11th Grade Goals

*This post may contain affiliate links, and if you make a purchase after clicking them, I will receive compensation.*

With a new school year soon beginning, I think it's time to make some goals for how I want the year to look. This year is bringing a lot of changes, both in my personal life, and in my social group that are going to make things pretty different. Several friends of mine are leaving for college (or have already left), and while that doesn't really change how I do things, it changes my experiences. I'm now doing Running Start as well, which is completely changing my school structure, and I'm doing a lot more dancing that I've ever done in the past.

Goals:

1. Be as healthy as possible, both physically and mentally. While this isn't entirely under my control, I do want to do whatever I can to stay healthy, whether that's making sure I eat well and exercise, or in some cases taking medication and going to the doctor to figure out that some of my problems are. Last year, I was sick nearly all year, and I would really rather that not happen again.

2. Accept that I'm not always in control. This goes with #1. Sometimes, I just can't do as much work as I would like, because of illness, or just life circumstances. While I can make an effort to deal with my anxiety, a lot of that is just accepting that I can't always change things. My goal is to learn to go with the flow.

3. Finish the Latin book I'm on. One thing I'm really sad about is that I probably won't be able to keep doing Latin. But, I am 3/4 of the way through the book I'm working on, and I really want to finish it, even if it takes me all year.

4. Manage my time better. I have a lot of different things going this year: dance, college classes, school at home, volunteering, blogging, reading (I have some exciting things on that front to talk about soon), and more. I have never been particularly good at managing all the things I have to do on a daily basis, but to keep up with all these different things, I'm going to need to get better at it.

5. Start thinking about college. I have a year left until I need to start applying to colleges, and that means that it's time to start thinking a little more seriously about where I might want to go, what is important to me in a college, and what schools I want to visit and eventually apply to.


These are some of my goals for my junior year of high school. I will try to check in every few months, and talk a little about what I've been doing to help achieve these goals, and how it's going.

Life Update {Illness, Dancing, Singing, and Writing}

Hey guys! It is way past time for me to write one of these. The last month was INSANE, and I know that the one coming up won't be much better.

I have been really sick this last week, and in fact had to stay home while my family went to Thanksgiving with relatives. As a result, I did no school, and am quite behind there, and not a lot of writing. In fact, I was pretty sure that this was going to be the year I didn't win NaNoWriMo, but I managed to pull through in the end, which was a bit of a miracle.

Since I know that there are some of you in the Bellingham area who read this (and some family and friends who may be interested in coming), I thought I would post the dates and times of some of my performances for choir and dance over the next week or so.

On Saturday, December 7th, our Scottish Dance group will be performing at the Port Festival at from noon to 1pm. There will also be an Irish Dance or two from those of us who do both types of dance.

On Tuesday, December 10th, our Homeschool Choir will be performing as part of the Whatcom Homeschool Association Annual Christmas program, which begins at 7pm, and includes many performers. This will be at Kulshan Middle School and is open to the public.

There will probably be more choir performances, but they have not been finalized as of right now.

I have a lot of practice for all these, and overall I am swamped. I am really glad that NaNo is over, because if I am this overwhelmed with out writing 2k each day, I would be going crazy trying to fit that in too!

In the past week, I also saw Catching Fire (review coming soon) and Ender's Game (read review here). I also watched 5 episodes of Lost on Thanksgiving, and I am finally up to the beginning of Season Five. It's only taken two years. Oh well. At the current rate, it'll take almost another year to finish.

Also, this might sound a little crazy, but I want to try to put up a blog post every day for the rest of December. I really want to see if I can manage it. It will be a mix of holiday stuff, book and movie reviews (I have a ton stacked up waiting to be finished), some school stuff (I haven't done a HF post in weeks!), some other fun things I don't want to talk about yet, and some general chatty life update posts for the days I don't have anything else.

It should be fun, and crazy, and I might not make it, but I also might. I really just want to see if I can manage to do it. On that note, I have some ideas of ways things may be changing a little around here in the new year, but I'm going to wait a little while to talk more about that.

I hope you are all had a good Thanksgiving, and are enjoying the coming holiday season!

NaNoWriMo Update: Two-Thirds Done! + Mini Life Update

Let's try to pretend I'm not almost a whole week late on this one... I'm just going to combine Homeschool Friday posts again, since I did not get the one for last week done.

According to the calender, November is 2/3 of the way over, though my word count does not reflect that at the moment. You can always see my current word count in the side bar, and right now that is 26,332 words. This is a lot less than I would like, but I'm not yet TOO worried about it. In 2011, I had 26,928 words on the 20th, and in 2012 I had 31,479. The 2011 numbers are very close, and I still managed to come back and win that year.

This NaNoWriMo has been the hardest one yet. My story is coming together, sort of, but my other life keeps getting in the way. School has been demanding a lot of time and attention, and it remains my first priority most of the time. I have also been sick nearly the entire month, which has resulted in having several days with no writing.

I had a cold in late October which never quite went away (there was a nasty lingering cough), and last week it seemed to come back in full force again. I don't know if this is something totally different, or if I have relapsed, but I have been feeling pretty terrible for the last week or so, which has negatively effected my writing.

I have also had a lot of other stuff going on that I have been doing. I agreed to go to three Scottish Country Dancing classes so that I could perform with them in three weeks at the port festival (I have never done any Scottish before in my life, though it is similar to Irish, which I have been doing for over a year now). I also have several choir performances coming up. I know I have some local readers, so as the time gets closer, I'll post some dates and places that you can come see me sing or dance if you so desire.

NaNo itself has been going okay. My novel is still very strange, and I sometimes hate it, but I am feeling a little bit better about it. Last Thursday, I went to a Write In at a local coffee shop (my first in three years of NaNo), which was fun. I was nervous because I knew I would be the youngest person there (I was, the rest of the people were college students), but it was still fun. One of the people asked where I went to college when I first got there, which boosted my confidence level a bit.

I was going to go to another one last night, but this cough I have has gotten so bad that I didn't think it was a good idea. Even though I didn't feel too bad, I would certainly have disturbed everyone else with my literal non-stop coughing fits. If I feel up for it, I'll go to the Thursday one again this week.

I think I'll go and try to get some school done. I think I am going to block three thirty to five as my dedicated writing time today, so I have until then to do as much school as possible.

How are you all doing on your novels? Are you feeling confidant, or are you getting nervous?

Homeschool Friday: October 21-25, 2013 {Week 8} + Life Update

I'm sorry this post is so late! I'm going to quickly go over school stuff here:

School Stuff
School didn't go super well this week. With being sick and busy, a lot didn't get done. In history, I read 20 pages out of my textbook, did a bunch of mini bios on important people from the reading, did a map, and added some dates to my timeline. That was everything I had wanted to get done for the week. For math, I was supposed to do five lessons, but only did three. Also, in science, I did two of the three I had hoped to do. In Spanish, I got almost all of it done, and in Latin, I only did about half a week's worth.

So, school didn't go too well, but I need to make some allowances. This was certainly the busiest week of the school year so far, and I was feeling pretty crappy for a lot of it. On that note, here is the promised Life Update:

Life Update
On Monday, I felt terrible, and skipped dance, though I did still volunteer at the library (mostly because I was able to choose tasks where I could sit the whole time. In dance, that's not really an option).

Tuesday, we hosted the current events discussion group, where we talked about (and voted on) many of the local ballot issues this election.

Wednesday, I went to park day, and got to see a friend I don't see too much any more, as well as her new puppy.

Thursday, I was feeling somewhat better, and I spent the afternoon at a friend's house, helping them decorate from their annual Halloween party. The family has two boys about the age of my sister and I, and we split into teams, Isabelle with the younger boy, and I was with the older. I may need to go back before the 31st though, since the project we were working on (which is a HUGE project) was not done when I left, and I think they might need help finishing. I'd say what it is, but I know some friends of mine read here, and I don't want to ruin the surprise before the party. :)

Friday, I went with some friends to the Washington State corn maze, which was amazing. It is 12 acres, and in the shape of WA. All the paths through it are major highways. We had maps, and went around looking for landmarks, which all had mini versions in the corn maze. We found the Grand Cooley Dam, the Space Needle, and the Peace Arch. Almost every town had a sign, and we found many, including Bellingham, Ferndale, Blaine, Concrete, Mt. Vernon, and many more on the East Side.

Saturday (yesterday), my Mom and I went to see the Joy Luck Club at a local theater. It was an amazing performance, and very true to the book.

Today is my sister's 12th birthday, and we are rushing around trying to prepare for all the celebrations, and to host choir at our house this afternoon as well!

So, that's why I didn't too much school done. I mostly feel better now, though there is a pesky cough that doesn't want to go away.

Homeschool Fridays: October 14-18, 2013 {Week 7}

It's Friday again, and that means it's time for another school update. I have mixed feeling about how this week went as a whole, but I think it didn't go too badly, school wise. I have been feeling pretty icky for a lot of the week, so that has not helped my productivity in general. I've had a lot of chest congestion for several weeks, and a runny nose for about a week. Over the past few days, my eyes have gotten really sore, and I've developed a headache and a sore throat. I was originally thinking allergies, but maybe it was just a really long start to a cold? Time will tell, I suppose.

Anyway, back to school. Here is the breakdown:

History
I don't feel like I did super well with history this week. I have read a really long section out of my textbook about Byzantium, and I did a bunch of those little mini bio things I've talked about before. I was also supposed to do a map of the Kiev Rus in the early middle ages, but I did not do that. It shouldn't take very long though, so I'm hoping to do that after I finish writing here.

Earth Science
I finished the chapter on renewable and nonrenewable energy sources, and started the one of plate tectonics. I only got two sections done, though I was hoping to do three.

English and Rhetoric
In English, I finished the chapter on verbs. In Rhetoric, the chapter wasn't all that long in terms of the number of pages to read, or exercises to do, but the exercises were all quite long and involved a lot of research and writing, which is partly why I only finished about half of it.

Spanish
In Spanish this week, I have had to find more time to work on it with my mom, since it is really focusing on having simple conversations, and learning conversational language.

Math
I'm not thrilled with how I did in math this week. I was supposed to completely finish the chapter on quadratic equations yesterday, and then take the test today, but I only got through three of the lessons for this week.

So there you have it. I ended up with a small amount left over in each subject, but I think I need to realize that some weeks are just going to end up like this. Overall this year, I've done relatively well, especially considering I do have a pretty heavy workload. I should be able to absorb this work back into the schedule, so long as every week isn't like this. :)

Lord of the Rings

This is not going to be a book review, or a movie review. It's just going to be a collection of thoughts I have after watching most of the LOTR movies in about 12 hours. I was at a super fun sleep over with some friends where we planned on watching all of them. I, unfortunately, starting feeling pretty sick during the beginning of Return of the King, and missed a lot of the 1st half because I wasn't able to concentrate, and the noise and lights where making me more nauseous. I ended up going home half way through the movie, as I kept feeling worse. I still feel a little out of it, though I feel a lot better. So, my thoughts aren't really going to include the last movie, since I kind of phased out/missed it entirely.

Anyway, my friend has the extended movie version, which meant that the three movies were a total of 11 hours! Yeah, it's a lot. I did find that watching them continuously like that is a different experience then watching them over the course of a few days or a week (which is what I have done before).

First thing is that I have never seen the extended version before (the one we have at home is the normal version), and I didn't really notice any differences. I think it was really just the same, but more. Longer battle scenes, more scenes panning out over the scenery, ect.

Random thoughts and movie images:

1. I'd forgotten how old Aregorn was! I had thought he was as old as he looked (thirties, forties), not 87!

2. Orlando Bloome is super cute, even with long blond hair and pointy ears:

Though I will say that I think he's cuter like this:

3. Well, that got off topic... Also, I can't seem to fix the formatting so that there isn't so much space there. Annoying.

4. Okay, I think I should just quit with this. This wasn't much of a LOTR themed blog post like I intended, but that's okay. I haven't actually eaten anything since a few bites of cake at about 11:00 pm last night (what with feeling sick and all. When I don't feel well, my appetite goes away completely), but I probably should.