Seniors rule the school!
Okay, that might work better if I hadn’t
had my Mommy along to see me off on my first day of Grade Twelve, but everyone
had fun with that; and Ethan and Ehlana somehow managed to get away with that;
since Mom apparently wasn’t with us to see them off on their first day of Grade
One.
Our day started with Tai Chi by the river;
Dad cooked a special breakfast for us; and then Mom, Ehlana, and I had some fun
getting ready for the day before we met up with a small gang of teens, kids,
and parents for the walk to school. Dad,
by the way, did not come along, but he did take lots of pictures before going
to work; and he’s playing it cool today for Ethan’s benefit. Sure, it’s a silly guy thing, but Ethan
already has a sister-twin strike against him with the other guys his age; and
doesn’t want to risk totally ruining his fledgling reputation at such a young
age when that sort of thing stays with you throughout school in a small town.
We had a great first day of the new school
year, but if some of my classmates were expecting a major change now that we’re
the seniors; they were disappointed. It
is going to be great to see everyone every day again, but the work will be
tougher for most of my friends – especially now that it’s crunch time for
college. This is it; we’ve got one shot
to get the grades that’ll get us into the colleges we want to attend; and that
will mean putting in the extra time to do that – and to get ready for SATs and
doing everything else that goes along with wanting to be college-bound in a
year. I’ll save that for another update,
though; and we can get on with the news of the day.
First up, I don’t know if it was personal
this year; but I am happy to have Madeline Morris for our home room teacher
this year, and while out schedules have been switched up; we have the same
teachers for the same classes too. We
also get to have her for our first classes each day; so we won’t need to make a
classroom move after home room – or have a teacher switch. We started with the ‘Day Two’ schedule; so
that meant English, Algebra with Jane Connor, and Economics with Anita
Reynolds. Having women for our teachers
all morning is a nice bonus – not that I’m suggesting that the guys aren’t good
teachers too!
The guys also took over for the
afternoon. Mr. Seager is teaching us
Physics again; and Coach Robinson has us for the last two afternoon classes –
History and Phys-Ed. That will work out great
for us during football season, since the guys can get ready for football
practice and Rowen and I can go straight to cheerleading after last class two
days a week – plus every other Friday football game. That’s what we did today; though it does mean
we have to wait for the rest of the members of our respective teams to join us
for the practices. For Rowen and I; that
meant getting everything ready for our practice; and we had time to work on
some music and routines while we waited.
Rowen’s going with three practices this week, but we’ll change it up
next week; and will likely go with Tuesday and Thursday practices at noon
instead of after school. That’s so that
some of us have more work availability after school; and that is an issue when
we won’t be able to work on Friday nights for the next few months.
Speaking of work; there will be some
changes happening this week at the Inn now that the summer rush is
finished. Miranda and Jacob will keep
their Monday-Tuesday days off; but Jake and Stephanie are going to move their
days off to Wednesday and Thursday – and run the Inn on Mondays and
Tuesdays. That will have some minor
issues with the full-time staff that
have been in charge of the kitchen and dining rooms anytime Jacob and Miranda
have been off, but it’s been part of the plan for a while; and there is a lot
more work to do now anyway – especially as we head into the fall and the start
of the new weekend getaways that Miranda and Stephanie are offering. Our family business companies might be signing
up for some of those business retreats; but only a few people know that right
now – and we’re not talking about doing that with any companies that aren’t
reasonably-local. Michael and I may
switch things up a bit too, since he really does want to make as much money
over the next year as he can; but I’ll keep you posted on that as we go along
over the next few weeks.
We still need to work out the rest of our
fall schedule; and some of our practices won’t begin until next week. I’m going to miss marching band, but not the extra
work; and we will still have band practice and teen praise team on Tuesdays; so
we will be busy pretty much every day.
There will be more homework too; and I expect that we’ll have more study
sessions with our classmates than ever before – maybe even several times a
week. Yes, I have no idea how we’ll work
that out with everything else; but I’ll have to keep you posted on that one
too.
As for today, our cheerleading practice
went well; we’re already in a good rhythm; and I really like where we’re taking
the squad this year – even if Jenny would say we’re toning down the ‘hot’
factor too much. I haven’t mentioned
football practices much, but we were finished before Michael and Tim were; so
we caught about half of their scrimmage – and had fun watching Michael and Tim
show off a bit for us. I know they need
to hold back, but it’s still fun to watch them run as fast as they do – which is
sub-four-four speed that any college team would love to have – especially when
they’re both very strong too. Tim might
not fare well against Kyle if he gets caught; but I also doubt that Kyle could
catch him anymore – and he’s been the best defensive player at his college
since his rookie season. It’s hard to
believe, but Kyle’s a senior this year; so this is going to be his last year
playing college ball; since he isn’t going to be doing any post-grad
studies. He’ll have both his engineering
degree and a heavy machinery mechanic’s license by next May; and will come back
and go to work with his father. Expect
the jokes to start up right away for them having combine weight lifting
challenges on their lunch breaks soon after he’s home! ;^)
Kyle will never know; but I’m smiling right
now as I picture Tim when he finds out that his mother actually can lift one! That could happen in another year – after he
turns eighteen; and I’m really looking forward to when I’ll be able to be open
about our Magi talents with all three of my best friends once they’re all
eighteen.
Moving along; Michael and I had dinner with
our families because our Moms put together a joint dinner so that we could do
the first day of school recap with everyone.
That meal was at my house, but Jacob cooked the entree; and Mom picked
up special desserts to go along with the sides that she cooked too. The food was ready by the time we got home;
so we sat down to eat right away – and did that in the sunroom so that we could
enjoy the view. Ethan and Ehlana led the
dinner conversation, but we all added our daily recaps; and I really loved
getting to have that time with all four of our parents.
Michael and I had studying to do after
that, but we took care of the clean-up first; and then Rowen and Tim came over
so we could work together. We did that
in the lounge after Michael’s parents headed home; it took an hour and a half
to get through our assignments; and I had some reading to do after Michael,
Rowen, and Tim left – and they had to do that too after they got home. Rowen and Tim left first; Michael stayed for
a Magi lesson with Mom and me; and then he went home while I came up to my room
and got to work – once I was changed and tucked in for the night with Mandy.
I’ve had a lot to do since then; including
a bit of prep work for resuming my language studies. I may not get right into that this week, but
if I can work it into my schedule and still get at least a nap worth of sleep
each night; I’ll do it. My studies
really do need to be a priority this fall – and I’m including my Magi studies
with Mom. She wants to do more lessons
with me while she can; since this really will be my last year for doing that
with her. I’ll continue my studies on my
own after that – though she’ll always be available for a bit of help whenever I
need it. My self-directed studies will
continue too; but I’ll be doing that sort of thing for the rest of my life; and
there will be times when I can do more of that – and others when I can let that
slide for a while.
I will need to be ready for each step along
the way to the Ascension of the Light, though; so I always have that long-term
timetable in my head too as I try to juggle everything.
Tonight, my work and study juggling act has
taken too many hours – including a lot of time phasing for the work I could do
at that speed. I won’t make a big deal
of the incoming hurricane news for our country, since there are still a lot of
unknowns with Hurricane Irma, but I did do some extra prep work for that –
along with making sure that our Caribbean interests were being taken care of in
the high-risk areas. I don’t want to
make light of the seriousness of the situation for anyone in the path of the
storm either; but can’t resist at least pointing out that the last ‘storm of
the century’ might be topped within weeks by ‘the strongest hurricane ever
recorded’ – if Irma does end up being anywhere near as devastating as Harvey
has been.
Do not look here, folks – there is no signs
of climate change to be found anywhere!
You are reading this someday in my near or
distant future; so please don’t take that the wrong way if hindsight makes that
joke look to be in poor taste. I will be
spending my life trying to help to fix all of the problems in the world; so I
do take that responsibility seriously.
Okay, I think that’s it for tonight; and I
seriously need to get started on my nap.
I am glad to be back at school, and it is great being a senior too; but
it does also mean that my life is going to get even busier; so I should just
get used to the need for daily self-healing and lack of sleep. Both will be true tonight, but I will deal
with it; and it is getting easier most days as I get older and my Magi powers
grow stronger. That’s something I should
write about too, but let’s save that one for another day; and I’ll wrap this up
right now and head off to sleep.
Until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
