Cassie's Journal - June 4, 2014

It’s time for a micro-update because I’ve hopped into my Jacuzzi for a nice long soak before going to bed; but don’t really feel much like multi-tasking tonight.

Today’s Grade Eight exams were Spanish and History – both a breeze when you have a photographic memory.  The better news is that all of my friends were happy with how they did on their exams too.

Our after school and optional, evening study groups worked on English, Computers, and Health; with Rowen leading subject two and Michael and I handling the others.  Please skip the jokes that might come to mind about either of us tutoring the other boys or girls for Health class – we heard them all tonight.  We might have found all of that a bit funnier if we’d had a bit of alone time too; but that didn’t happen.

Since I was busy studying, Violet and Dillon took care of Ethan, Ehlana, and Zack while the parents were busy with their baseball practice; but then they were off and running again to go and hang out with their friends for a while.  Violet’s staying at Dillon’s tonight again too; so it’s fairly quiet up here on the third floor – especially since everyone else is sleeping already.

We’ve had a gorgeous day that most teens around here didn’t get to enjoy very much, but the hot weather is making me hopeful that we’ll be in for a really great summer – especially if we get past all of these days of off-and-on rain and thunderstorms.  Other than writing exams or studying for them, there was a bit of football action at lunchtime and a short swim in the river for some of us after school; but not much else going on.  That’s also all I have for tonight; so I’m going to relax and enjoy the bubbly down time before going to bed.

Until next time…

…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!

Cassie's Journal - June 3, 2014

Most of today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday, except we got more rain more often; the exams of the day were music and science; and the study subjects for the exams tomorrow were Spanish and History.  There was no band practice because of exams; so the only change for Michael and me was that we had our first teen praise team practice at the church after dinner.

We found out when we got there that exams got in the way of that too, so Stacey only had six teens to work with – Michael and me; Anna-Marie Palmer and Cal Jennings; and Shane Wildes and Tegan Wilson.  Everyone else was busy studying – or at least had orders to study; but we will still have time to get ready for the parade and holiday weekend service – and only Michael and I are learning all of the songs.  Yes, we know a lot of them from singing them at church; but we still need to learn the harmonies and the guitar and keyboard arrangements.  Michael had brought his guitar, and Stacey had us play for some of the songs to see how we’d do; but Anna-Marie played the keyboard for most of our practice and we went without a guitar for the songs Michael didn’t play too.

That was a really special hour or so of musical play time; though I wouldn’t say that we sounded great.  We didn’t have any basses in our little group; Anna-Marie and I are sopranos, so Tegan was on her own for the alto part; and Michael was the only tenor with perfect pitch and the range to hit all of the notes.  Stacey wants Michael and I to take some solos and duets already, but I hope she takes that slowly so that we don’t upset any of the other teens – especially anyone who has been waiting for seniors to graduate to get their chance to shine for this coming year.

As I’m sitting here now and thinking about spending that time with the older teens; it occurred to me that I haven’t mentioned Tegan’s name in my journal in years.  Even in a small town, friendships ebb and flow; and this is really the first time I’ve really been around Tegan in quite a while.  That’s a lot different than my first year here when we played baseball together and she came to my tenth birthday party.  Sure, there was the whole crossing over thing that had the same effect on her as it did on the rest of our year-older friends; but then we also haven’t been on the same baseball teams in years either; and ran in different circles of friends.

Tegan and Shane are a couple now; and seem to be very happy.  They both joined the praise team last September; but they’ve mostly stayed in the background behind their more extroverted friends.  Anna-Marie and Cal are two of those more outgoing teens; so they led the practice tonight.  Cal also warned Michael that the guys on the football team would seriously razz him if he ‘sang in the church choir’ and tried to play football too’ but then he seemed to be surviving doing both just fine so Michael isn’t all that worried about that.

Moving along, while that practice was one of the best parts of the day, I skipped over having dinner at Michael’s house; and should never do that!  Even easy-meal nights there are really awesome; and so was getting to spend another hour or so with Jake, Stephanie, and Rebecca.  The only thing missing now is an eighth member for the group.  This wasn’t a good week to suggest that, but maybe Rebecca could invite Lucas to one of the dinners next week or the week after.

I went home with Michael from the church and we studied for another hour.  Rebecca, Jenny, and a couple of the girls in their class were studying in the dining room, so we joined them there – though Jenny teased us about having more fun if we’d go and study in Michael’s room instead.  That would have been true, but not with a bunch of other teens in the house with us.

When the clock struck nine-thirty, I went home so that I could be there in time to do the bedtime story and snack with Ethan and Ehlana.  They’re actually busier than I am right now between spending time at the lab with Mom; KidZone visits; and wrapping up their freshman year at college with their final exams.  My Grade Eight exams are simple by comparison, but helping my friends out and keeping busy all day is still tiring; so skipping Magi lessons and my ‘real’ language studies this week is making it easier to stay fully-charged and enthusiastic.

That’s why I’m in bed already; and should be sleeping before eleven o’clock for the first time in what seems like forever.  We still have three days of exams to go, but then the school year will be all over except for the wind down play time and parties.  I’ll wrap this up on that happy note; so, until next time…

…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!

Cassie's Journal - June 2, 2014

We had some rain roll through this morning, so Tai Chi was indoors; but it didn’t hang around long and we’ve had a really nice day for pretty much the rest of the day.

Too bad we spent most of it either writing exams or studying for the next ones!

We wrote our art, math, and phys-ed exams today; and I can’t help but be a little amused that any of my friends have problems with the first and last of those three.  I can at least understand the issues with math, even if I don’t have that problem; but even top students in art and phys-ed when it comes to the practical side of the subjects can have problems with the written tests and exams.  Okay, maybe it isn’t totally fair that I’ve had all of those little facts memorized for more than a decade now and can just breeze through any test when it comes to anything about art or sports history; techniques for any art medium; and any data relating to the science behind phys-ed, but it isn’t as though the material is particularly difficult compared to other subjects.  I think that it’s just that subjects like math and science get more attention because the ‘easy’ subjects get under-estimated.

That said, most of my classmates were still happy with how all three exams went today; and nobody seemed to be worried about bombing any of those tests.  Compared to last year; that’s a big improvement right there!  Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I didn’t study between exams today, but since most of the other teens did; Rowen and I ended up spending part of our lunch break tossing a football around with the guys when they couldn’t get enough players for a scrimmage.  That was fun, but I actually wish they had been able to pull our friends away from cramming for the next exam.  That doesn’t really help at all; but old habits die hard and it isn’t easy to convince people to change when ‘everyone else is doing it’.

Not taking any breaks all day also has the downside of making it harder to switch gears and start studying for the next round of exams.  Mom helped with that a bit by having a snack and drinks ready for us when we got home – though she wasn’t actually there at the time.  She was at the lab with Ethan and Ehlana; possibly because she didn’t want to witness what the guys in our group did to those boxes of bakery treats while we had our little break out in the back yard.  The dining room was study central, and the subjects were music and science.  I’m sure you can guess that science was the top worry for most of my friends – including Tim; so we spent most of the time until our dinner break working on that.  We weren’t doing a major dinner tonight, but Michael, Tim, and Rowen were invited to stay; and we had an easy-dinner meal so that we could eat quickly and do a bit more studying again before Michael and Tim needed to go to their baseball practice.

None of the ‘farm kids’ came over again after dinner; but most of the ‘town kids’ did.  There was more science studying going on again, but Rowen and I spent more time on music – both for the playing test and the written exam.  Tim and Michael studied with us again after they got back from their ball practice – though we all hopped into the river to cool off for a little break then too before getting back to work again.  We had a few extra swimmers with us for that – including Ethan and Ehlana; but the still-cool water kept everyone else on dry land.

Our evening study session came to an end at nine-thirty, and while the rest of our friends headed home; Michael and I took care of doing the bedtime routine with Ethan and Ehlana and getting them tucked in for the night.  Some play time for two would have been nice after that, but instead of cuddling on the sofa in the lounge; we had some more music time – and spent that hour working on the songs we’ll be doing with the teen praise team for the Fourth of July parade and the Sunday service in the park that weekend.

I am going to love doing that with Michael as much as the rest of the music we’ve played and performed together.  Since that’s one more thing that we never seem to have enough time for; I’m also glad that we’ll have an excuse to put music a bit higher on the priority list for the next few months.

That was also a really nice way to wrap up our day, and after sending Michael home with a long goodnight hug and kiss; I came straight back up to my room and got ready for bed.  Mom and I may try to do some Magi lessons this week, but we’re both busy; and taking a week off is an option now and then.  Violet got home shortly after I had myself tucked in with Mandy, and she stopped in for a quick bedtime chat; but didn’t stay long – she’s as tired out as Mom is tonight.  I’m not exactly worn out right now, but I am going to shoot for comparatively early bedtimes all week, and since I’ve pretty much covered all of the news for today; it’s time for me to get started on that extra nap time right now.

Until next time…

…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!

Cassie's Journal - June 1, 2014

Happy 14^th Birthday, Allen!

Spending the afternoon studying for exams wasn’t exactly best birthday ever kind of fun, but most of us tried to make his day as entertaining as possible while exclusively focusing on our first exams on Monday.

I probably mention Tai Chi way too often in these updates; but starting the day doing that with some of my favorite people is always wonderful – and especially when we’re outdoors by the river.  Having Naomi and Aiden with us today was even better; and Michael and I had fun working with the four younger kids.  Ethan and Ehlana’s two best friends are doing pretty well with their Tai Chi, though not many people know that they practice at home on their own nearly every day.  When I’m off for the summer break, I’ll make sure that Naomi and Aiden both get more chances to stay overnight at our house so they can exercise with us more often than they have been so far this spring.

Since Michael and Rebecca were at our house for breakfast yesterday, I was with them today – which works out really well for me since Sunday family breakfasts at Michael’s house are the best in town!  Spending that time with Jake and Stephanie was great too, and while they’re going to be very busy this summer; I hope that we do get time to do some of the things we talked about doing together while they’re home – and with Violet, Dillon, Christina, and Josiah too.  Getting time off together for the six older teens when they’re working different kinds of jobs might not be easy, but we’ll see how that goes.

The top news story for Michael and me at church was a very exciting little surprise for us.  Stacey Burroughs invited us to join the teen praise team early so that we could help out with the Fourth of July parade and the summer services that the teens will lead.  Normally, we’d have to wait to do that until we start Grade Nine in September, but she has enough teens away, busy doing other things, or moving away from home for college that they need the extra help.  That means we won’t be able to play with the school band in the parade too; but we’re both happy to sing and play with the praise team instead – and the band has more than enough senior saxophone players that we won’t be missed there anyway.  Our first practice is after dinner on Tuesday night, but Stacey also gave us the music we’ll be doing for the parade and the holiday weekend service; and we’ve both already started working on that already – though not together yet.  We’ll try to do that after studying and baseball tomorrow night.

Michael had to help out at the Inn to get everything ready for the lunch crowd, but he was set free early to come over to my house for our afternoon study group and got out of the clean-up work.  We couldn’t do anything to make the actual study material more exciting for our friends, but there were birthday treats for Allen that we all got in on, and a mini-roast for our friend that helped to keep us entertained for the three hours or so we worked in the dining room until Michael and I needed to get to the Inn to help out with the buffets and the rest of our friends needed to go home and get ready for Allen’s party at the Inn.  While our exams were temporarily forgotten by everyone; I was most happy that all of our friends were pretty much as ready for our exams on Monday as they could be – and better prepared than they would have been if they hadn’t worked with Michael, Rowen, and me.  There should be a handful of very happy parents around town when the report cards come out in a couple of weeks!

To work at the Inn continued the fun for us; and I really loved getting to work with Jake and Stephanie as well as Rebecca and everyone else.  Michael and I took our dinner break so that we could spend some time with Allen at his party, but the dining room was packed for both buffet sittings; so we kept our break short and got right back to work again.  Since Michael had been getting so much extra time off this weekend, we stayed and helped out until close; and then I walked home with Michael and his family.  After saying goodnight to everyone else, Michael and I went to sit on one of the benches by the river at his house for a little wind down time before sharing a few goodnight kisses, and then I went home in time for Ethan and Ehlana’s bedtime story and snack – which we did in the office while Dad was busy with his work there.

Mom let me skip the Magi lesson tonight; we tucked the twins in; and then I hit the Jacuzzi for a quick soak.  Some family business multi-tasking got done while I was in the tub, and once I was ready for bed; I spent a half-hour doing a once-through of the praise team music before climbing into bed with Mandy and my computer.  All I’ve had left to do was the usual nightly computer checks and this journal update.  It isn’t that late yet, but I’m ready to call it a night anyway.  That’ll mean missing out on a bedtime chat with Violet whenever she gets around to sending Dillon home and coming up to bed, but we should be able to get back to more of those during the week once they’re back to being busy with their jobs again.

I’m really fired up about the coming weeks, because if our first day of June is any indication; we’re going to have an awesome end of the school year and start of summer holidays!

Until next time…

…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!