It feels good to be back home... The beach was fun, but now it's time to buckle down and get ready for school. Soon, I will be reunited with people I have not seen all summer. Soon, the homework load will commence and I will find myself wishing it were summer again. I know every time school starts, I'm always a bit happy/excited. New year, clean slate, fresh start... My friends look at me like, "Really? you're HAPPY school is here again?" And for a while, I say "Yes. Yes I am." But the magical warm fuzzy feeling wears off after a while. And I know it will this year... After comparing schedules with my friends I realize I don't share many classes with any of the people I know. J and I have absolutely no classes together, which is a bit of a downer, and we can only hope to share a lunch shift. But at least we're at the same school this year...
It looks as if we'll be starting the year here, as Dad's job situation is requiring a lot of thought and contemplation. I find myself being okay with this-- we're just getting started with a new school year and I don't want to up and leave in the middle of it just quite yet. So right now, I'm determined to get all that I possibly can out of these last few days of summer. Once school starts on September 3rd, there's no going back.
I was quite happy yesterday when I was able to see J for the first real time in three weeks. We got together and made banana pancakes, (those were delicious, by the way... I wish I could give kudos to the guy whose recipe we followed.. but I don't remember his name...) played some Zelda, and continued our tradition of watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. I love cooking with J-- sure, the prep time is slowed because we're both fumbling with ingredients and we mess around in the kitchen (or mor like make a 'mess' in the kitchen..like flinging water at eachother or splattering batter everywhere.. not necessarily on purpose..ha) And then we have to clean it all up, and we taste our creation of course, and it just all becomes this huge fun-filled process. It was amazing seeing him again, even though it was only three weeks.. Like I said in an earlier post.. we're kind of wimps when it comes to being apart for long(ish) periods of time... XD
Tomorrow will prove to be fun as we attend a "practice day" (if you will) of the first day of school. The principle of our high school is super involved and wants to give all new/old students a day to sort of get used to where classes will be.. etc. It is a GREAT thing for freshmen-- he calls it "Zero Day". So it's like counting in whole numbers, where you start with zero instead of one. And it's basically a mock school day starting at 9am and goes until about noon. The cool thing about it is, our principle wants everyone to attend, so he has an arrangement with the county that allows him to provide bus transportation to his students just so they will be able to come if they don't have a way to get there otherwise. So 9am tomorrow, I'll hop on the bus that comes to my neighborhood and head off to a day of 15 minute classes that will consist of a teacher introduction, the handing out of a "needed supplies" list and most likely a question-answer session. In addition, I'll be able to find my locker, locate my classrooms, all that yada yada yada. It's a nice day to just get acquainted with your surroundings without the stress of "oh no I am going to be late and I have no idea where I am going". So that should be interesting.
And you know how I had that whole German assignment or whatever? Well...About that... Funny story..
So I come back from the beach, and the next days are devoted to basically finishing all of my German work, because the due date was August 26th. Well I was so proud of myself-- I finished 10 hours of work over the span of three or four days, and even submitted it on time! The day after everything was due, I get an email back from my teacher saying the following:
"Stephanie,
Das finde ich ganz toll, aber es ist ein Misverstaendnis, denn diese Aufgaben
waren fuer AP Schueler. Ich werde dir doch Feedback geben und ich kann dir auch
vielleicht eine Note dafuer geben. Das war aber nicht fuer dich
verpflichtet.
Ich freue mich dich wiederzusehen und hoffe, dass du einen tollen Sommer
hattest. Wir werden viel Spass in Deutsch IV haben.
Bis bald,
Frau E."
So yeah.. For all you non-Deutsch sprech-ers out there, she basically said "I think what you did was great, but it's a misunderstanding-- this work was assigned for AP students. I will, however, give you feedback and maybe even a grade for it, but that was not required of you. I look forward to seeing you again and I hope you had a great summer. We will have fun in German 4. See you soon, Mrs. E"
-_- What. But you said this was our optional summer assignment!!!! And I decided to do it for the extra credit!!!
Sigh. Oh well. I did, however, learn a lot from my 10 hour cram... And I find myself understanding more than I did before, so perhaps it was not all a waste of my time. And who knows, I may even get an extra credit grade out of all of this... At least now I can dedicate my time to my AP World assignment that actually DOES exist... I finished "The Lemon Tree" this morning and just have to answer a bit of questions about it. Not hard at all. I could do it in a couple of hours, if I wanted. And I think I will. Sure, this probably will turn into procrastination, but... I need a break from work... and it's not even the start of school yet.
I hope everyone is enjoying the rest of their summer-- I know I am (:
xoxo