Around noon I met with my piano teacher for a lesson (my mom had scheduled it rather randomly earlier in the week, and came to tell me “oh, by the way, you have a piano lesson on Tuesday– kthxbye.” Ha.)  and I realized how rusty I am with my piano playing!  We worked a bit on intervals and some complex sight reading.  Hopefully I can get up a practice ritual again and get back on track, because I do love the sound of piano playing echoing throughout the house.  Not sure how the rest of the family views this, but I can only hope when I’m playing something I’ve mastered that they enjoy it a bit. (:
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HA now I feel like I’m just ranting about my day.  Well… I’ll have to rant a bit longer in order to finish this post ;P  So. I just got back from hanging with J– We’re so weird sometimes… but one thing I love is how he’s making me see every episode (up until the current ones) of How I Met Your Mother. But it’s great– I guess it’s only “making” if I don’t really want to, but it’s a fantastic show, and we just watch it on Netflix almost every time I see him.  And it’s so cute, because we’ll just be sitting there on the couch with a blanket (it gets surprisingly cold in that basement!) and then the two little kittens his family has will just crawl on top of us and find a warm spot to lay down (which is, 9 times out of 10, on top or in between us, haha).  Cuteness overload (:

I wish every summer day could be like this… awake to a gorgeous sunrise, and just roll over and fall back asleep until you’re ready to wake up, then, when you’re finally ready to wake up, just roll out of bed and hit the shower, with Maroon 5 blasting… Because I have a waterproof timer in my shower to limit my cleaning session to about 5 mins, I can squeeze in about 2-3 songs… Some of my favourites include “Never Gonna Leave this Bed” and “Makes Me Wonder”.  You can also bet I’m singing every word at the top of my lungs…   Then get dressed, all that great stuff, and eat, and just head out to educate myself in tickling the ivories, then come home and a few moments later turn around to go out and see the boyfriend… He lives not that far from me– So most times I just walk there or bike (welcomed exercise, yay!) Maybe like, 2 miles away? On a bike, it’s only like 10-15 minutes to get there.  Thing is, it was really hot today!  The sun beating down combined with the fact that there was like, zero to no breeze made me a bit slower than I normally am. However, I love the feel of the wind through my hair when I’m going down this one hill in his neighborhood; it’s fine when I get to that point.  

And now I”m just home, and I’ll be going to a swimming lesson a bit later in the evening (level 6 FTW! Once I finish this week of classes I will be DONE forever and a certified and edju-ma-cated swimmer!) so that should be fun… I’m kinda glad I don’t do swim team… 1) I would never be fast enough. 2) My butterfly stroke is kind of a failure… (so’s my backstroke, come to think of it… I bump into the lane lines as if I were an aggressive bumper car driver at a carnival, haha)   After that I’ll be home, dinner with the fam, probably dessert somewhere in there (OH fact number “2X” about me… I have a major sweet tooth. In fact, J and I were munching on marshmallows and chocolate earlier, not bothering to actually make a whole s’more.) and then sleep.  But I should probably also fit some piano practice in there and maybe some German work.  Hmmm…. decisions, decisions, decisions… *what I’m really thinking*  Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate… XD

Well, in all fairness, I did complete one of the essay parts of the project a few weeks ago, so there’s one thing down.  All I need now is to log two hours of speaking practice, two hours of writing, two hours of listening, two hours of reading and two hours of grammar review for a grand total of….
one MILLION dollars!! *WOOO YAY* No.. more like 10 hours of fantasmical German practice. OH and a scrapbook documenting my summer, all in German. Fun.  I guess I could knock out the two hours of listening purty quickly if I watched a movie dubbed in German… that’s one of the options available to us… 😀  I remember we watched “The Incredibles” in class, dubbed in German, with the subtitles on in German so we could decipher the quickly spoken German invading our ears.   It’s an interesting language, however I do get dirty looks sometimes when they ask me why I’d want to speak “Nazi.”  Well, newsflash people, that was a LOOONG time ago, and yes, what Hitler did was absolutely terrible and more or less unforgivable, but do you think we can move on?  The German people were German and spoke the language before Hitler came along, and they too are just a population of people with cultures and languages.  But anyways.  It’s easy once you get the hang of it; conjugating things is basically a pattern… the vocab is a bit weird sometimes, but other than that, it’s kinda fun.  I’ll be starting my fourth year this fall, not far off from the AP class.  And it’s funny– I remember looking at my four year plan for high school with my guidance counselor… yeah… I have pretty much all APs lined up for my senior year.  HA. There is no way.  No way I’m going to take 8 classes, 4-5 of which will be AP.  Ha, you want to talk about stress?  That’s what stress is.  I think you’d have to be crazy to take off 6 AP classes in one year… I’m normally quite an ambitious person, and “challenge accepted” is one of my personal mottoes… but…

 I mean, I don’t mind an AP here and there… but… 4/5? Yeah. No.  Also, it’s kind of bad enough I’m going to be taking AP World this fall… I laughed when I saw the “Should I Take Advanced Placement World History?” sheet attached to the summer assignment (AP World is kinda the next class up from what I took last year.. you could go onto AP or do some other non-honors History class, but I’m trying to get college credit, so it wasn’t really much of a choice for me) .Oh and SPEAKING OF AP WORLD HISTORY…I found this funny…

I laugh– Verbatim, these are the questions on the sheet attached to my summer assignment.  You have to check either “yes” or “no”, but these are the thoughts running through my head as I do so…

1. Is history one of your favorite subjects?__  Psh… eh…. sure, after Choir, English, German, (maybe science… but definitely not Math. Math comes LAST on my favourites list.  And, if it’s impressive to colleges, then yes.  
2. Are you interested in areas of the world other than the United States?__ That makes us sound so egotistical… “are you going to bother to care about places other than your native country?”  And if we aren’t?  Um… Yes… I care about the other areas of the world… Don’t judge me…. 
3. Are you thinking of attending a college or university after graduating? __ Well, do I have a choice? Not to mention that most good, well paying jobs require a college degree (the job’s I’d be interested in, anyways… and I’m not slamming the people who work at WalMart or anything)  So yes.  Yes, I am going to attend a college or university after graduating.  Where I’m going, however, I am unsure of.   Next question please?
4. Can you devote one hour to homework each day? (This includes use of study hall time)__ Um, wow.  I spend a couple hours on homework REGARDLESS, so… I mean, an hour dedicated to the homework of the class itself?  Sure.  What else ya got?
5. Are you willing to work no more than 10 hours per week on a part time job?__ HA– my mom strongly advises me to save working until the summer so I can just focus on school and getting good grades, and I’m inclined to agree with her.
6. Are you willing not to get too deeply involved in any extracurricular activities including athletics, band, SCA, drama, debate, etc.? (Generally, students taking AP classes can handle no more than 3 extracurricular commitments, and must be prepared to manage these carefully.)__ Hmm… acapella, maybe winter musical (drama) various choral stuffs… meh… I dunno if I want to do a sport, so I think I can tackle this.
7. Do you like to read without being told to do so?__ Indeed I do. Reading is like, the pinnacle of my existence.  Reading is THE BEST.  Atlas Shrugged in my spare time FTW!
8. Can you limit church or civic activities during the week? Oh goodness… “Excuse me, we need you to cut down on your praying/helping Uncle Sam so you can finish your AP homework…” LOL. 
9. Are you willing to make a firm commitment to succeed in the AP course?__Will I do my homework? Yes.  Will I pay attention in class and take all the right notes like a good student? Count on it.  Will I make AP history the center of my life and feel like a failure if I get below a C or B? Yeah.  No.
10. Are you willing to commit yourself to complete assigned tasks on time?__ For the record, I am very good about this.  So yeah, sure.  I may procrastinate, but when it gets down to the wire, I will get it done.  But then again, I’m trying to kick this habit, so…
11. Are you willing to commit extra time to improvement of writing skills?__Well, according to Microsoft Word on a variety of essays I have written, I write at a very proficient level.  Of course it is sometimes hard to revert to a formal tone or style of writing when I write so informally at times, like now.  But moral of the story, I think I’ll be spending any extra time in AP studying, and not improving my writing skills.
12. Are you willing to spend extra time and effort to earn college credit in high school?__ Um.. isn’t this a repeat of #9? Sure, yeah.  But in theory, I’d like to do what’s necessary, get an A, and get out.  I’m not going to do the bare minimum, but I’m not going to spend more time than I personally need to.  
SCORE: If you answered “yes” honestly to AT LEAST TEN of the questions above, you are ready to succeed in the AP World History course.  HA. Honesty… psh… XD I know what I can do, I feel like I can handle this course, and right now, it doesn’t matter whether history is my favourite subject or not.  I may hate this class or I may not–I just want the college credit.
It’s like the “I have read and I agree to the terms and services” box you’re supposed to check when you’re buying something or using free wifi, if you know what I mean.

Oh, goodness. God help us all this coming school year…
xoxo