The first 9 weeks

School at Christopher Dock Mennonite High begins on Tuesday, August 29, in 3 days. I am going into 12th grade, the senior year, the final grade in grade school. I am not the least bit excited. Yes, I know it’s my senior year, and everyone in my class will be excited about that the first year. But’s it’s still another year, another 2 semisters, another 4 quarters, another 36 weeks, another 180 days. So I still have to put up with the crap I hate at school: another commericial Christmas, another show-off couple Valentine’s Day, another skipping of Arts Day and all-school social and another overrated Banquet. Plus, I got to take harder classes this year. So to me, it’s still another school year. Ask me again during 4th quarter if I’m excited, then we’ll see. So Monday is my last day of the summer break (and I plan to enjoy every minute of it, not thinking about school at all), then I go back to school. Waking up at 6 AM, getting the bus at 6:50, starting classes at 7:50, ending classes 2:45 PM, getting home at 3:30 PM. Between 7:50 and 2:45, I go through the 8-period cycle (except on block days, ugh) that goes something like this:

1. Statistics I – Mr. Mast
2. Basic Music – Mrs. Rittenhouse
3. Chapel/Activity (Advisor: Mr. Yoder)
4. Rec Games – Mr. Moyer
5. Family Living – Mrs. Musselman
6. Lunch (Longacre Commons, NOT the cafeteria)
7. Kingdom Living – Mr. Hertzler
8. Senior English – Mrs. McTavish
9. Economics – Mr. Jeff Hackman

Speaking of Senior English, I hope everybody has read their summer required reading and have done (or at least in the process of their book report). For mine….well….Rome wasn’t built in a day. The paper is suppose to be 550-600 words, and broken into three parts. The first part is to be a short summary, the second part a scene from the book that was my favorite, and the third part is discovering the message the author was trying to communicate to the reader. The first time I did it, I started at the beginning part, the “short” summary. Well, halfway through writing the summary I checked it out how many words I had and it was 550! I never was able to summarize shortly. So I am trying again, starting with the second part. It was 400 words. That means the other two parts I have to do between 150-200 words. I think that seems more logical. Once again, I aim to finish it by tomorrow, so I don’t have to focus on school work for that last day of summer vacation on Monday.