Three Months... Oops.

Greetings! The months of April and May having passed us by without a single post on my part, I hope you have not completely given up on checking this blog for updates. And updates there have been, I have just been to busy to document them. Sometime awhile ago, toward the beginning of April, I think, I made a list of "hurdles" that I had to get over. And today I got home from the very final hurdle. So this post is going to be a documentation of the hurdles of the last two months. And judging by how tired I am, it won't be finished until tomorrow. Edit: Ha ha ha ha ha. Make that three weeks later... Seriously. That was on June 4. I am happy to report that I have fully recovered, become very lazy, and am now ready to go to Mathcamp. But here are the hurdles. ------------------------- Piano Recital: I played two songs. I learned the ending of one in like five days before the recital, so it was really slow, but I was pretty pleased. The other one, I never did learn the middle, so I just sort of put it together, but it sounded okay too. One down. ------------------------- Dance Recital #1: This really wasn’t that big of a hurdle. It was fine. I did our jazz dance the best I ever had, and didn’t screw up the others, so that made me happy. Knowledge Bowl State: Ha, not so much. We had one really good round, and I thought we might be in the running, but we bombed the next one. We didn’t lose though. And it was a fun experience. We ate really good pizza, and I saw Mr. Ransome actually eat, which was pretty cool. And I missed two days of school. ------------------------- History Final #1: I took a history class online because it wouldn’t fit into my schedule, and I finally finished the first half in April, after about ten months, with the second half due the beginning of June... Aaah! So I took the final at the library, and it wasn’t awful. I ended up getting a B on the final and an A in the class... Or at least the first half. ------------------------- Dance Recital #2: This one was worse because my group was supposed to do the dances in a different order than we thought, so our teacher made us go back and change and come back, and I was very mad, so I danced horribly. And the music didn’t start at the beginning. And there wasn’t even any music for the opening dance. So it wasn’t great. But I got a rose. And that’s five down. ------------------------- AP Stats Test: OMG. I prepared for this so much. I did stats nonstop for like seven hours one day. And when the test finally came around, I was so nervous. But Mrs. Dobson, my teacher, was amazing, and she gave us breakfast and everything. The test went okay. I screwed up some parts, but I think I did pretty well, all things considering. AP test grades come back in July, so we’ll see. ------------------------- AP Calculus Test: I was less nervous for this one than the stats test, because there were less things to just memorize. I really wanted to do better than I had on our practice, because I screwed up a bunch, although I still easily got a five. It didn’t happen, though, I still screwed up, almost exactly like the practice. But that’s okay. Seven down. Oh. After the test we got to leave campus for lunch, and then we came back to class, Mr. Mara fed us ice cream and then taught us partial fractions. I was like “Ha. I think you’re a little bit crazy...” ------------------------- Semester Project: Yes, I had two AP tests and a semester project on three consecutive days, plus I had gotten a bit sick at the beginning of the week. Not the best week of my life. I ended up with about 540 pages, 100 less than my first time, but I really really enjoyed giving my presentation, and I thought it went well. I made fractal greeting cards for my product, and they were pretty cool (especially since I then used them to thank all my teachers). I didn’t wait until the very last minute to get my expert evaluation, and I used overheads as visual aids, so over all, I think it went better than the first one, except for the research part. I didn’t know whether to expect an A, but after it was over, I decided it didn’t matter in the least. ------------------------- Art Show Opening: This was on the same day as my semester project, and although it was hardly a hurdle, I think it deserves mentioning. The Einstein that I drew and gave to Mr. Mara for Christmas got Honorable Mention in the chalk pastel category, so that was cool. I also entered my Beatles. After this day, May 10, I was finally like, yay! I can breathe again! Nine hurdles down, four to go. ------------------------- Driver’s Test: I was kinda nervous for this, but I passed, and got my license! The instructor guy was like “You did okay, you passed,” so I have no idea what I did wrong or anything, but who cares? Yay! ------------------------- Finals: And then suddenly, school came to an end. I didn’t have a final in stats because of the AP test, or Art, or Calc. The German final wasn’t too bad at all, and nothing Mr. Ransome could give us would be as bad as the Sempro, so I didn’t worry about those. In Gym, we had to jump rope, and I aced that test, so that left Physics. Oh my gosh. I don’t think I have ever hated someone as much as I did that woman. We made ice cream, but she managed to suck all the fun out of it. But I did it, and then I didn’t have to ever see her again. After everything, finals were such a not big deal I just lumped them all together. Eleven down. ------------------------- History Final #2: I managed to get the second half done in like two weeks, so the first day of summer vacation I went to town and took another test. Joy. I did pretty badly on it, I thought, but when the results finally came back, I had gotten a B on the final and an A in the class once again, so that was good. Although it didn’t come back in time to go on my final transcript to Exeter, but I have to take US History again next year anyway, so the whole transaction turned out to be pretty pointless. I guess it gave me an okay introduction to what I’m going to study next year. Whatever. ------------------------- ARML: Second day of summer vacation, I got up bright and early, or rather dark and early, I guess, to go the airport to fly to Las Vegas for the American Regions Mathematics League competition. At first I was like, ugh, why am I doing this, I just want to sleep, but I was really glad I went. I didn’t do super well in the competition, nor did our team, but it was great fun. I had a nice roommate, and I met a bunch of nice people and we stayed up late playing games, so it was like a mini Mathcamp. I left on Friday, flew home on Sunday, and finally had summer vacation really start the next day. So there you go, my thirteen hurdles. I hope I remembered them all here, at the same time as I hope I forget them all soon. I haven’t done anything since:-)