It’s time for that double-update; so let’s
get right to it!
Tuesday morning started out hot and kept
getting hotter, but we were still outdoors for Tai Chi by the river; and Michael
stayed for breakfast so that we could have fun with Ethan and Ehlana’s first,
special, first-day-of-school breakfast.
Dad did that for them, but while they were amused by it, since their
home-schooling is at the post-graduate level right now; we all still
appreciated the effort and love behind the gesture.
The food was pretty good too! ;^)
Ethan and Ehlana had an entourage with them
for the walk to school; and that included some of my friends too as we
collected Rebecca and Rowen along the way while also meeting up with Naomi,
Aiden, and most of their families so that the four friends could walk there
together. Michael and I had to move on
before the younger kids were invited into the school by their teachers, so we
had to do our goodbyes before the twins were put into their Kindergarten class;
but Mom and Dad stayed with them until then – along with most of the other Kindergarten-student
parents.
I’m not going to write a lot about my
classes and teachers, but do want to record the basics for posterity; so let’s
do that for both yesterday and today.
Our home room teacher this year is Jane Connor. Mrs. Connor is also teaching our Algebra
class – our first of the ‘Day 2’ schedule; but that’s the only class she’s
teaching in Grade Eleven that I’m taking this year because I’m not taking Art –
and she doesn’t have any of the other classes I am taking that she could
teach. Spanish with Mrs. Morris and
Computers with Mr. Sparks rounded out my morning classes on Tuesday; and then I
had Phys-Ed with Mr. Robinson; Geography with Mr. Sparks; and English with Mrs.
Morris for my afternoon classes. We
started with the Day Two schedule because that's normal for Tuesdays, but we’ll
still have two Day One days this week by starting the bi-weekly rotation with
the Day One classes this Friday.
We had our first taste of those classes
today; and I have Physics with Mr. Seager, Music with Mrs. Robinson, and
Economics with Mrs. Reynolds for the first-half of my Day One classes. We follow that up after lunch with Calculus –
another class with Mrs. Reynolds; Chemistry with Mr. Seager; and History with
Mr. Robinson. That looks like a fairly
awful schedule, and some of my friends and classmates would agree with that,
but while I won’t actually need all of those sciences for my college plans;
Michael and Tim both do; and they will still help Rowen and me for our future
education plans too – at least when it comes to having impressive high school
academics. Our schedule – and we are all
taking the same classes and optionals – is tougher than most, but while it
might have been nice to take it a bit easier; the Grade Eleven work won’t be
hard for me for obvious reasons; and I’ll be busier with my ‘real’ work and
studies.
Moving along with the report; our first day
of classes was a lot of fun – though that was mostly thanks to hanging out with
Michael, Rowen, Tim, and the rest of our friends. I didn’t get to spend any time with Ethan and
Ehlana after school, but did get a short report from them at lunchtime; so I
did get to hear a bit about their first day in Kindergarten with Mrs. Norton
before they went home with Mom and Aiden.
Naomi was with us for that little chat, since she wanted to see Ethan
and Ehlana before they went home too; but she was still mostly-happy to be
staying for the rest of the day too – even though she would have preferred to
do that with the twins and Aiden instead of being a year ahead of them.
While we were kept busy in our classes all
day, the fun level kicked up after school on Tuesday with cheerleading
practice. Jenny wasn’t as down as I
expected her to be now that her summer fling is over and Evan has moved on to
college. I guess she just has a
different perspective on that than I do; and that was especially obvious later
when she was having fun flirting with some of the guys from Maple Valley during
our band practice. Before I get to that,
though, I’ll mention that we’ve picked our half-time routine for the game on
Friday already, and while we’ll have practices on Wednesday and Thursday this
week too; we won’t practice every day starting next week – mostly because Jenny
only wants to have two practices a week plus the games on Friday. We’re still discussing that; so I’ll keep you
posted once we’ve agreed on how to fit those practices into our collective
schedules. I have mixed feelings about
Jenny’s plans for that, but two fewer practices a week will make my life a bit
easier; so I should be happy about the plan.
I could have used one fewer practices
tonight. Instead, most of us had to eat
on the fly between cheerleading and marching band practices – or football
practice for the guys. We’re still
working on our half-time shows for the football games; but will be adding in
more music as we go along – particularly for plans we have at Halloween and to
get ready for the Christmas parades after that.
This practice was all about the football games, though; and we worked
hard on a new routine that we’ll use to mix things up for home games – and some
of the away games too. We are getting
better every week, though, and the football games are as much to help us get
ready to play in front of thousands at Disney as for any other reason.
While we probably could have taken the week
off from our teen praise team practice, we went ahead with it anyway; and
started working on the music we’ll be doing for the next two teen-led services –
the fall festival and Thanksgiving weekends services. Michael and I are out of the rotation for any
major duets or other special music, but we are still in the middle of the music
for playing keyboard and guitar; and we’re always a big part of the songs when
it comes to the vocal harmonies. We were
both getting tired by then, but music is always fun for us; and we really love
getting to sing and play with some of our friends.
I went home with Michael after we were done
at the church; we did our homework together; and then I helped him out with a
bit of Magi healing before heading home so that I could get started on my
work. The rest of the story for Tuesday
night is mostly a blur; and you already know that I was pretty much wiped out
by the time I wrapped things up last night with that little placeholder of an
update before I crashed and napped for a couple of hours.
That down time really wasn’t much more than
two hours, so I needed a bit of self-healing this morning before going outside
for Tai Chi by the river. While his
parents were back to work at the Inn this morning, Michael didn’t stay for
breakfast again today because Tim had the guys starting up their weight
training already this morning; so Michael had to hurry up and get to that
instead of hanging out with me. As I’ve
mentioned before, that isn’t always fun for him – or for me either; but those
morning workouts are making sure that my boyfriend is very hot; so I won’t
complain about Tim’s over-enthusiasm for doing all he can to help make his
football team great.
By the way, I should mention that I
actually think of the team as Tim’s, since he is one of the leaders; but he isn’t
the Captain this year – Lucas was given that job and honor. I think that Lucas was a great choice; and
certainly much easier for some of us to put up with this year – though we don’t
need to bring up the problems from last season to prove my point. The only other thing about this that I will
mention is that Lucas is fine with deferring to Tim when it comes to motivating
their team; while quietly doing his own part for that by leading through
example as he always works hard and tries his hardest all of the time.
Getting back to the story, I’ve already
covered my classes and teachers for the Day One schedule; so I’ll only add that
some of the classes are a bit different this year as we don’t have all of our
classmates in every class now that more optionals are available to us. We do still have everyone in English and
Spanish; but Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I are the only students in our year
taking the same two sciences and maths.
Spanish is an optional, but I helped to convince all of my classmates to
keep taking it because many of them can use four years of high school Spanish
to earn a pass on second-language requirements at college. That won’t matter to me, since I’m going to
be in the interpreter/translator program when I go to college; but it will help
Michael, Tim, and Rowen.
I’m off-track again. All I wanted to point out about our classes
is that we don’t have the full gang for every class; and some of our friends
are taking lighter classes – and fewer for those that picked taking the allowed
spares instead of full schedules. In my
case, I actually wish that I could take more classes; since I’ll miss taking
Art and some of the other classes that are more fun than Calculus and Algebra.
Yes, that might be shocking, but even teen
magi Masters do not find advanced math all that much fun – even if we are
really, really good at it!
Our second cheerleading practice of the
week was pretty good; and short-enough that Rowen and I had time to do our
homework at the computer store before I went home for dinner and she stayed
there to work until close. Most stores
in town are open late every night this week for any back-to-school needs, but
they’ll all be switching to fall hours this weekend – including being closed on
Sundays for a lot of the stores. Michael
and Tim didn’t get finished their football practice soon-enough to join us for
that studying; but Michael would have needed to get to the Inn after that
anyway even if they had been done early.
I was glad to get that work out of the way; and really enjoyed having
dinner with Mom, Dad, and the twins for a while before getting back to work
after dinner.
We all needed to do that, and for me; that
included working on the family business; getting back to Magi lessons with Mom;
and starting my next language – Tagalog.
I’m going to spend the entire school year learning it; mostly because it
will take time to become proficient in all of the variations of the
language. Taking the time now with this
language will also help me with other related languages I’ll be learning in the
future; and this seemed to be a good time to fit that into my languages
schedule so that I can also take it a bit easier with those studies while my
schedule is so full with everything else I have on the go this fall.
While my Magi studies have been
self-directed for a while now; I’m glad to get back to working with Mom more
regularly. My Magi studies are really
important, and while I can self-learn now; there are still a lot of things that
Mom can and will teach me – and we do need to do that now; since I’ll be off to
college in less than two years now.
Sure, we’ll be learning and studying for the rest of our lives, but I
need to be ready to be out on my own too; and have a lot more to learn before I
go away to school. Mom didn’t push me
too hard tonight; and we did a lesson that Ethan and Ehlana could help out with
– though the lesson was for me; and they were assistants and observers. That was a blast of extreme fun; and made for
a nice break between the rest of the work and studying.
Work was the name of the game tonight for
Mom and Dad; Ethan and Ehlana got back to their Master’s degree studies; and I
split my time between the family business work and my language studies on
either side of the Magi lesson. We did
all of that in a time phase that I handled for the first half and Mom took over
for the second; which is why I’m able to write this report while it’s still
comparatively-early. I even had time for
a soak in my Jacuzzi before climbing into bed with Mandy; and I’ll still be
sleeping well-before midnight for a change.
That’s good for me, since I’m still worn
out from yesterday; and nearly as exhausted as I was in the wee hours of this
morning – though obviously not so tired that I couldn’t write this report too
before calling it a night. I do need to
get all of the sleep I can; and since I have pretty much covered all of the
news anyway; I’m going to get to that nap time now; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
