I’m going to make this update all about
me! Oh wait; that’s an everyday thing
for my journal; so I guess that’s nothing new at all.
While that’s true; this update is mostly
going to be about our family business and future plans meeting; and my personal
future was a big part of that entire meeting because we finalized a lot of my
plans for everything that needs to be done between now and when I start college
next August.
Before I go there, though; let’s do a
micro-review of the rest of my day.
Tai Chi by the river and breakfast was fun;
we had a good day at school; and the only major news there was that Rowen and I
started noon cheerleading practices today; and we’ll have them on Mondays and
Wednesdays. We’ll have an option for a
bonus practice after school on Thursdays; but shouldn’t need that unless we
have issues with being ready for the Friday games with one or more of the other
girls. I don’t expect that to happen
unless anyone misses practices due to being sick or other reasons; so we won’t
likely need to change anything for the rest of the season – and maybe not for
the playoffs either. Rowen and I did our
homework after school while Michael and Tim were busy with football practice; I
went home with Michael and had dinner at his house; and we took care of the
clean-up before I needed to be home for our meeting and he was on his own for
the rest of the night.
Okay, that was quick enough; so let’s get
to those future plans!
First up – my college education plans. I will be starting with the Interpretation
and Translation program that’s offered at State college through the languages
department; and my plan is to earn my PhD in just five years – the same amount
of time Michael, Rowen, and Tim plan on spending to earn their Masters degrees
in Economics, Computers, and Engineering respectively. Making that happen is going to take some prep
work – especially since I’m also going to get ‘certified’ as an interpreter and
translator for the six United Nations languages.
That means taking all six of those
languages every semester through my first four years; and that will add up to a
double class load when I add in all of the other course requirements. I’ll also be taking summer school every
summer too; and will need to take at least one batch of equivalency tests to
skip a semester. I still need to get all
of that set up, and that’ll mean a few extra trips to the college in addition
to the work I can do on that through the internet and phone meetings; but I’ll
get all of that done. The general plan
is to take my full freshman year; write those equivalency exams to skip third
semester once I’ve proven I can handle the workload; and take my fourth
semester during that summer after my freshman year. That’ll allow me to go into my junior year
for that fall term; I’ll finish my third-year by the end of the ‘normal’ end of
the sophomore year; and then take my fourth-year during that second summer and
third fall term.
If all goes well to that point; I’ll earn
my Masters degree during the following spring and summer, and then, including
the summer session between the normal fourth and fifth years that Michael,
Rowen, and Tim will be taking; I’ll earn my doctorate degree during those five
remaining semesters. I’ll have that
double workload all the way through to my Masters degree; and will decide somewhere
along the way how much of a workload I’ll take on for my doctoral studies. That will be in Linguistics, but I’ll either
work on a double doctorate or I’ll work something out with the college so that
my specialty is somehow linked to interpretation and translation – or with the
six official U.N. languages.
You may be wondering by now if I’ve lost my
mind, but I haven’t; and this is all part of the overall plan that will lead to
my role in the Ascension of the Light.
That’s a much bigger story, though; so we won’t be going into that
tonight!
Moving along, I’ll get to work on that part
of the plan pretty much right away; and will have it all set up by next May or
June. While that’s a big deal; our
housing plans are just as important. I
have mentioned that a bit, but can now add that ‘our’ townhomes are under
construction, and while the block of units we’ll be part of will be done
well-ahead of next summer and the other units will be rented months ahead of
when we’ll be moving in next August; we will be the first tenants – and they’ll
be the last two units in the entire complex to be completed. Aunt Leanne is keeping an eye on that for me,
and we’ll have good neighbors; since this housing project is geared toward
professional couples and won’t be party central for the college crowd – unless the
place fills up with Professors that do like to party with their students!
We’ll be having boys and girls townhomes –
at least at first, and while the math wouldn’t work for the budget we’ll be working
out with four sets of parents; half of them won’t know that the actual cost is
being subsidized by me; so it will work out – and be approved. For the record, I don’t have anything against
living on campus in the residential halls, but we’ll all be eighteen soon after
starting college; so there are Magi-related reasons for having our own places
to live. There will also be risks for me
once I move away from Mom, and while we can’t be sure of what will happen;
Ethan, Ehlana, and I are sure that we will be dealing with the Hathornes
more-directly again once I’m at college.
I don’t want to put others at risk, so having our own place will be good
for that too; and I’m also sure that Michael, Tim, and Rowen will be there for
me in a Magi sort of way if needed.
Having our own homes with chances for
roommate sleepover swaps will just be an awesome added bonus! :^)
I’ll never get this update finished if I go
off on that mental track; so let’s move along.
We actually worked up a rough budget
tonight for all of our college costs, including the townhomes, food,
entertainment, travel, and the rest.
There will be savings for Rowen’s and Tim’s parents over living on
campus – once the ‘subsidies’ are excluded; so I’m sure they’ll go for the plan
– and Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I have been softening them up to be ready for
all of this for quite a while now. I’m
also excluding one expense from Michael’s part of the budget – the new car that
I’ll be buying next spring. I’ll get
that around the end of June; since we’ll need it for the extra running around
we’ll need to do next summer, but while I could get it sooner; I don’t need a
car sitting around in our driveway doing nothing most of the time between now
and then for as little as I’ll need to drive this fall and winter.
Michael and I have talked about this, and
he doesn’t have an ego-related issue with me buying ‘our’ first car. We will pick it out together, but while our
choice will be boring compared to Tim’s Corvette; we’ll need a more practical
set of wheels with room for passengers and luggage. I did promise to resist the urge to get a
minivan, though, and while Michael might love a truck like Dad’s; we’ll go with
some sort of sedan that will do better on gas – especially when we’re talking
about average round trips to home or college that’ll likely average ten or
eleven hours of drive time; depending on traffic issues each way. Whatever we pick; that car is going to get
some miles piled on it during our five years at college!
Some of my plans for our college years are
too-boring to write about here, but we did go over a lot of those little
details. For the bigger picture, we
talked about the impact of college on my family business work; everything else
I’ll need to do around the ‘official’ education; and we had a fairly-lengthy
discussion about what will be going on around here while I’m gone. That was mostly about Mom, Dad, and the
twins; so I’ll leave that news for them to write about in their journals or
elsewhere. My biggest issues will
revolve around everything I’ll miss out on – including too much of Ethan’s and
Ehlana’s lives. Five years likely feels
like nothing for Grandma and Grandpa from their perspective; but my brother and
sister will go from kids to tweens while I’m at college; and I wish I don’t
have to miss out on so much of their lives.
Okay, I miss out on a lot now while I’m so
busy with everything else; but I do still get to spend time with them every day
– even if that is sometimes only cameo moments throughout the day.
I guess that’s enough of my future plans
for tonight. We also did the full review
for the rest of our local future plans and progress updates for
work-in-progress – like the construction that continues in the new section of
town. With the third apartment building
finished, we will have a bit of a break from major construction this year, but
we need that so we can make other changes and deal with adapting old apartments
and homes that have been empty because of the new options that are available
now – and much more in-demand than, for instance, the apartments over the
stores on Witch Falls Road. That does
offer a lot of renovation work for our construction crews, so they won’t run
out of work anytime soon – and there will always be more work for them for the
foreseeable future.
That pretty much covers the highlights of
that meeting; so let’s wrap this up with the bedtime work and study news.
If you’re reading this journal with any
sense of context for history and current events, you’ll know that September
eleventh is still a rather significant day for most Americans – though this
anniversary seems to be decidedly low-key compared to others. Florida has also just gone through the trials
of a major hurricane over the weekend, and while Hurricane Irma was very
different from Hurricane Harvey; it has been at least as devastating. I bring it up because I spent a lot of my
time tonight doing what I can to help through my end of the family business;
which is also part of the reason for why I’m writing this update now instead of
hours ago.
I am not going to write about any
specifics, since the only thing that matters is that we are doing what we can;
and people in need are getting help. As
with Texas, the recovery is going to be long-term, and unlike the news media;
we won’t move on to the next big thing whenever that happens in a day or week –
just as we stick it out while dealing with other problems all over the world.
That, by the way, is one of the reasons I
really don’t like to write about current events – even when we’re talking about
big, headline-grabbing natural disasters.
This summer is a great example of that.
I’ve written about these two Hurricanes; but let’s take a moment to
mention some of the issues I haven’t written about at al – just from this
summer!
There was a major earthquake between those
two Hurricanes in southern Mexico – not to mention another, smaller Hurricane
in Mexico too. We have major wildfires
in a handful of Western States – and in Canada and a dozen or more other
countries around the world. There have
been a handful of countries hit by Monsoon floods as bad as or worse than what’s
happened in Texas and Florida; and that has been more-catastrophic to life – if
not to property value. Heat waves all
over the globe – including the so-called ‘Lucifer’ heat wave in Europe – have been
devastating, and if all of that isn’t enough; I’ll leave it up to you to look
into all of the military conflicts that are going on all over the world.
My point, as always, is that all of those
other lives are equally-important; and I care as much for the kid left homeless
by flood, fire, or other problem in some un-named village on the other side of
the planet as I do for his or her brother or sister in distress here in my home
country. I am not going to offer another
diatribe on that – or our shared responsibility for our fellow humans and all
life on our planet; but it is something that we all need to care about if we
want to have the kind of future that is meant to be for all of us.
That’s taking this update too deep –
particularly when I’m a bit sleep-deprived right now. I still have time for a bit of a nap; so I’m
going to wrap this up and get to that down time. I have had a good day, and all of the work on
my college plans was exciting tonight; so I’m also really looking forward to
the coming weeks and months. Every day
isn’t going to be filled with non-stop fun and excitement, but I do expect to
be busy most of the time; which is why I should be napping right now instead of
rambling on and on!
I’m going to do that now – really I am; so,
until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
