t want to go on and on about
football, and truly don’t care whether the horsies or big cats – the Broncos or
Panthers – win the championship; but other than the sexism implied in the jokes
directed my way today; I’d also like to remind those boys that there are way
more important things going on in the world.
While I don’t write about that much in this journal, in part because the
archives have much more thorough reports on global current events than I could
possibly cover in my personal journal anyway; that doesn’t mean that I’m
unaware or unaffected. I also deal with
many of those issues while working on the family business; and try to help
where I can. The second point I want to
make, I’m doing here in my journal because it isn’t cool to go off on a public diatribe
with a bunch of teen friends; and it’s simply to point out that even
professional sports are still just a game.
Take a reality check people, and while I’d never dream of suggesting
that there’s a problem with sports as entertainment; that is also all that it
is – entertainment.
Okay, that’s already too much ranting; so
let’s get back to the report for the day.
Michael came over for Tai Chi this morning;
he stayed for breakfast; and then went home to get ready for the school day and
head there early-enough for his weight training with Tim, Lucas, and the few
other guys that are dedicated enough to do that with them all winter. I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but Michael’s
Pushing Hands training is going really well, and while he still has a lot to
learn about Tai Chi; he’s already to a point where he’d be able to handle
himself well-enough if we needed to defend ourselves. Since you’re reading this in the future, you’ll
know that we’ve needed to do that by then, but while I do have some hints about
that future; let’s not spoil that news for future journal updates! ;^)
Our classes today all included starting new
lesson modules; and we also started getting exam results. I’m not going to brag about how I did, since
that would just be silly considering what my unofficial academic achievements
are; but I am willing to accept a bit of the blame for helping our Grade Ten
class to earn some of the highest group average marks on those exams in school
history. The best part of that is having
my friends so happy; and they’re even happier because the results make for
happy parents too.
The new study modules make our classes more
entertaining, but band practice after school really was one of the highlights
because we spent some of that time talking about the new marching band; and the
rest was because we worked on music for the senior’s Valentine’s Day party that
we’ll be doing the music for – including the duet that Michael and I have again
been drafted for; and still need to pick out and learn. We didn’t have any new band members for our
little concert band, but we are expected to be leaders for the new band; and
that means getting involved in all of the work.
For today, our group assignment is to brainstorm fundraising ideas that
teens can get into doing; and to get those ideas back to the marching band
committee by next Monday.
Actually getting to this stage of making a
marching band a reality is awesome; and I especially like seeing the excitement
with all of the teens. The trip to
Florida is a big deal for quite a few of my band mates; and I am going to do
everything I possibly can to make that happen for them. Okay, I won’t do everything, since buying and
eating thousands of chocolate bars or whatever else we try to sell for those
fundraisers would be a bit too much for even my metabolism; but I do have
resources that I will use if needed.
Michael came home with me for dinner
because his parents weren’t back from Garden City yet; and that was a blast of
busy as we tried to eat and get our homework finished before heading over to
the church for our praise team practice.
While we’re still weeks away from Valentine’s Day, and the teen praise
team is doing music for that Sunday service too, Easter is early this year; so
we started on that music tonight too.
Yes, that might sound crazy, but we have nearly as much music to learn
for the Easter services and Palm Sunday as we have at Christmas. Memorizing all of that isn’t an issue for me;
but Michael and I aren’t the only members of the team.
We had fun at that practice too, but the
highlight of my evening was the bedtime chat that we had with Miranda and
Jacob. They’d gotten home shortly before
we got there from the church, so we helped with the unpacking; and then we sat
down to trade travel and home stories.
Miranda wasn’t really terribly disappointed in us for not doing anything
wrong while they were away, but she still had fun teasing us about that, and
while I’m not really wishing that we had done anything that would have ‘made her
proud’ of us; I have had a bit of fun daydreaming about that while doing my
work and studying tonight.
That visit didn’t last very long because
Michael’s parents were exhausted after two long travel days; so I came home
about five minutes after Rebecca got back to their house from spending the
evening with Lucas and his family. Since
then, I’ve done my Magi lesson with Mom; took care of getting Ethan and Ehlana
into bed for the night; and followed that up with a major work and study
session that was again in time phase so that I wouldn’t be up all night getting
everything on my to-do list finished.
The extra sleep will be nice, but I’m going to need to cut back on the
time phasing and extreme power drain for a while. I should be able to do that tomorrow because
Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I will all be getting back to our mid-week after
school work day; and I plan on doing my work and studying early and then going
to bed so that I can actually get eight or nine hours of uninterrupted sleep
for a change.
Quit laughing. It could happen!
Or not, but either way, I am done with this
update, and you can always flip the digital page to find out whether that did
or didn’t work out for me; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!