A purely informational post

For the benefit of those noble few of my readers (or perhaps there are many of you, I couldn't say) who read my blog more than just for entertainment/edification and would actually like to know what's really going on in my life, I believe I owe you a brief report. After all, who knows? Maybe you're thirsty for a general view of my recent life, however dull or interesting it may be. I can't say it's extremely interesting, but for communication's sake I think I'll clear up the general idea of "what I'm doing" right now.

First of all, in case you can't keep track (and why should you?), I'm in my last year of high school. *cheers* It's a little weird, actually. I've been having a lot of "lasts," like "last first day of school" and "last day I'm doing school during apple sauce day," etc. What is one to do when one no longer has any more school to do? Never fear, I'll find something.

Right, so I'm in my last year, and it's perhaps one of my most laid-back years yet, at least for high school. For one thing, I'm no longer taking HomeSat, so I have SO much more flexibility. For another, since according to the number of credits required to graduate from our local high school, I already had enough credits before the year started, it's pretty much a low key, "fill in the gaps" year. I've already taken my necessary maths, I have the necessary sciences and three years of foreign language study, plus I've already taken the SAT, so now what? Well, we decided to have me take an economics, classical physics, and music theory courses, all of which I've already finished (I started music theory in the summer and the others were short enough so that with just a little diligence I knocked them off by/around the first week of this month). So basically I have left an American literature course (a college level kind where you have to read entire books, not just excerpts from a text book), vocabulary, writing (I'm doing two different books and working on at least one good sized project for this), and home economics. Plus I'm going to try to do a little more art stuff, which I still need to work on doing. Anyway, this is just a great year where I get to do most of stuff that I want to do and count it for school! So all's good.

Hmm, another general fact from my more or less recent (that is, like the past three months) life is that I have a new violin! Indeed, that dear little instrument that I've been playing for the past eight years has now retired, and I have a much better instrument. I say "have"; the fact is, I don't really "have" it yet. My parents have paid for half of it and it's on loan to us from our friendly local fiddle shop and they said that I could pay for the rest of it by coming in to do background music for their adjoining Italian restaurant! ay, ay, ay! Nothing has happened yet, but we're hoping to meet with the lady before too terribly long and set some dates (she said something about Valentine's Day. . . I hope I can start sooner so that I can get a little more paid off).

Ah, and the violin? The violin is the sort of instrument that has actually been sitting unused for awhile in an attic, but this lady sent it in to have it fixed by an expert, who said that it was worth more than she had first thought. My violin isn't much to look at, but it's excusable given where it's been sitting and that it was probably made in the 18oos in Germany. So yeah, it's old; and it can blow my old student instrument partly out of the water.

The last brief thing I'll mention by way of informing the benighted as to my doings is that I'm working at a horse farm. Yessirreee, I've been working there for nearly four weeks now, getting up at about five-thirty week mornings to leave at six o'clock to drive with Kate down the road about two miles to feed our neighbor's horses. And do other less pleasant duties. Thankfully, the "less pleasant" duties don't bother me, and it's fun getting more comfortable with the handsome beasts. Since I've already been asked what we actually do, I'll tell you: we give the horses (there are three of them) their hay-type stuff, their grain, and their beet pulp. Then we shovel the barn, get their hay, get their water, and possibly put out new shavings. Finally, when they're done eating, we take their night coats off, let them out, shovel their stalls if they need it, sweep the inside of the barn, and mix up their beet pulp for the next time. That's the basic gist of it. It usually takes us half an hour to an hour, depending on if we have to get the horses, if they behave themselves, how much manure we have to shovel, etc. You get the idea.

Oh, and I think the horses are thoroughbreds. They're the kind that have lots of ribbons hanging up in the barn for the shows they've been in. Once, I even counted them while I was waiting for the massive water buckets to fill up (I hoping I can add something to my non-existent muscles:); I counted aprox. 112 ribbons, if I remember correctly.

Apologies for a post that's not very exciting. I'm not in a very exciting mood, but I thought it might be beneficial to let ya'll know what I'm employed in most of the time that I'm not writing here.