A Look Back at 10th Grade

Now that this school year is over, I can look back on it in a somewhat subjective way. While I'm not done with 10th grade yet, and really won't be until probably the end of July, my mom is off work for the summer (she works at a community college), and to me that means the end of the 2013-2014 school year.

This year was a challenging one in many ways. I have been sick in some way nearly the whole year. I had a horrible sore throat think for a week over Thanksgiving, I had a coldish thing that lasted most of the winter, and then I have what I think is whooping cough for all of March and April, and half of May. I've also been starting to deal with my asthma.

When I think about how sick I've been this year, and how much of that time I really didn't get any work done, I don't feel as bad about having a month's work left at this point. I've also had a lot of stress and depression I've dealt with this year, relating to school, illness, and other ongoing personal issues that I need to deal with.

On the other hand, this year has had a lot of great stuff happening too. Despite the introduction of boys and dating into our lives (or maybe even because of it), my friends and I really are closer than ever. I have the ability in our group of friends to run in many circles, teen girls, teen boys, younger girls, and even adults at times, and never really feel out of place. Through a variety of circumstances, I also feel like I've gotten a lot closer to all the people and families in our small group.

I turned 16!

I've done more Irish Dance, and gained a lot of confidence in my ability as a dancer. I really want to start experimenting with more types of dance, and I really want dance to be part of what I do in the future. I've started thinking more seriously about what I want my life to look like, and I'm finding I'm not really sure. For a long time, I've always thought that it was destiny that I would end up doing something involving writing or editing, but now I'm not so sure. This year, I've really found myself drifting farther and farther away from that realm. While I could see myself working at a library or bookstore, I really can't picture myself writing for a living anymore.

Dancing at the Highland Games

I've done a lot of editing, which really is something I enjoy. While I did very little this spring while I was sick, I've got a few rather large projects I'm finishing up for the author I'm working with. I've also started teaching Latin this spring to a small group of middle school age girls, which I absolutely love. I really like Latin, though I don't really have much time for it at the moment, and I really want to study it more seriously. I really enjoy teaching like this, and I would love more opportunities to do things like this. I spent a lot of time this spring working on the homeschool yearbook, which I think has been a success.

The three seniors opening their yearbooks, while the rest of us look on.

I read a lot of books, including Beowulf, The Song of Roland, and The Inferno, and before the summer's over, I'll have added The Prince and Hamlet to that list. For fun, I read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and the first part of A Feast for Crows, in addition to many others.

While at first look, this year seemed to me to be a somewhat bad one, filled with stress, anxiety, and illness, there was much more to it than that. I've had a lot of great opportunities, done a lot of great activities, and been willing to try more new things than ever before. I have a lot of great friends, and we've had a really great year, despite the challenges.

Next year's going to be a pretty different one, in a lot of ways, but I think it'll be a great one too.

Making a Homeschool Yearbook in 40 Easy Steps!

This year, I made a homeschool yearbook for our group of friends. Here is how it happened. In case you wanted to do it too, exactly like I did, I put the whole process into a handy step by step guide.

1. Around Christmas, decide that, since this is the very first year that there are graduating seniors in your homeschool group, that making a yearbook would be a fantastic idea.

2. Decide that you are way too busy to even consider making a yearbook.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 three to five more times.

4. Finally decide that this is something you really want to do, and that you'll manage to find the time some how.

5. On New Year's Eve, tell a few select people about your plan (your family is a good idea), and make sure that you have at least one person who is willing to help (an adult with a lot of pictures and a good camera is an invaluable resource to track down at this point).

6. Make a list of all the topics you want to include pictures of.

7. Now, once a week for the next month or so, while waiting for dance class, talk with your adult advisor (the one you picked in step 5) about pictures, logistics, software, and more, preferably while drinking hot chocolate.

8. Create a Shutterfly share site, where people can upload photos, and create a book in Shutterfly.

9. Do nothing for a while, since you have a lot of time until it needs to be done (late June), and you're not really sure what to do next.

10. Upload a few pictures to Shutterfly, then get extremely frustrated with how incredibly slow their online book creating application is.

11. By this point it should be about March. Tell a few more key people about the project. People with lots of pictures are very important. It should really be on a "need-to-know" basis at this point though, since you want to make sure the seniors don't find out.

12. Get really fed up with Shutterfly's web interface, and start looking for other photobook making programs.

13. Read a bunch of stuff online, and download MyPublisher. Since it's not online, it's way faster than Shutterfly, and seems to have all the important features.

14. Spend an afternoon with your adult advisor (and more importantly, her photo collection), looking for pictures.

15. Add several dozen pictures to a shared dropbox folder.

16. Add all those pictures into MyPublisher, and start messing around with putting them into a book.

17. Decide that you're just practicing for now, since you have a very clear vision of how the book will be organized.

18. Get pictures from a few other people, who you have now had to tell about the project.

19. Continue organizing the pictures, and begin to realize that maybe your idea of doing the book chronologically through the school year isn't such a good one.

20. Start putting pages together, a little more seriously this time. Continue collecting photos from people. By this point, pretty much all the adults, and a good number of the kids in your group will know about it.

21. Come up with the idea of putting in quotes and messages to and about the seniors through out the book, and send out an email asking for submissions.

22. Put together a few pages you like, save them, and make a few more, arrange them all throughout the book, decide that you really don't like one of them, then replace a few pictures from one page.

22. Repeat step 22 about ten to fifteen more times. All told, this should take about 2 hours a day for a few weeks.

23. Send out another email asking people for quotes for the book, since you didn't get much the first time. Also, send out your first "official" email to the adults, describing the project, and asking how many people want to buy.

24. Find spots for the quotes people are starting to send you.

25. Spend about an hour one day going through all the available font options, then switching all the writing already in the book to your font of choice.

26. Realize that the default text size is 7 point font, and go through changing it all to 14 point.

27. Rearrange the pages some more, add a few last pictures, and add the rest of the quotes. By this point, it should be early May.

28. Go through the book several dozen times, looking for photos that need to be cropped, ones that are cropped too much, pages with too much going on, double page spreads with too many pictures, pages with too much color, or not enough, and typos in the quotes. This should take a week or so, and should include a lot of time not working actively on the book, but thinking about it.

29. Write a letter at the beginning for the three grads. Rewrite it two or three times.

30. By this point, the book should be pretty much done, and you should have it pretty much entirely cataloged in your head. You no longer need a computer to decide on changes to make. This is a good time to send out more emails, and nail down everyone's orders.

31. Decide what kind of cover you want, what color, and what size. Decide what type of paper, what color end sheets, and what type of binding. Of course, if you don't want to pay extra, most of those choices are already made for you.

32. Get to the end of the ordering process, and freak out a little over the cost of shipping (it is incredibly expensive). Send out a final email to everyone letting them know the final price.

33. Put in your order.

34. Wake up in the middle of the night two nights in a row, realizing you forgot to add someone to the acknowledgments section, and forgot to replace that picture at the end.

35. Get your box with all 16 books! Check the books to see how they look, and get very excited. It's early June by now.

36. Wait. Everyone knows but the three seniors at this point, so keeping it a secret is hard, but possible.

37. Plan a party to give the books out at in late June.

38. Get nervous about letting everyone see this thing you've spent so long working on, and start collecting money.

39. Present the books to the seniors at the party, and then give everyone else their books. Start looking through your copy, since that's what everyone else is doing, and then feel silly, since you have the whole thing memorized and cataloged in your head. Pass out pens so that people can sign the books.

40. Watch everyone look at the books, realize that they all look happy, and finally relax. Your project is finally complete.

So there you have it: how I made my yearbook, in 40 easy steps. By the way, over the last six months or so, I have at several points mentioned a "secret project" or a project that I couldn't talk about yet. This is it.

Guess the Book

I took the first two sentences from ten books on my bookshelf. Can you guess the books? If there was an introduction, I skipped that, but prologs I left in. Remember, these are books on my bookshelf. Put your guesses in the comments!

1. The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!

2. "That is my decision. We need not discuss it," said the man at the desk. He was already looking at his book.

3. Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. The three great tables that ran the length of the Hall were laid already, the silver and the glass catching what little light there was, and the long benches were pulled out ready for the guests.

4. When I saw the crowd gathering at the train station, I worried what President Roosevelt would think. I just hope he doesn't get the idea that Jenkinsville, Arkansas can't be trusted with a military secret, because, truth of the matter is, we're as patriotic as anybody.

5. When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie theater, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman-he looks tough and I don't-but I guess my own looks aren't so bad.

6. It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom, Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. 

7. Part of the problem, Nita thought as she desperately tore down Rose Avenue, is that I can't keep my mouth shut. She had been running for five minutes now, hopping fences, sliding sideways through hedges, but she was losing her wind.

8. Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true.

9. In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times. He laid the paper down, and glanced out of the window.

10. The senior partner studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks.

I think most of these are pretty easy. I tried to mainly stick with pretty well known books. A few might be harder. There are two that I think are very easy. Post your answers in the comments, and I'll post the answers next week. I added a couple of classics from the school room shelf to the mix too, since I ran out of books on my shelf that I thought people would be able to guess.

Week in the Life: Day 7

Today is the final day of the liveblog! It was fun, but a lot of work. It was also really, really popular. I think I might try to do something like this regularly, thought maybe only for 3-4 days at a time. I'll try to do one this summer something (July or August), and then, if I can, maybe one in the fall after classes at the community college start.

7:00: Get up.

7:30: Check email, etc.

8:00: Get dressed and ready.

8:30: Eat strawberries.

9:00: Update blog. I'm about to start a math lesson.

10:15: Finish Math lesson, do a bit of history reading and hang out for a while.

11:45: Eat lunch (the last of the leftovers from Sunday night).

12:30: Hang out with Isabelle.

1:30: Do chores in preparation for people coming over later.

2:30: Read, do stuff online.

3:30: Arrange chairs downstairs for class.

4:00: Current events class begins. The topic today is gun control.

6:00: Everyone leaves, and we have dinner (meatball calzones).

7:00: Mom and Isabelle go to do some school, and I get online and update the blog.

Week in the Life: Day 6

It's Monday, and that mean's it's Day 6. Today is going to be the most "normal" day so far of the liveblogging. This is actually more like what an average day looks like than any of the ones so far.

7:00: Get up as Mom is leaving for work.

7:30: Read The Beginner's Guide to Living.

8:00: Breakfast (leftover sandwich from lunch yesterday, plus fruit).

8:30: I take a shower and get ready for the day.

9:00: Hang out with my sister for a while. Update blog.

9:30: Update blog for the first time today.

9:45: Start a math test.

10:25: Finish math test, and start the next lesson.

11:15: Finish Math lesson, then go read and eat lunch (leftover Chinese from last night's dinner).

12:10: Check email, etc. Update blog.

1:25: Start getting ready to go. I also pack a bag for Mom and Isabelle to bring for me later when they meet me in town.

2:10: Leave for the library.

2:30: Volunteer at the library. Normally, I clean books and toys, but since the summer reading program just started, things are a little crazy there, and I had some different things to do. I did do some toys, but mostly I stamped a little gold symbol ( I think it is to prove authenticity) on a ton of coupons that kids get as prizes when they finish summer reading. I'm guessing I stamped about 700, maybe a bit less.

3:30: I finish volunteering, and grab some books that I had on hold, and then sit down to read for a few minutes.

4:00: My friends show up, and we head over to the dance studio, and stop across the street at a chocolate shop. I had chocolate and salted caramel gelato.

5:00: The three boys head over to their dance class, and the mom and I head over to a clothes store nearby to look at some stuff for her.

5:45: We get back to the dance studio and I wait for Mom and Isabelle to show up with my dance bag.

6:00: Dance class. Just hard shoe this week.

7:00: After dance, Heather (our teacher) lets us know that we were invited to dance at a Highland Games a few hours from here Labor Day weekend. As is typical, everyone stands around outside the studio for a very long time talking. Ted (one of the dads), tries to think of something crazy to do to so that he can get a mention in my liveblog. :)

7:30: We finally leave.

8:00: Dinner. We have some sort of past with a creamy sauce that has peas in it.

8:30: We do some cleaning, since we have a class at our house tomorrow.

10:00: We read some more of West with the Night.

10:30: Go to bed.

Week in the Life: Day 5

Sorry this is late, today has been kind of crazy.

8:00: Get up.

8:30: Eat some strawberries, get dressed.

9:00: Generally collect stuff.

9:30: Leave for Highland Games.

10:00: Arrive at Highland games, and begin organizing and warming up for first performance.

11:00: First performance! 

11:40: Done dancing for now. We eat some lunch, and watch the bagpipers play some.

12:45: Return to stage for second performance.

1:00: Dance.

1:45: The first performance ends and we do a group dance where we teach audience members an easy dance, which was really fun, particularly since half the audience were friends of mine. 

2:00: Hang around for a while. I bought a snow cone, and lots of of bites of everyone else's food. Through everyone else giving me food, I ended up having some cherries, a bit of a pretzel, some caramel corn, some lemonade, and some chips.

3:00: Return to stage for last performance.

3:15: Dance again. It was really hot and the stage was pretty slippery this time, plus we were all pretty tired.

4:00: Finish dancing, collect stuff, and get ready to head out. We went to look at some of the vendors on our way out.

5:00: Get home.

5:15: Update blog for the first time today.

5:45: Crash on couch. Read for a little while, but mainly just sit there and be tired.

6:45: We ordered come Chinese food for dinner, and Mom goes to pick it up.

7:00: Dinner. We have broccoli beef, almond chicken, and BBQ pork fried rice.

8:00: We watch an episode of Gilmore Girls.

9:00: Check email, and other internet stuff.

10:30: Go to bed.

Week in the Life: Day 4

It's Saturday, and Day 4 of this liveblogging project. Yesterday ended up being a little quieter that I expected it to be. Today, being a weekend, should be the first really different day so far. It'll be a busier day, tomorrow will be way busier (and I probably won't be able to post about it until the evening), and Monday will be busy too. Here are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

9:30: Wake up.

10:00: Eat a scone leftover from yesterday, hang out with Mom and Isabelle, check email, etc.

10:30: Update blog.

11:15: paint nails, and watch Crashcourse Lit videos. I always have to make sure I am watching something when I paint my nails, because otherwise I try to do stuff right afterwards, and mess up the paint.

12:00: Eat lunch (leftover pizza from last night).

12:30: Read, play computer games, hang out outside.

1:30: Go to a dance shop in town to look at leotards, and buy tights.

2:30: Go to Starbucks. I have a giftcard.

3:00: Get home, do laundry, read some more.

4:00: Clean room a little. My room is a mess, and needs way more cleaning.

5:00: Read some more. Let the cat in and out about fifty times.

6:00 Eat dinner (broccoli and cheddar calzone), while reading the children's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream to mom and Isabelle.

6:45: Change clothes.

7:00: Leave for the ballet of Midsummer Night's Dream, which has some friends of mine in it.

7:30: Ballet starts.

9:30: Ballet ends.

10:00: Get gelato with a ton of friends downtown.

11:00: Get home.