Freshman Year

Wow, it feels so weird, about to start my Freshman year of high school. When I was younger, high school people were so big, and now they don't seem quite so big - because I know I'm not that big. I'm kind of nervous about making friends, not getting lost, auditioning for shows...I suppose it's absolutely normal to feel this way, but I don't want it to be underrated. It's pretty scary, the whole idea. I've asked my sister lots about the school I'm going to (and that she goes to), but...I don't know. It just feels so strange, this feeling that's hovering over me that something could go wrong, that it isn't real, that...

Well, I try to counter this feeling with the idea that billions of people have made it through their Freshman years of high school and been perfectly fine. Naturally, it doesn't help one bit. The only comforting thing right now is that I know where my locker is and that I know the choir and theatre teachers. From then on, I have no idea what to do and how to act. For goodness sake's, I don't even have teachers that Lindsay's had. Except for, of course, the theatre and choir directors.

1. Biology
2. Geometry
3. Acting 1
4. Spanish II
5. Global Study 9
6. Lit & Comp 9
7. Study Hall
8. P.E.

Okay, so never would I voluntarily take P.E., but it's just one of those fickle little things you have to take to graduate. Like Lindsay mentioned earlier, it's an A Day/B Day system, with the odd classes being on the first day and even on the next. So, for my one elective, I got Acting 1 (yay!), with Women's Choir being my one elective second semester, and my classes are evenly distributed. I can only say that my schedule turned out a lot better than some people's, who had to have a lot of changing and tweaking and didn't get their first-choice electives, and that I'll see how the other classes are after Tuesday and Wednesday.

Lindsay originally was going to use this blog for herself, but asked if I wanted to join her in cataloging this year's adventures. It'll be a strange but interesting experience to look back on it all.

Junior Year

Junior year of high school starts tomorrow. Well, not for you necessarily, but certainly for me. And I have a feeling that all that talk about 11th grade being the hardest is true. So, I thought, hey, I'll chronicle this overworked year of madness, and see where it takes me. I'm thinking about my commitments for this year, and doing a double take: AP classes, treasurer for the theatre board, an editor on the literary magazine, voice lessons, piano lessons, and an educational acting troupe. What was I thinking? Oh, and then there are those pesky college visits.

So my required summer homework for AP English Literature and AP European History is done, I'm reviewing for AP Chemistry, and I'm hoping that my Freshman sister doesn't get terribly lost the first day of school. I'm thinking that providing my schedule up front will be much more useful than letting everyone puzzle it out. I'll be working on pseudonyms for my teachers as I need them, class names should be good for now. My high school has an A day/B day schedule. I have four class periods a day, odds on one, evens on the other.

1. Concert Choir
2. AP Calculus AB
3. Spanish IV
4. AP English Literature
5. Study Hall
6. Children's Theatre/Acting 3
7. AP European History
8. AP Chemistry

Now, I watched the movie Julie & Julia yesterday, which is probably why I'm writing this post today. Julie Powell took a year and wrote a blog about the recipes from Julia Child's first cookbook, which landed a book deal, and then a movie deal. And all I can think about is what Cousin Knitty was saying (wow - making up those pseudonyms isn't so hard) about how all Julie Powell wanted from the beginning was a book contract, and that she didn't read anyone's blogs. I might not read that many blogs, or be much of a blogger myself, but I'm really writing this so I will have a time capsule of this year. I really don't know how it'll turn out, and I'm very curious. This will let me look back to the beginning of the story because when I get to the end, I'm guessing I'll have forgetten a lot of the journey.