I’m doing pretty well in all my classes, and I’m not totally failing in terms of personal goals and discipline, but somehow things aren’t going as I’d like them to be.

JROTC is going fairly decently; I’m not being an exceptional leader but I am involved, so that’s something. But it’s sure a change from being Platoon Sergeant my freshman year, and S5 Public Affairs officer the next!

ELP is wonderful, of course, and crazy as can be. In whatever strange game Mr. YK’s cooked up, my top 4 partners were all made unavailable because they became “sages”/judges. Curse it! We still have no idea just what’s going on in that class or why we need partners, but any of those 4 would’ve been amazing team members for anything!

AP Lang/Comp is going fine, and I’m scoring As on my essays. But I do wonder if I should be, since the College Board will probably judge more harshly.

Chemistry, I get a little behind and then somehow end up ahead, and I’m getting a high A in the class. But I feel as if it’s somehow unstable (radioactive elements, anyone?), since I’m not working steadily and on-target all the time.

Japanese…it’s been hard. It’s a college-level class; the assignments and tests aren’t horrible, simply the amount of time I have. I need to finish 3 1/2 major modules and 5 minor modules by June, and I don’t know if I’m going quickly enough. It kind of worries me some days, although I am having fun. Soon I’ll be getting extra practice by babysitting a little four-year-old half-Japanese girl named Klaertje, who probably speaks and reads more fluently than I do! Her little brothers, Anton and Vinnie, are also adorable. I’m going to have so much fun–at least, once I figure out how to maneuver my schedule so that I can babysit them in the middle of the school day! I’m working on it.

History. History has not been going so well.  I mean, I’m doing all right, but not exactly. I keep forgetting to do the chapter outlines, which is exactly the problem I had in freshman AP World before I moved here and got stuck in Advanced World Studies, which should be called Lame Western Studies, With a Momentary Glance at Other Parts of the World. I’ve decided I’ll have to re-do all the chapters at home. I’ve re-done the first chapter already, which was fairly easy as that was one of our “gimme” chapters; each unit, Mrs. P gives us a fill-in-the-blank outline for one chapter, and I’ve thankfully managed to do all of those. How pathetic would it be if I hadn’t! But as for about half the others…I’m struggling. I’m really struggling. Grade-wise and study-wise, I’m doing okay. But it’s like in Chemistry: I’m doing fine, but it’s just not steady! It bothers me that I’m not doing better. I had expected to be.

At home, things aren’t always a total disaster, but it’s pretty messy. I’ve delayed vacuuming since Friday, my room makes the horse barn look tidy, and I don’t even want to think about how awful the study is right now. And worse than that, I’ve made a liar of myself. I make a promise (“I’ll exercise every day.” “I’ll write a draft of this every day til it’s due!” “I’ll make sure I go to the horses.”) and then don’t keep it. Yeesh. Some days I really feel despicable.

In other news, a cow fell on a car in Washington. It had been missing for several days before toppling off a cliff 5 miles from its home. Interesting. I prefer my beef in two-pound packages, preferably with a label like “ground chuck” or “top sirloin.” Actually, I think “Porterhouse” is my favorite.

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