Blogaday 14 of 20

Day 14. That's two straight weeks. It's been a big deal. I've appreciated it, but I'm going to be rejoicing when this is all over.

A lot of things are going to be changing once blogaday is through. It will end within a day of first semester ending. I'm hoping to turn things around really soon. The end of term is always stressful, but this time around it's an entirely different stress. It's not so much about schoolwork as it is about sleep and life in general. I meant to get to bed earlier tonight, but I'm not going to make it by too much. It's 1 AM right now, so I'll be in bed well before three, that's good. It's still not as early as I'd have liked. I do get to sleep in tomorrow morning. I won't be able to get a nap tomorrow, so maybe that's what it'll take to get me back into the saddle, at least for the next week.

Next week is going to be very interesting. It's the last four days of first semester. I only have to go to government twice more. I always have a really good idea about where my grades stand when the end of term rolls around. Right now I'm sitting on a 4.0, but that could change without me knowing it. The big risk is English. Grades haven't been updated, aside from participation, for months. I know I'm probably missing a few responses, and I've still got a fab vocab test to make up. I'm not worried about either of them, but it's whole mystery factor that frightens me. I don't know if there's something that I've missed. I don't know, honestly, what's all due next week. I have hardly touched hamlet. I know that my book club summary is due, as well as our photostory. I hope that that's it. Assuming I've gotten most of my responses in, I should pull the A in there. I just wish I knew where I stood.

Aside from English though, school isn't incredibly stressful this next week. We have three tests in Calculus, and I'm nothing but excited for them. Calculus is an incredibly cool class. I've been keeping up on my work, so I feel really confident going into this. Kaelin drops the lowest of the three minitests, and I nailed the last two without any wrong, so I don't have to worry about that one. There are two big tests, and if I get anywhere above a 92 on either of them I'll be entirely set. I know the material, and I'm pretty excited to have a go at it.

Calculus makes me happy. I was 30 minutes late to class today, and 70 minutes late yesterday, but it's honestly what keeps the classic version of me happy with school. I know that I'm going to learn something in calculus. There's no question, it's going to happen. I'm going to walk out of the classroom a little bit of a better person. It's a standard. A lot of school for me right now isn't giving me much. There's a few classes that I don't ever feel like going to. But when all of my other classes fail me and let me down, I know I'll still have calculus.

Adult roles looks pretty secure. I've perfected all my chapter tests, and since those are weighted fifty percent, things are looking pretty good. I'm currently sitting at 97 percent in there, and the only thing pending is the communication test we took. I know I didn't perfect it, but there wasn't too much in there that I'm worried about. I'd have to have a very very bad score to drop me three percentage points, so I'm pretty happy in there.

It's almost impossible not to get an A in mads.

Choir is all taken care of, so that's good news.

There's a test in government this week, and I'm not entirely prepared for it. I have no idea what to expect. Mclerin said it'd be really easy, so I ought to walk right through it. It's just amendments one through eight, so no real big deal.

There really aren't that many pending assignments. Everything that's looming is English. I've also got a video to get edited for seminary by monday morning. That will be really easy though, and fairly entertaining. It'll be fun to edit it. I'll probably take care of that Sunday.

I've also got an essay to write for Micron. I've been meaning to get around to it for a few weeks now, but never have. The scholarship app is due a week from tomorrow, so I really need to get moving on it. All that really remains to be done is to talk to the registrar and have her fill a little bit out, and then write my essay. It's only two pages, and the question is one I'm really excited to answer. Like I've said before, my odds for getting this scholarship are astronomically low, but I'm still going to give it my best shot. What's the worst thing that could happen? It's already made me think a lot about my future, so that's been beneficial. Even if I score no money out of it, I learned a bit about myself.

And that's really the same deal with my sterling scholar portfolio. It's a brute to put together, and I really hold no hopes about winning region. I'm doing it because I'm supposed to. The process of doing it has taught me stuff though. As much as I don't really like making it, I've been forced to analyze some of the stuff I've done in the past. It was a good experience.

So that's the state of the union regarding school. It's insane to think that end of term is in four school days. It's so close. It doesn't feel as close as it is. Everything always seems to stack up at end of term. I guess this isn't any real difference. We've got a morningside on wednesday. It's going to be really good. We've done a decent job advertising I think, and we've still got a bit to roll out once the new week hits. I'm excited for it.

Jimmy Falcon's tomorrow. That'll be good times. My group has been really cool about it, which has been nice. Kirt pulled through for us very nicely. I love how very relaxed we've been about it all. Preparing for this dance has been an almost zero stress experience. We're not doing anything elaborate, and I'm excited to go have a good time. By all means, it should be a very fun adventure.

My parents are out of town for today and most of tomorrow. I've realized that I enjoy an extremely large amount of freedom, even when they're home. In fact, there's almost no difference between what I would have done today had they been here or had they been away. Dinner was different, but other than that, things are the same. This level of freedom is a very two edged sword. I can guarantee that if mom and dad rode me harder about bed times, I wouldn't be in the current mess that I'm in. School suffered terribly today because of my sleep patterns. I've been very late to calculus twice because of my sleep patterns. Important things are suffering. But mom and dad are way cool about it. They let me know that I'm a doofus for staying up as late as I have, but they don't say "You've gotta go to bed." They always say "You should go to bed." It's a good deal.

Freedom like this is always interesting to me. I crave it, but at the same time I fear the absolute truth that it brings. I always find myself thinking "If I just had one free day, I could get so much done!" and then I have a free day and sleep through the waking hours and post and play video games through the sleeping ones.

Who's excited for college? Oooh oooh, me. Who's a little wary about summer? Oooh, oooh, me!

This will obviously be a pretty intense summer. I don't know entirely what to expect. I hope to get a job, as I really really need one. I know I'll be doing PLC the first week. I want to go running, and I want to spend time with good people, obviously. I hope to play a lot of Ultimate while we've still got the chance. It'll finally be time for the reunion game we talked about two years ago. We need to make sure we're going to win by then. I don't want to lose to a bunch of rm's who haven't played more than four times in the past two years of their lives. That's going to be an adventure though. Playing ultimate with Andrew again? Do you know how long that's been? Of course you do, it will have been two years, but come on! I miss the old dog. It'll be amazing to play ultimate with Brad again too. That kid can fly.

I've been thinking about this blogaday business, obviously. I'm thinking maybe next time I get inspired to do something challenging, I'll call a scholarshipaday. That one has financial incentive. Blogaday is cool and all, but scholarships would be even cooler. There are a lot of little ones that don't require much. The only thing standing in my way, most of the time, is the essay. I've been writing long winded posts every night for the past two weeks. Why not write essays instead?

This post has been a little bit of a let down, really. Not to be a downer, but it hasn't had the inspirational breakthrough that most blogaday posts have possessed. I am not sure whether or not an opportunity for inspiration has knocked. I'm pretty sure I'm not in a positive to run with the opportunity if it did come, though. I'm tired and lazy and surviving today.

See, there's always a difference between surviving and thriving. The very last thing I do every night before I pray and go to sleep is to bust out my half sheet of legal paper and make a to-do list for the next day. It doesn't happen every night, but it's really been helping me be more effective. I can always tell what kind of day tomorrow is going to be by how my to-do list looks. I love days where I have a ton of things to do, but I know that I can do them all. I love small steps towards getting something awesome done. It's always daunting when I have to put "Write essay" on the paper. It feels better when I can break it down into segments. You can't really break down, "write essay", but I like to make big tasks into little ones. The moral of the story is that some nights I can write "Thrive" as a to-do. Other nights, I'm forced to write "Survive". I can usually call what kind of day it's going to be.

Tomorrow is invariably tied to what happens today. Tomorrow will inherit the preparation or lack thereof of its predecessor. Today can rob tomorrow of many opportunities. Likewise, it can bestow a lot of golden chances, if today is willing to work for it. I can usually tell how tomorrow will be based on how I've acted today.

And I think that's been one of the problems of these past few weeks and this current sleep cycle. I get to bed so late that I figure that tomorrow is going to be a wash anyways.

As a matter of curiosity, my days are incredibly fragmented. In about an hour I'll go to sleep. If tomorrow were a school day, I'd be looking forward to 3.5 to 4 hours or sleep, sometimes a little less. I'd wake up, bust out the mad school action, and then come home and sleep for 2 to 3 hours. I'd then be awake for however long, do stuff, and then go back to bed for another 3.5 to 4 before school.

It almost feels like there are two days in one. There's a school day, and there's a home day. They're almost the same length, and they're both preceded by almost the same amount of sleep.

Now, this pattern has only been going on for two weeks, seeing as school's only been in for two weeks since the break. I slept similar to this during the break, but it didn't matter, because I could always sleep in.

And I know that i've talked a lot about this cycle throughout blogaday. For as much as I've talked about it and thought about it, I've done very little to change it. That's bad news. I don't like it at all. There's work to be done on it. And, like I said, I hope tomorrow is a good first step towards fixing it.

Is tomorrow going to be a thrive day, or a survive day? It's definitely got opportunity to be a thrive day. It's not set up as golden as I'd like it to be, but it's not going to be shafted like most school days this week have been. I'm looking forward to a minimum of seven hours of sleep, and that's beautiful. I've got a basketball game and a date. I know that if all else fails, at least dinner will be delicious.

Tomorrow isn't shafted, and that's a good feeling. I need to work on making sure that I continue to not shaft the future. I lost a few days this week, this one included, to the future-shaft. It's a bad feeling, but at the same time, I know that there's nothing to do but move on and do better next time.

I've got work to do, it's that easy. Understanding what that work is will be integral to success. I've been making school work this week, at a minimum. This week has been one of survival. The flashes of inspiration that mark a thriving and growing week have been there, but not as often as I'd like. I haven't made much progress towards going to college for cheap. I haven't made much progress towards mission prep. I haven't made much progress to being a healthier person, although there has been some.

I did manage to write five posts so far. I have read, and I'm yet to fall over and die. I've played two games of basketball, with another one scheduled for tomorrow. I've learned some amazing calculus. I've gotten a little bit better at warcraft. I know warcraft doesn't count for anything, but hey, at least it was fun. I've sung a lot, but not as much as I'd have liked to. I've brushed my teeth.

The moral of my story is thus: there's a new chance to begin fresh really really soon. I'm excited to hit this next week hard. I've got a few things I need to absolutely get done before next weekend, and I'm going to do them. I want to get as much as possible closed up, so I can be entirely fresh once school starts again.

I'm surviving, there's no question about that. I will make this work. I'm becoming less and less satisfied with mere survival though. I want to flourish and grow and thrive, and I'm ready to work for an opportunity to do it. I've thought about blogaday this whole week as a pair of shackles. Good things have come of it, but it's been a lot of work during the wrong part of a clock. I have an opportunity to turn that around and start doing some better stuff. I've got an opportunity to sleep well and be ready to give school the shot it deserves. I'm excited to be ready to write this essay. I'm excited for this morningside on wednesday. It's a sacrifice, surely, but hey, maybe it'll change my life. I'm excited for no school friday.

I need to work hard, but I'm going to get to the point where I can give next week a fair shot. This week got pillaged, and there's nothing I can do about that now. It is what it is. I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen to next week.

And so, for blogaday 14, that's it. A rambling post that went everywhere but never got much of anywhere. Hey, it's blogaday, that's the way it goes. I think if somebody were to analyze the patterns down the road, 14 would be the point where it turned around. I'm entering end game soon. 14 is really the last of the posts that doesn't feel like I'm getting close to the final note. I think that it's becoming apparent that I've been doing this for a while though. This is a tired post. Both from my point of view and blog's point of view. This post is surviving, and I think that's mostly it. It's not smiling because of its accomplishments, it's smiling because it didn't get hit by a bus.

Is it a tragedy? I don't think so. It's the way that things are. The time to mourn that and change that is long gone. Our best shot now is to say goodbye to 14 and move on, get ready for 15.

This ship is sailing onward. Regardless of today, I'm going to work to get tomorrow where it needs to be. This is blogaday day 14. I'm out.