It's Almost Over

My junior year is almost over! As of today, I am forever more done with French class! I really do love learning the language, but I can't say I'll miss Lorenz. I'm also done with my english classmates. I love my teacher and the class, but my classmates are so immature I can barely stand it. After our exam, a couple of my friends decided to make a list of things that are more mature than our class. The list was getting too long, so they just ended up writing "everything" at the bottom. Hopefully most of them don't get to take AP english next year.

Most Finneytownians consider 11th grade to be the year from hell, so I dearly hope that next year is not as busy. The schedule I've made for myself may kill that dream, but that remains to be seen. Now that I know what it's like to take classes wherein I actually have to read through my notes or even actually study before tests, I should be much more prepared for next year than I was for this year. My schedule and my opinion of the classes is as follows (although the classes won't be in this order, for I have put them in alphabetical order):

AP Art History: If I end up having to drop a class, I think it will be this one. History is my least favorite subject, and this class actually gets me another art credit instead of a history credit. If I got a history credit, I wouldn't have to take psych, as I will explain momentarily. This class is a huge workload. Normally, we'd get to start the work over the summer, but I'm not sure how that's working since the teacher is bed-ridden with a leg broken in three places.

AP Art Portfolio: I'm extra excited about my portfolio! Hopefully, mine will be half finished and completely planned by the end of the summer. More on that when I finish the post on my portfolio. It's one of the many posts I've started but not finished. If I finish all that I plan to over the summer, finishing my portfolio by next May shouldn't be an issue.

AP Calculus: Also known as AP Calculator, this class is taught by a monotonous yet hilarious and informative teacher. Last I heard, there were only fifteen people signed up for this class. I like small classes. It should be challenging, unlike my past math classes, but not unmanageable.

AP English/American Lit: If the current AP English teacher keeps this position next year, the class will be a piece of cake, but any real preparation for the AP exam will be done on my own. I would be elated if most of my english classmates from this year weren't taking AP next year, but that's not likely.

AP Psychology: After English, psychology is considered the easiest AP class in the school. I don't really want to take it, but I need another history/social studies credit since I got to skip 10th grade history and go straight to AP US History. I could take two semester social studies classes, but there's only one that's even remotely appealing.

Black and White Digital Photography: I've been wanting to take this class since my freshman year, and I'll finally get to take it my senior year. This will be my chill class. The only deadlines I'll have to worry about are the teacher's, not the college board's, and there aren't many facts to memorize.

Chorale: I've also wanted to take a chorus class since my freshman year, but it has always come down to a choice between art and chorus. Art has won every time. Now that I finally have room for chorus, I got into the most select chorus at our school (okay, so there are only two select choruses) after not having taken a chorus class since eighth grade. I'm pretty excited.

Music Theory: This year, music theory and music history were offered as semester classes for the first time in a few decades. Those who took theory this year were already fairly advanced music students, so the course moved along at a fast pace. I'm hoping for the same next year.

Orchestra: Next year, our orchestra will have only between 25 and 30 members. The viola section will only have three of four, and I will be its fearless leader. This could get interesting. The director has already pulled aside myself, the first chair cello for next year, our harpist, and the two best violinists to tell us that we get to work on separate music twice a week. I can't wait! There is, of course, the problem that I really don't practice my viola. I love to, but I don't have time. I suppose I will have to make more time.

Les Abeilles Sont Mes Amies!

I love honeybees! As the title of this post says, "the bees are my friends." For a brief moment, nothing will relate to my friends, but we'll come back to them.

Now that the AP test is over, we get to do all sorts of things in biology class. Last week, we dissected some perch one day. I named mine Arthur (which is where I got the name for my friend the mahi-mahi in the dungeon). I like to name the creatures we dissect. My crayfish was named Marcy. Two other days were spent playing charades. It got interesting at times.

Today we went to visit a beekeeper that lives two blocks from the school. It was pretty exciting. I got to hold a drone for a while, and it took quite some time for him to decide to leave me. I didn't give him a name, but I named another girl's drone friend Edgar. The guy knew a ton about bees and taught us a lot. As we were leaving, he let us scoop some honey straight from the comb to eat. It was trés delicieux!

Tomorrow, Mr. Breines is cooking up an invertebrate buffet, Wednesday we're having a mini grill-out, Thursday we're making breakfast, and who knows what we'll end up doing on Friday.

Burned Out

I apologize for my lack of posting in the past several months, but life gets crazy. And when life starts slowing down, sleep deprivation, stress, and all those other fun things catch up. I currently have a dozen drafts for posts that I never finished, and at least five of them will soon be finished and published. Plus I have plans for a few more. However, now that I have a smidgen of time to myself, I lack the energy necessary to care. I think I pulled my final three-hours-of-sleep night for this school year this week, and I only have one paper, a few tests, a few ceremonies, and exams to live through. I also have my birthday to get through. I'm not really all that fond of my birthday. I'll probably explain that a little more when it comes in eleven days.

If I were to start posting now, I would have to pass everything that I wrote through examination to help cut down on the evidence that I now think in biology and French with a hint of physics and english. This paragraph doesn't flow here, and that upsets me. I added it in retrospect, and there's no smooth way to work it into the previous paragraph.

Today, I am literally burned, but by the sun rather than by stress and fatigue. I spent the day at Kings Island (or is it King's/Kings' Island?) for math and science day. My school took three buses of seventh and eighth graders, a high school math intervention class, and ten of the twelve out of over forty students who have managed to keep straight A's in honors precalculus. The people with my class ended up splitting into two groups: all but one of the guys, and the two girls and the other guy. It was fun. Tim, Sara, and I rode The Beast, Vortex, Flight of Fear, The Son of Beast, Top Gun (or rather Flight Deck, as it is now called), and Shake Rattle and Roll or something like that (that one isn't a roller coaster). Vortex remains my favorite roller coaster but the others were good as well. I really love going upside down. We wanted to ride Firehawk and Faceoff, but the lines were too long. If I ever go there again, I will make a point of riding those two. Then I will have ridden all the roller coasters at Kings/King's/Kings' Island.

We Are the Champions!

This morning I rode to school alone with the windows down and "We Are the Champions" blasting as I sang along, for this morning was the AP Biology test. After weeks of stress and not really having any time to study, I can confidently say that I should get at least a four on the test if not a five. I'd be truly astonished if I got anything short of a high five on the multiple choice, and I think I could have gotten a four on the essay. I could go into all the details of what was and wasn't on the test, but the only reader who would have a good idea of what I'd be talking about took the test with me. Plus, she has only visited this blog once to my knowledge.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty much done with the school year. Well, mentally anyway. I still have to attend for twelve more days. One of those days will be two hours shorter than normal, one will be spent at King's Island, two will include short field trips, and two others will only require me to be there for a single exam. If Captain Jack hadn't fiddled with exemptions, I would only have nine days left, and I wouldn't have to go to school on my birthday. However, Cpt. Jack decided that underclassmen can no longer be exempt from finals, and that AP teachers have to give exams even to those students who took the AP test. Fortunately, my biology teacher is probably just going to ask us to name a macromolecule or something, and my art exam will just be a critique of our final project (which I'm ahead on, for once!). That leaves exams for honors pre-calculus, honors english, French IV, and honors physics. We'll probably get cheat sheets for physics and pre-calc, and english will be a breeze. The only challenge will be the fact that the french teacher is a complete *bleep* and will probably, once again, make our exam almost entirely based on grammar. That's somewhat problematic, considering the fact that we don't really learn grammar.

This week (almost) marks the finale of end-of-the-year concerts/ceremonies/etc. that require my presence as well. All that remains is a concert, a recital, two awards ceremonies, senior citizen prom, the last art club, a contest, and graduation. Only two of these come after this week.

It looks like I've just about survived my junior year. I don't even want to think about next year (except for the joy over the fact that I'll probably get all the classes I signed up for). Or about this summer for that matter. I have a lot that needs to be done over the summer and a lot that I'd like to get done.