I survived finals.

Wednesday December 14 was our first day of finals. The schedule went review periods 1, 2, 6, 7, exam 6, lunch, and exam 7. I lucked out and got to sleep in an extra hour and come to school at 9:15 in time for review period 6. My first two periods are health careers and Crawfordsville students didn't have to go to class. Both the review periods were pretty pointless. There isn't much that can be done in 30 minutes. My sixth period is honors government. For our final we had a packet with information about religion in school and a case dealing with religion in a graduation speech. We had two essays we had to write arguing whether each incident was constitutional or not. I wasn't even really sure which side to pick or what to say. But I know that it was much better than any test he could have given us. Then we had a white elephant gift exchange. I brought a tin full of Reese's and ended up getting a mug with hot chocolate, candy canes, and a bead necklace. Other people received a bar of soap, a boomerang, old CHS football dvds, a painting of a cat that someone's grandpa did, and "the ultimate survival kit." This was the perfect class to do it in. The setting couldn't have been better. Mr. Gerald and Mrs. Roman were in their second annual decorating contest. Mr. Gerald won last year, and held onto the trophy this year as well. He had a fireplace, at least 10 Christmas trees, and tons of lights.

Since we are seniors we got the full lunch hour, instead of eating half the time, and being in homeroom the other half. We ate in the aux gym where ping pong was also set up. I just watched though.

Seventh period I have yearbook. We had a big party. Everyone was assigned food to bring-and everyone came through for once. There was cookies, homemade chex mix, fruit trays, carrots and ranch, a cheese ball and crackers, puppy chow, and popcorn. The 6 staff members left, the student assistant, and our teacher turned the desks to make a table and shared our food. We also shared gifts. We each drew a name a few weeks ago and got that person a present. It was a surprise who everyone had until we gave each other our gifts. I had Kym's name and got her nail polish and a necklace. Brittnee had me and I received a mug and chocolate, nail polish, lotion and body wash, gum, chapstick, and kit kat bars. It was so sweet. -And she definitely exceeded the around $5 limit. Then, we continued to eat food and watch Remember the Titans. This class is basically like a family. We are all close. I'm not sure if Mrs. Harms would be like the mom figure or just one of us. She is one of my favorite teachers. She just understands kids so well, maybe it's the loving mother in her. She is also really funny and a good teacher.

When I went home-after stopping by Kecia's office and ordering a pair of black shoes for work- I was too excited and filled with the Christmas spirit to take a nap. Instead of sleeping, I organized and cleaned out the pantry. There were so many items that we had more than enough of, and hopefully the organization will help to eliminate buying duplicates.

Thursday December 15 was my dad's birthday. He turned 50!! We were supposed to be at his house Wednesday night, and I would have woken up at his house to tell him happy birthday. But he was working in Illinois. So I called him instead. Not quite as good.

Then, I went in the kitchen and started cooking baked oatmeal for my health careers class. It was really warm this morning for some reason. It was 60! So I took advantage of it and wore a skirt. Because sometimes I just get tired of pants. Since health careers final was our 3 1/2 page paper, we had breakfast and watched the end of the movie To Save a Life. Breakfast was delicious and there was so much to chose from: cinnamon rolls, breakfast pizza, keesh, breakfast casserole, baked oatmeal, smoothies, breakfast casserole, biscuits and gravy, and seven layer bars. There was also milk and orange juice.

After eating and watching the movie, we were going to play games. But no one really remembered to bring them, so I ran to my house and grabbed what I could find. We ended up playing scategories. I love that game. Marlee and I were on a team and did pretty well, but were not the overall winners. I also love the class. It is my very favorite. I love what we learn about and am so excited for clinicals next year. But I also love all of the girls (and one guy) in the class and that we are from different schools and that it is at a neighborhood clinical and not a typical classroom and our teacher and that she is an RN and teaches us.

Our schedule for Thursday was exam one, break, exam two, lunch, review periods 3, 4, and 5. However, my teacher had to go to work at 10 so we just had class our normal time. From 7:45-9:40. This left the Crawfordsville students free to do as we wished until 1:15 when we had to be at school for review period three.

I went to Hose to hang out with my mom in her classroom. We got the kids from the library. Then, I took two at a time into the hallway. One had a tiger paw pointer and pointed at words hanging up in the hallway, the other kid had to read the word that was being pointed to. Some of them were really good readers. Others were really good at sounding out each letter and wanted to be challenged. I never thought about how there was a point when I didn't know how to read. I think it would be so hard to teach the basics and fundamentals of anything. Basic math or basic reading or the alphabet or how to write. I would want to just be an art teacher. Hands down. Then, I helped Jacob with a worksheet that everyone else had finished. He was working contently at his desk, but he needed a little more guidance. We put zoo animals in alphabetical order together. He was so sweet. Before I left it was time for self read. Aaron read a book about Mud to me. Many other kids wanted to, but I didn't have anymore time.

At 11:30am I had a library date with Hannah and Marlee. We went upstairs to one of the cubicles.We were meeting to work on our stats review assignments and thinking of things to write on our half sheets that we get to use during our final. I just couldn't concentrate. I didn't do anything really the entire hour. Hannah had info for her half sheet all written out and said we could copy it. We didn't have much time though-so we took the easiest way possible and copied it with the library's copy machine. Hey whatever works.

Hannah left to go eat lunch with her dad and Marlee and I were off to Little Mexico for lunch. We debated the idea, and ended up walking there and leaving our cars parked at the library. We were proud of ourselves and decided the walking and the whole entire schedule of the day felt like we were college students. And we loved it! At Little Mexico we met Tyler, Clancy, and Laci. All from our Health Careers class. We all love the restaurant. The workers. And the food. Yum! Way better than eating school lunch food in the aux gym.

We were tight on time by the time we finished. We were going to ride with Laci back to our cars-but her car was too messy. Marlee and I weren't going to be able to fit. So we decided we would walk back. Well I actually decided we would run. And we did. It was pretty funny. It was maybe 3 blocks away? But we were both pretty winded when we got to our cars. And we beat Laci and Clancy who drove! Crazy.

(these were taken while running. It's hard to hold a phone and take a picture while running.

I was a little late to my third review period. Ms. Race's class. I was just so happy from all of the events from the rest of the day. I had done so much and had so much fun. When I got to her class I was still winded and couldn't sit still. She asked me if I was okay. Probably because I never smile or seem alive in her class. (Unless of course Hil and I are talking and making jokes). But maybe it was because I was out of breath. We basically did nothing that period.

Fourth period I have stats and for our review we were give a half sheet of paper and allowed to write anything on it. I copied down the info from the paper we copied of Hannah's.

Fifth period I have psych and we went over our review guide and asked Mrs. Rainwater questions. We also started watching A Beautiful Mind.

After school, and after driving home with Maria and I screaminggg because of the spider in my car, Josue came over. We watched a Hallmark movie with my mom while I worked on my stats review. Then I took him home on Maria and I's way to gymnastics practice. In the car Maria and I talked about how he is so sweet and how it's so cute how much Maggie likes him and how she always runs right to her soccer ball.

(it won't let me rotate these pictures. And I'm tired of trying to figure out a way to trick it into letting me. But they're too cute to leave out. Props to my photographer Maria.)

After practice, I came home and studied the rest of the night. I was pretty worried about stats because when I did the review assignments I had to look up how to do each problem. I was also worried for English.

Friday December 16 I had a full day of school and a full day of finals. When I got to school I went to my third period for our exam. First we broke into two groups and discussed an article about Walmart in China from our Atlantic magazines.  This was really frustrating to me. Partly because I didn't exactly read the whole article, which was my fault. But also partly because the other members of my group just spoke way too fast and I could never get a word in when I tried. But Cole always listened to me. And one time he raised a hand for me to talk. How nice of him. Then we all went into the classroom to take our blue book. We had a question about Chaucer- and the thing we were supposed to read of his we didn't even need. That would happen to me. I also didn't have my book with me and wasn't able to use it like the other kids were. That was frustrating. But I figured I wouldn't need it because she never told us-plus the tale that we were supposed to read (and I did) wasn't in our book. Whatever. We also had an essay about two random poems about stars. And of course-she didn't have our portfolios graded to show us. Doc always did. I miss Doc.Clearly.

During our break I sat with Hannah and tried to figure out the other stats problems that we didn't get. Soon it ended and we went to stats to take our finals. They were 50 multiple choice questions. I wasn't quite sure how well I did, but I ended up doing really well! I got an A on it. Which was unexpected. And exciting!

Lunch we had back in the aux gym. I didn't really eat. But I helped Clancy study our multiple choice part of our psych study guide.

Then I went to psychology for our last final. There were 100 questions. Matching, fill in the blank, and multiple choice. We were allowed to use our study guides on the test-but not the page with the matching. It made it really really easy. I was so thankful for that final. Then, we continued to watch A Beautiful Mind.

I got a pass from the office saying I had to go down there at 3:04. Which meant I was getting something. I was really excited, because it is always exciting. And unsure of who it could be from. Because my sunshine lady had already given me something Christmasy. But it was from her! I got a super soft and cute snowman blanket, a loofah with a Santa on it, bath and lotion stuff, and candy. She is so sweet. Oh-I also brought a present for her. A jar with cookie ingredients and a snowman ornament.

Maria, Ally, Sami, Alyssa, and I stayed after school to workout for gymnastics. Ally led us in a workout for a little while, then we went home. I packed for my dad's for the week and went to his house. Once Michael and Maria got there too we had cake and ice cream for his birthday and he opened up his present. Then we hung out the rest of the night.