Friday October 16, 2015 {The Martian}

I've been pretty bad at posting regularly since school started, so I'm going to try to get back into writing journal posts as much as possible. Because there so many gaps of time where I haven't posted, there will probably be some context missing for what I'm up to. I'll try to add what I feel are apprpriate explainations when possible, but sometimes I'll just let it slide.

1. Mom wasn't carpooling this morning, so we didn't have to leave as early as usual. I got up and ready, and then she dropped me off at the bus. I rode in to school, and arrived at about 8:15.

2. Math was fine. We're in a unit on functions that is honestly kind of boring. It also includes a lot of graphing (or at least, it soon will), which I'm not fond of. On the whole though, I'm actually kind of like this math class. I like my teacher a lot, at least.

3. I hung out in Syre for a while with Lydia while eating some breakfast, then headed to Philosophy.

4. In Philosophy, we watched a ted talk by Helen Fisher called "The Brain in Love," which led to some interesting discussion. I can't decide how I feel about this class. I both enjoy how informal and just generally strange it is, but those same things can be a bit infuriating at times.

5. Immediately after that class was over, I had German. That class is super strange in that people regularly sit in different places. Probably half the class (including me) always sit in the same spot, but the other people are all over the place. The spot next to me is oddly in demand. I've had a number of different people sit there. There is one guy who sits there most of the time, and who I usually pair up with for partner exercises, but if he gets there late, someone else always takes that spot.

6. I hung out for a while on campus after class, and while I was sitting in Syre, Ben, my German instructor, walked by and started quizzing me, and wouldn't leave until I had properly told him that yes, the sun was shining, and yes, the sky was blue.

7. I took the bus back to Barkley, where Gloria picked me up and brought me home.

8. We had dinner (and a guy was there fixing my bedroom wall), and when all that was done, we went to watch The Martian.

9. I've read the book, and I think the movie was as good as the book. I wouldn't say it was better for all sorts of reasons that I'll write a blog post about if I have time, but it was pretty great.

10. Read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, then went to bed.

One Week In

Well, we're one week into school, and I'm a lot happier about it than I thought I'd be.

I wasn't really looking forward to this year. I'm taking Math and German, two classes I wasn't excited about. I knew college applications would have to take up a lot of my time. I knew from experience that 8:30 classes aren't a lot of fun.

But then school started this week and a couple of things happened. I realized that if I took showers at night, I could get up a full twenty to thirty minutes later in the morning. That may not sound like a lot, but 6:00 and 6:30 are a world apart.

I went to my first  few Math classes (I'm in Math 99, which is the second quarter of Algebra II), and discovered that not only do I really like my teacher, I also know a lot of the material already. I have also discovered the joy of 50 minute classes. Last year, I had all 90 minute or 2 hour classes, and those one hour classes are awesome. They feel so short!

I discovered that my Philosphy class has very little homework, and much of the grade is based on a few papers. Not just that, but the papers aren't  graded on whether you mentioned certain facts, or got certain things correct, but instead on the process, writing quality, and thoughtfullness. It is Philisophy, after all. I am feeling like this will be an easy A for me. Not just an easy A, but a fun one too.

I'm still nervous about German, but the teacher's pretty cool, and there are a couple of guys sitting by me who are really nice as well.

I spent a lot of time hanging out with friends, both those who I know from outside WCC who are going there this year, and those who I know from school last year. I like that I can be on campus most of the day and see ten or twelve people I know. With some, I might just wave and continue on, with others, I'll stop and chat for a few minutes, and some I spent hours hanging out with between classes.

I'm still nervous about this year, but school isn't as big of a worry anymore. I think school will end up being a stable factor, a place where I'm comfortable. Homework causes stress, but it's totally manageable.

For the first time, I'm really looking forward to this school year.

Tuesday 9/22 and Wednesday 9/23 {Beginning of School!!}

It happened! School started! I wasn't really looking forward to it at first (for totally legit reasons), but I've actually really enjoyed it so far. Some friends of mine just started this year, so expect to see some new people in here often. :P My general policy is to use initials for those under 18, and names for those over, unless they've asked me to do otherwise. I'm using 1st and last initials for most people, except for C, who I've been calling that long enough that it would be confusing to switch now.

Tuesday!

1. I got up at 6am (ugh), took a shower, and got dressed and ready. I grabbed a granola bar to eat later (I get nausous when I try to eat that early in the morning.), and caught the bus to WCC. I was there early, so I got some tea from the Kulshan coffee cart, and then waited until I could go to my math class.

2. Math went well. It was mostly just the syllabus day. Almost the entire 50 minutes was spent talking about the schedule, grading, books, etc.

3. I had an hour off, during which I met up with JC (it was his first day at WCC), and helped him find his classroom. I then hung out for a while before heading to philisophy.

4. My Intro to Religions class was also good. I think our teacher is sorta crazy, but I like him. He seems tough, but I think overall it'll be an easy class. The grade is based off of take-home reading quizes and a few (3 or 4?) essays, two of which are more like outlines.

5. I headed to meet up with people in Syre. We hung out in the Interculteral Center for a while before moving to a bench down the hall where C and I spent a ton of time last spring. JC and HW were there, plus C and I.

6. JC and C both headed to classes, then HW and I wandered around for a while. We checked out the new gym (which is super fancy), and then I took the bus to Barkely.

7. My mom picked me up and took me to an appointment I had. After that, we headed for my dad's, where we had steak for dinner.

8. I came home, watched Lost, took a shower, read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed, totally exhausted.

Wednesday!

1. Got up a little later (showering at night gives me that ability), around 6:20, then got ready and took the bus to school. I got to school even earlier (I took the 7:20 bus today, while I took the 7:35 yesterday), and sat around tiredly for a while.

2. Went to Math class. After that, I ran into Ken at the bookstore while I was buying pens. I then got tea at the cafeteria, and hung out with Lydia for an hour before Philosophy.

3. Philosphy consisted of watching a movie about this guy named Thomas Berry who believed that the age of humans is ending, and the age of ecological reconstruction must neccessarily begin, and that this is in part because of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It's complicated. You can google him if you want to actually know more about it.

4. Directly after that I had my first German class. It was a little weird, since I've never taken a foreign language class before, but it was fun. I think I'll like that class.

5. After class, I met up with C and JC and talked for a while til C had to go to class. I hung out with JC for a while and downloaded Hearthstone (which took 35 minutes to download on the school wifi).

6. JC left for parkday, and I read my philosphy textbook for a while til C's math class ended. At that point, I briefly saw him (I yelled at him down the hallway) and then Jake, who I've known since last year, and who is also in C's math class, came over to where I was sitting and hung out with me for a few hours. We chatted about our parent's divorces, dating, friends, our futures, etc. Normal stuff.

7. At four, I went to a WWU personal statement writing workshop. It was aimed mostly at transfer students, so a lot of it wasn't applicable to me, but there was some useful stuff.

8. Mom and Isabelle picked me up and we went home and ate tacos. I took a shower and did some math reading, then watched Lost, read The Time Traveler's Wife, and went to bed.

At the time of writing, not all of those things have happened yet, but it seems unlikely that they will not. If things changed, you will be duly notified. :P

August 30 - September 5, 2015

Sunday, August 30th

Sunday morning, we woke up and there was power! Yay! Mom tried to clean up the tree debris a bit, then we went to pick up my friend HW. Mom dropped us both off at NV's house. For a few hours, we played some games (including The Resistence!) with N and his brother and his brother's friends. Then the three of us hung out for a while and chatted about stuff. I love hanging out with them, but there were a few moments when I distinctly noticed the fact that I was the only girl there. It doesn't bother me to hang out with boys all the time, and most of my closest friends are boys, but there are rare moments where I feel a little out of place. 

Carolyn picked H and I up and dropped me at the house where I was babysitting. For the next three hours, I played with the kids, then the dad dropped me off at my house. When I got there, Lydia was there! The Winslows still didn't have power, so she was staying at our house.

Monday, August 31st

I got up and didn't do much for most of the morning. I did some random chores around the house, read, played some games on the computer. Lydia and I went to the library to volunteer at 3. When we were done there, we walked downtown to get drinks at Cafe Adagio, then took a bus back to Haggen, where mom picked us up. Because the Winslows still were out of power, Lydia stayed another night.

Tuesday, September 1st

Again, a pretty boring day. Lydia left in the early afternoon. 

Wednesday, September 2nd

The morning was pretty slow. I went to park day, where there was a torrential rain storm, thunder, and lightening. That was exciting.

Thursday, September 3rd

The morning was again rather quiet. In the afternoon, we went to our dad's house for dinner. We had some left over cake, since it was our step-brother's birthday on Wednesday. 

Friday, September 4th

We spent the morning cleaning up all the debris from the tree. We hauled a bunch of stuff in our neighbor's trailer to a place the city had set up for people to dump storm debris. We went to Boomer's for lunch, then came home to do stuff around the house. Mom and I went to WCC to buy books before realizing they aren't open on Fridays in the summer (augh!). None of us were at all hungry for dinner, so we just ate popcorn while watching Lost.

Saturday, September 5th

The guy who was doing our carpet came back to finish. I was at YARC, where we had pizza and cake, because it's our one year anniversary! Mom couldn't come pick me up til the carpet guy left, so I had to wait for another hour and a half after the meeting ended. On the bright side, I read 135 pages of the book I got! It's super fantastic.

Homeschool Academy, dancing, and more! {Life update}

This blog is feeling pretty empty now! The weird thing is that I feel like I'm writing stuff for this blog all the time, but you guys don't realize it. The back end of this blog has probably close to 50 unpublished drafts of posts. Some of those are terrible, and will never see the light of day, but some might... We'll see.

I think it's time for a little life update! I'm blogging (semi-regularly) on The Daily Ramble about my day to day life, so for a more complete idea of what I'm up to, go over there.

I've been pretty busy this summer. I'm teaching Latin still, plus some friends and I teamed up for Homeschool Academy, where we teach a bunch of cool classes. I'm co-teaching Geology, plus I'm teaching Irish dancing each week. It's a ton of fun, and it's super relaxed and laid back, which is nice.

I'm not doing any ballet this summer, but I am doing Irish, and we have some more performances coming up! We're dancing and the Whidbey Island Highland Games in a few weeks, and then at Birch Bay State Park a few weeks after that.

College searching continues. This weekend we're going to the east side of the state to visit Gonzaga University and WSU. I don't have any interest in WSU, but my sister wants to visit, and I love college campuses, so it should be fun. Plus, I've never been to either Pullman or Spokane, so it'll be fun to see more of the state.

I just finalized my class schedule for the fall. I'm taking Intermediate Algebra (unfortunately I didn't get into Precalc I), German I, and Introduction to World Religions. I think it should be a fun load, albeit a challenging one.

In the winter, I'll be taking Precalc, German II, and Western Civ III (assuming all goes according to plan.

That's my life right now! Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Prep for the Lit Analysis class I taught for the Homeschool Acadmey.

Aslan and I.

Bad pic, but I got a WTNV shirt!

Awesome necklace I bought at the steampunk festival yesterday!

Beautiful sunset over the dogpark

July 14-20 {Another Catchup post}

This is becoming a theme lately... Hopefully it won't continue too long. Here is what I did this week:

Tuesday 7/14

We had homeschool academy week 2 this day. Grace and I taught Geology together, then Spencer did math, Grace did Improv, and I did Irish dance. I took or taught all the classes this week, which was honestly a little too long of a day. Next week I might take a break for a while in the middle somewhere.

Wednesday 7/15

On Wednesday, I took the math placement test at Whatcom. I didn't end up getting into Precalc, which means I have to take Math 99 (intermediate algebra) in the fall. It's kind of disappointing, because we have to pay for 99 because it's below college level, but it is what it is. After I took the test, we went blueberry picking with Carolyn, and then went to park day.

Thursday 7/16

In the morning, we went to WCC to change my schedule. As a Running Start student, I can't register online like other students can. RS students have to go into see a RS advisor to register and to make schedule changes. To fit Math 99 in, I ended up having to drop all three classes I was in, and add three totally different ones. Now, I'm taking Intermediate Algebra (Math 99), Introduction to World Religions (Philosophy 140), and German I (German 121). In the afternoon, we were at our dad's house for dinner.

Friday 7/17

We didn't to much in the morning. In the afternoon, Isabelle went to a friend's house, and Mom and I watched Lost.

Saturday 7/18

Another relatively boring day. Went to the grocery store, watched Lost, and that was about it.

Sunday 7/19

We didn't do much in the morning again, but in the afternoon, we went blueberry picking again, this time with another set of friends.

Monday 7/20

I volunteered at the library in the afternoon, and then went to Chocolate Necessities and then to Irish dance. Gelato of the week: Lemon and Green Apple.

Wednesday June 17, 2015 {Geology Final}

1. Slept through my alarm again, and was once again scrambling a bit to get out the door on time. I rode the (surprisingly full) bus to WCC, and was, as usual, early to class.

2. Took the Geology final. I feel like I did pretty well on it, and I know I didn't need a very high grade on the final to do well in the class, so I wasn't too stressed about it. I feel like I did well on the multiple choice questions and short answer/calculation problems, but I'm not so sure about the essay questions. I'm kind of wishing I'd tried a tad harder now, but more on that later...

3. After Geology, C. and I hung out for a while with L. and then Spencer showed up! C. and Spencer played giant chess for a while, and I played with this little 3 dimensional cube puzzle for a long time. It was endlessly frustrating to me because even when C. showed me how to do it, I could not figure it out for some reason.

4. After Spencer left, I followed C. to the math center where he had free pizza for being a tutor there, and stood around awkwardly for a while talking to him before leaving and walking to meet my dad and Isabelle.

5. We headed to park day at Boulevard Park, which was great. I mostly hung out with various friends, and had a good time.

6. While we were at school, C. and I decided to make a bet on our grades in Geology, since we went into the final with the same grade, and have both been doing quite well in that class. What exactly the bet is will be revealed in time (it is a rather contentious issue at the moment :P), when one of us wins.

7. We got a ride home, then made some pizza for dinner. I listened to the new Hello Internet podcast. After mom got home we ate some cake she brought back from the party she was at earlier.

8. Read Sense and Sensibility and went to bed.

Monday June 15, 2015 {Almost Done}

1. Got up 20 minutes late (gah) and had a hard time getting out of the house on time.

2. Made it to school, and went to Geology. We got lots of old assignments back, and then went over them.

3. C. and I hung out for an hour and a half, and then headed off to our separate classes.

4. English was mostly an open lab day, so I spent most of the time working on my paper. We also did a fun brainstorming exercise to help come up with a title.

5. After that, I met up with C. again for a while, then hung out with L. for about an hour.

6. I took the bus into town and volunteered at the library for an hour, cleaning books and toys.

7. I went to Chocolate Necessities w/ Julie and the boys, and hung out for an hour and a half or so. Flavors of the week - Lemon and Pink Grapefruit.

8. Irish dance! I went to class where we practiced hard shoe dances, and briefly rehearsed for the school dance recital which is this coming Saturday.

9. Came home, ate dinner, had some strawberry pie, listened to a podcast, read Sense and Sensibility, went to bed.

Sorry for the brief post. Finals week is here and I'm kind of exhausted. I'm also not thinking very clearly. I had written an entire draft of this post before I recalled that I'm not using full names.

I also asked Bernice, my volunteer coordinator at the library, to sign an affidavit for how many parking passes I've gotten in total. When she looked at me oddly, I realized that I had said parking passes where I should have said volunteer hours. *shakes head*

Saturday May 30, 2015 {Geology Fieldtrip}

1. Got up around 7:30. Mom and Isabelle left around 9, cause Isabelle was selling her knitted dogs at the farmer's market.

2. C. and his dad picked me up at 9:30, and we headed to WCC. A little after 10, we packed into a van, and headed to Larrabee state park, stopping on the way in the Happy Valley neighborhood to look at a giant rock there.

3. We spent the day around Chuckanut Drive, looking at various sites at Larrabee and Clayton Beach.

4. The weather was awesome, and it was actually pretty fun. We saw a layer of coal in the bedrock in a few locations, and we saw some pretty awesome fossils, including some of palm fronds!

5. We have to write an essay about the geologic history of the Pacific Northwest based on what we saw on the fieldtrip, so we also spent some time trying to put the "events" we saw in the correct order.

6. We got back to school around 4, and my mom picked me up there and we went home. We went to the bus that sells fish and chips in Fairhaven for dinner, and then came home.

7. Watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed.

Wednesday May 27, 2015 {Lots of Rocks}

1. I woke up at 6, very tired and very sore.

2. I got the bus to school, and was early as usual for Geology.

3. Geology was fun today. We got our tests back from last week, and I was plesently surprised with my grades, particularly the lab test. We then had the opprotunity to do some more lab work for bonus points. The lab was just IDing more rocks, which I really like doing. We also talked a bit about the field trip this weekend.

4. C. and I hung out on our usual bench. L. was there for a bit, and we talked about her weekend, and then C. and I talked about the current goings on for a while before we both had class.

5. At English, we talked about connotation of language, and did some fun exercises related to that.

6. After class, I met up with C. and L. again, and then played a game on my iPod for a while and ate lunch while C. was in class. After he got out, his mom and sister picked us and we headed to parkday.

7. Parkday was strange this week with two of the main families absent, and C., G. (who is home for the summer) and I spent most of it on a bench, observing some interesting kites.

8. We left pd, and headed home to eat dinner, and then I did some math and stuff.

9. Watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, worked on a blog post for the main blog, and went to bed.

Friday May 22, 2015 {Western Washington University}

1. Got up and got ready. Took the bus to school. Stopped at Cafe Avellino (a little coffee shop right by WCC) for a chai tea latte on my way to school. I love that place, but I don't go there often because I don't have that kind of money.

2. Despite stopping, I still got to class 15 minutes early. The door was locked today, so I had to wait outside the classroom for Bernie, the teacher, to get there. Geology class today was about "mass movement:" landslides, rock slides, mud flows, etc. Apparently we aren't allowed to call them "mudslides" because mud is a liquid, and liquids can't slide, they flow. So it's a mud flow, and a rock slide.

3. After class, C. and I hung out as per the usual. We talked about various things, including this game called agar.io. Click that link at your own risk. Seriously, it's an odd game, and because people get to choose their own names, very often not at all family friendly. We also talked about lots of other random things.

4. C. left for class, but my English class was canceled, so I sat in Syre for another hour. I saw my friend Jake multiple times when he walked by. Once, he told me about a hilarious (and not appropriate for young audiences) tarot reading he had just gotten, another time he showed me a glass eyeball he had found in the lost and found, and then the last time I was staring at him as he walked down the stairs and he threatened to throw quarters at me. Hey, free money! :P I have weird friends.

5. I left WCC and headed to Western. We started by going to meet with an admissions counselor, and then went on a campus tour.

6. This is the part where I should probably talk about how I feel about WWU, but I am so conflicted about it. In a lot of ways, I really, really like it. They have a good English department, their travel opportunities are good, and as a homeschool student, I feel like it would be pretty easy to apply there. The problem is that it's literally 15 minutes away from home. I do know that if I go there, I don't want to live at home, but that seems kind of irresponsible. Why spend another $10,000 a year if I don't have to. After visiting today, I can say Western is certainly in my top three or four, and might even be my top choice if only it weren't so close to home.

8. After that, we came home and had dinner. Then we walked down to the convenience store two blocks away to buy ice cream bars.

9. We went home, I did some homework, then did nothing for a little while.

10. Mom and I spent a while trying out the "net price calculators" on the websites of a few different colleges. I know that you can't put too much stock in those, but it was interesting to see what they estimated I would get in scholarships and such. It's also a bit terrifying.

11. Watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, went to bed.

Wednesday May 20, 2015 {Geology Midterm}

1. Got up at 6am, got ready to go, and took the bus to school.

2. From 8am to 10am, we had an exam in Geology. Half of it was an 80 question multiple choice test based on lecture material, and the other half was a lab test, in which we had to identify 10 rocks. The two combined are worth 190 points out of the 540 possible this entire quarter! This exam is worth twice as much as the final.

3. Once that was done, C. and I hung out for a while. L. joined us for a bit, and we discussed the nature of our lives.

4. C. had to leave to make some changes to his fall schedule, and L. and I hung out for a little while, then walked to class.

5. In English, we did peer review work on the drafts of the background sections of our research papers that we had just turned in.

6. After English, I went to find C. at our usual spot, but through some bad luck we managed to again miss each other.

7. I went to the Co-op to eat lunch, and then my dad and Isabelle met me there and we drove to park day.

8. Park day was beautiful! The weather is so awesome right now. I lay in the sun for a while waiting for people to get there. When C. got there, we talked for a while and then started walking in laps around the park. We estimate we probably walked multiple miles over the afternoon.

9. We came home, ate dinner, and then I wrote the post for yesterday and started in on this one. I wrote this post for my other blog, and then did some math.

10. Watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed. I actually feel asleep around 10:30, which is the earliest that's happened in ages. I was really tired.

Saturday, May 16, 2015 {BA~CON}

1. Got up and did very little productive for several hours, though I did look over the study guide for the Geology exam next week and do some of the practice questions.

2. I finished listening to the new Hello Internet, in which I learned a lot about politics in the U.K. I also listened to the new Welcome to Nightvale.

3. Ate lunch, then headed to WCC for the Bellingham Anime Con! Also known as {BA~CON}.

4. Spent the next four hours as a volunteer at the event. I'm not really into anime or cosplay, but it was still pretty cool to be there.

5. I spent the first two hours at the Peacebonding/Cosplay First Aid booth, where I helped one person superglue something back onto her costume. People occasionally asked me questions which I usually didn't know the answer to, in which case I just directed them to the registration booth to ask someone who actually knew what they were doing.

6. I spent the next hour doing "crowd control." My job was to stand in one of the panel rooms and make sure that everyone who came in had a badge, and that the room didn't exceed max capacity, which was somewhere around 50. I don't think there were more that 15 people at the most.

7. I then was sent to start an anime showing in another room, which took all of 3 minutes. I also was one of the judges of the art contest at somewhere in there.

8. I spent the last hour picking up trash, and handing out glow sticks. That, it turns out, is the way to get a building full of strangers to suddenly love you. The two of us who were wandering around handing out glow sticks were remarkably popular very quickly.

9. I left WCC, and headed home for dinner and such.

10. Ate dinner, ate some cake, watched Doctor Who, read Jane Eyre, and went to bed.

Weekend Review #14 {School, Writing, Pictures}

It's been another week, and now here I am to summarize it.

Monday, I went to school, volunteered at the library, and went to dance class.

Tuesday, I did homework, and really, nothing else. It was a kind of boring day.

Wednesday, I went to school, took a test in my Study Skills class, did much better on it than I thought I would, then went to park day.

Thursday, I taught Latin and had lunch with friends, then came home and did homework for the rest of the day.

Friday, I went to school, and then went to a friend's house for the remainder of the day. I also had a ballet class, which, since the normal teacher was unavailable, was taught by one of my best friends, which was fun.

Saturday, we did a Steampunk photoshoot involving all of us who went with the Steampunk theme for our Halloween costumes. I'll post a few pictures on here at some point, if I get them. I also then had a Nutcracker rehearsal that afternoon/evening.

Sunday, I did not do too much, but went shopping for coats in the evening. I spent a lot of time hanging out and talking to friends online.

Reading: I haven't done much non-school reading this week, but for school I read Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, both of which I'm almost done with. I also started Mort by Terry Pratchett after it was lent to me by a friend.

Writing: We are a third of the way through November now, which means that I should be at 16,666 by the end of today. At the moment, I'm at a little above 12k, and I'm hoping to make it to 14k by the end of the day.

It's a four day weekend (Veteran's Day on Tuesday, and no classes on Monday for faculty conferences), so hopefully I can get in at least 2k today and tomorrow, which would get me at least a bit caught up.

Weekend Review: Dancing, Shopping, and The Giver

It's been another busy week.

On Monday, I went to ballet class, volunteered at the library, and went to Irish dance class. This week was the last week of summer dance classes, and so Monday was my last day until fall.

Tuesday, I had Driver's Ed.

Wednesday was park day, and then I had rehearsal for Dracula.Then, because my mom was hosting a "Mom's Night" at our house, my friend's dad picked us both up after Dracula, and we went back to one of the other family's houses, where we joined a bunch of other kids and dads, and we ate dinner. Then, most of the kids and dads went to the driving range to for some golf lessons, but some of us stayed behind and hung out for a few hours.

Thursday, I had another rehearsal, and my mom and I went driving before that.

Friday, my sister had soccer in the morning, and after that my mom and I tried out the city buses. We took the bus to the college,  from there downtown, which is where the library and my dance studio are, and then from there back to where we started, which is a few miles from my house. There isn't a convenient bus stop close to my house, but there is one a few minute drive away. Then, we had an Irish dance performance Friday night in the beautiful Birch Bay state park, on a stage overlooking the water.

Saturday, we went shopping with our grandmother.

Today, my sister is doing a mud run, and then I am going to see The Giver with a friend this afternoon. I'm a bit nervous about The Giver, because I've heard some not so good things, and the trailer wasn't promising, but I promise to write a blog post about it tonight after I see it.

This week, I read two books I really liked: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, and Thirteen Reasons Why. Thirteen Reasons Why is a book I read for the first time probably five years ago, but it was fascinating to read it now, and connect with it in a whole new way. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was a beautiful book that made me so happy and so sad at the same time. I am writing a review of it right now, and it will be published later this week.

Update: Furniture Moving, Test Taking, and Doctor Appointments

Last Friday, I went to the Allergy and Asthma doctor, to see, basically, if I had allergies, or asthma. After talking for a while, and doing a number of lung capacity tests (they take some practice!), the doctor decided to get me a prescription for albuterol (an asthma inhaler). I'll be using it as needed for the next few weeks, to see if it works. I have a really bad cough right now, which I think it part of a long running cold going around our community, which is making my breathing worse, and may have skewed the results from. Interestingly, using the inhaler has actually helped me cough a little less.

It's quite large, much bigger than I expected.

Next week, I'm going back the the doctor to do a skin allergy test (they dip these toothpick like things in the allergens, and then poke them onto your skin. If you're allergic to it, you'll get a little hive there.), and some asthma breathing tests. I'll also talk more to the doctor about how the albuterol has or hasn't helped. 

On Saturday morning, I went to the community college to take the English placement test (which all Running Start students have to take to qualify for the program). I've done a lot of standardized testing (homeschoolers in WA have to take a test every year), but I'd never done any on the computer before, so it was a bit of a new experience. I must say, I like it much better than filling in bubbles. I am quite happy with my test results; I got into the program (which I was sure I was going to do), and I tested into English 101.

Today, I still have this terrible cough, so I probably won't be doing a lot, but I am planning on doing some organizing in my room so that I can move some furniture around. I am planning on moving my desk out of my room and into the family room/school room, but I have a bit of work to do before I can really do that.