Freshman Year

I'm leaving for France at 5:15 today, and I ought to be packing or something like that, but instead I'm here, because I wanted to post this.

As of Tuesday at 2:56 pm central daylight time, I officially survived my freshman year and first year of being at a public school.
*applause*

Major events this year:
First day -- I was nervous, I tried to blow off the fact that I was a freshman and it didn't work, and my chemistry teacher intimidated me by comparing me to an absolutely amazing girl she taught three or four years before, who won lots of awards and whom I greatly admire.

September-ish -- Academic Team starts. Thank goodness. We start with Hayden, John, Blake, Abel, and me. We soon end up with Hayden, John, Erick, and me, with Colton and Ian as alternates.

October 10th -- I fail at pipetting in chem class. I carry the knowledge that in chemistry I feel like I can do anything but pipet for the rest of the year.

October-ish -- First Academic Team competition. We win our first game by forfeit when one of the other schools doesn't show. We lose the other two games by a lot.

Some dates I have forgotten -- my French teacher tells me on the way home (I have private lessons with her at my house twice per week) that at a conference she was at, a Spanish teacher argued that 9th graders couldn't learn grammar in a foreign language, and that my Spanish teacher said that she had a 9th grader who is better at grammar than most of her 11th and 12th graders. I'm the only 9th grader in her class.
My chem teacher starts considering me as one of her studs, or best students. I'm not really sure how this happens, but it does. I'm not complaining.
The other kids in my calculus class figure out that I'm the one who has a 113 point something in that class.
Kids in Chem class talk to me. Kids in Calc class stop ignoring me, though they don't start talking to me yet.

November 1 -- NaNo starts, and there is a Fine Arts Academic Meet. I NaNo on the way to the meet, especially during our stop at McDonalds. I don't get much done because I'm talking to the others. We win our first game by 50, I think. Then we lose our next three games by quite a lot.

November 23 -- I win my Spanish NaNo, Mil Voces. Hooray!

November 27 -- Over Thanksgiving break, I win my English NaNo, Memory. *celebrates*

November 29 -- Still over Thanksgiving break, I win my French NaNo, Le Mouton. I am very proud of this. It is probably terrible, but it is by far the longest thing I have ever written in French, and it proves I can actually come up with a decent story line in French. Well, kind of.

December-ish -- An Academic Meet. We lose, we win, and lose some more...we barely make the single elimination tournament and we lose. That's okay, because we made the DEs, when we didn't think we would. However, we get stuck waiting at On the Border and are late for the DEs, but that's okay because the other team was late, too.

September - December -- Nutcracker auditions, rehearsals, performances. I'm a soldier. It's okay. My last year of Nutcracker. Sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, sometimes impossible. I will miss doing homework on the steps of Par Terre by the lights on the arm rests at the ends of the rows during rehearsals...in that darkness lit by little bits of orange, just light enough to do my chemistry...

December -- School Scholastic Team Tests. This was to qualify for the team that could go to competitions in the spring. I took the Calculus test, the Chem 2 test, and the French 3/AP test. I got 1st in Calc, 1st in French, and didn't place in Chem. But that meant I'd made the team, so hooray!

January-ish -- Final Academic Meet. It was districts, a double elimination tournament. We win, and then we lose twice, but it's close all three times. The team improved a lot this year...no blowout losses at our last tournament. I can't wait for next year!

February 7 -- My first speech tournament. I perform "Why Lapin's Tail is Short" -- prose. I break to semifinals, getting first in my prelim room. Then I get a 3rd place, a 5th place, and a 6th place in my semifinal room and do not break.

February sometime -- American Mathematics Competition 12. I get a 94.5. I would have gotten a 100.5 had I gotten the other end of the interval right on that problem...I was so close!
American Mathematics Competitition 10. I get a 126 and qualify for AIME. I definitely could have gotten a 132. Oh well, AIME was what mattered.

February 28th -- My second speech tournament. Again, prose. The same piece. I get second in my prelim room, which is disappointing, but I still make semis. I get a 3rd place, a 4th place, and a 1st place in my semifinal room (what did judge-1st place see that judge-4th place didn't?). I make finals...but am thirty minutes late to them. Ick. When I get there I'm out of breath, terrified, and mad at myself. This is not a good environment in which to perform, and I have to do so immediately. I get 5th place overall, and the first four advanced to regionals. Grr. So close.

March 25th -- Local Chemistry Olympiad Exam. I come out estimating my score as a 42 out of 60. I don't think I'll ever know what I got, but I think I did better than that, because...(see April 14th)

March 26th -- The one and only Scholastic Team meet that I was able to attend. They didn't have either of the events I had qualified in, so I took Modern Mathematics (cumulative up through pre-calc, judging by the test) and Spelling. I came out thinking I'd done really well on Modern Mathematics. Even though everything could be done with pre-calc, calculus simplified some of it. There was a limit on there that was the formal definition of the derivative, so instead of doing the limit of blahblahblah I just took the derivative of the function. *grins* Also, I couldn't remember how to find the vertex of a parabola, so I took the derivative of the function, set it equal to zero, found the critical point, and knew that was the vertex. I found out later that I got 1st in Modern Mathematics. In spelling, I came out not sure of how I'd done...I'm good at spelling, but seeing incorrect spellings that are close to correct throws me off -- I won't be doing that test again next year. But I later found out that, despite this, I had gotten 3rd! Hmm.

April 1st -- I take AIME. It goes okay, not great. I think I was easily capable of getting a 5, I thought I got a 4, but it turns out I got a 3. *head/desk* I changed a right answer, because I thought I'd messed up a sign...who knows. But still, I'm pleased.

April 14th -- ...I found out that I qualified for National Chem Olympiad! I was in the cafeteria with my speech class, and I was practicing my Standard Oratory about Malapropism. Then I see my chemistry teacher walking toward me, her hands stretched out, grinning. I'm confused for a minute, and then I realize. And I think I dropped down to a squat? It was just amazing. I made it, and a boy whom I totally did not expect to make it did. We were two of the ten.
Plus, it was my birthday. That's a pretty awesome present if you ask me.

April 25th -- National Chem Olypmiad. I was nervous about the lab section, and that was the part that went the worst, though I should have done better than I did. MUCH better. Oh well. I didn't even think I would make it this year; I just wanted to practice the local exam so that I could make National next year. Hmm. But anyway, it went fine, except for the lab I was pleased, and I met cool people. The nine of us (only nine of ten showed up) all had lunch together -- pizza. The proctor also ate with us. We talked about school, AP tests, the exam we had just taken...and I made two friends, Jeff and Georgia.

April-ish -- I performed my Standard Oratory on Malapropism (in speech class; tournaments were long over). My teacher said that it was a very professional delivery and that I should perform it at tournaments next year, but that I don't need to walk so much! (I probably should have asked him about the walking...It was the one thing that had been bothering me ever since I started doing the piece).

April or May ish -- School awards ceremony. For every course offered in the school, one award is given out. I got the Pre-AP English 1, AP French, Pre-AP Spanish, and AP Calculus awards. I was especially happy about the Pre-AP English 1 and Pre-AP Spanish awards. English because that meant that the essay I had written earlier for this award (since multiple teachers have Pre-AP English 1, they had each teacher nominate one and then those kids wrote essays) had been good enough, even though I had summarized the literary work I used as an examble when I knew I needn't do that. And Spanish because I really didn't expect it -- I never go to the conversation times at a local coffee shop (I can't! I have fencing! It's always on Thursdays and that's epee night.), I'm not extremely talkative in class...I participate, I write good essays(and the longest ones in the class), and I do translate well when we read stories (though I dislike translation), but I didn't think I was the best...So I was happy. Plus, I got an award for having a 4.0 GPA or higher, and I got 4 scholastic team awards (one for getting 1st in the school in calculus, one for getting 1st in the school in French 3/AP, one for getting 1st at a meet in Modern Mathematics, and one for getting 3rd at a meet in Spelling).

May 4 -- AP French exam. Turns out there was an international problem with the listening CD...that didn't bother me. (Meaning that I didn't retake that part of the test later) Listening went well, reading went well, especially the articles because I'd read articles on those topics before. I liked the writing -- the grammar fill in the blank seemed easy and the essay topic wasn't too hard. Then there was the speaking. My first recording device failed, but my second one worked, thank goodness. Then the question off of the series of pictures went terribly...*shudders*. But I think I did well on the compare/contrast picture. I got some good vocab and good structures in on that one, and I didn't feel myself pausing and thinking on the spot nearly as much.

May 6 -- AP Calculus. Multiple choice went fine, Free response went fine...until problem 6, which I absolutely failed. And shouldn't have, because Taylor series aren't that hard. I hope my BC subscore doesn't suffer too much because of that problem...

May 11 -- Chem Olympiad Awards Ceremony at a local American Chem Society meeting. This wasn't that notable except that it was held at the science and math school, and I got to talk to one of the seniors there who has done research, and I got to hang out with Georgia and her mom and teacher again. Plus, it was the night before the AP Chem exam, which all of us thought ironic.

May 12 -- AP Chem test. Multiple choice went fine. Free response went fine, though I think on almost every frq I left a part blank. I might have messed up a couple of things, but I did fine with the torr and I did fine with the fractional rate law -- both of which lots of teachers are complaining about on the Electronic Discussion Group. So I think I did fine overall.

May 21 -- First day of finals. Chem final was easy enough, and I finished with a 100 point something in the class -- the highest grade in my hour, which was astonishing because I was sure that would be someone else. In English, the part of the test about Tale of Two Cities was easy, but then the literary devices part was based off of quotes -- half of which included similes. I was a bit annoyed -- does this one want simile, or should I be looking for something else? And is this imagery, or simile, because the simile is enhancing the imagery...
...Maybe I was thinking too hard. I don't know.
On the Calc test, I did okay, though I learned that study guides should be worked, not just reviewed, especially when you have nice teachers who will give you tests that are exactly like the study guide. It wasn't that I didn't use the study guide...I'd looked at it and said "I know how to do that, and that, and that..." I wasn't the only one, at least. But one of the few, which was annoying. Everyone else finished the test in 10 minutes and it took me 30 because I had to work the problems. That isn't happening again.

May 26 -- Second day of finals and last day of school. I went to school in a dress because my speech piece (With four other girls) was Pageant, about a beauty pageant. I was a weird awkward character. I didn't like this play very much, but I lived through it. Our performance mostly went smoothly, except near the beginning, but I think we pulled everything off all right. Then the written part of the test was extremely easy. Watched other people perform, watched Stardust...yeah. Easy final.
French was also incredibly easy, and the teacher gave extra credit for finding any typos she had made. I got a 104%.
Spanish...I was nervous about this one. The final was a conversation with the teacher for 4-6 minutes, and we weren't really sure how it was going to work. Plus, I'm shy. But it went really well. Everyone coming out (I was second to last) said that the time went by quickly and she just asked questions that you answered, and they were right. I got a 10/10 and finished with a 99.42 in the class. While someone else was talking the teacher, the rest of us played hangman in Spanish, bounced a balloon around, and talked.
There was one girl in the class who had an A sitting on the verge of becoming a B, and I helped her calculate what she would need on the final to keep her A. Based on her guess at her score on the final, she just barely lost the A. But after everyone was finished and the teacher came back in to put stuff in the grade book, she noticed that this girl's extra credit hadn't been put in! Then the teacher started calling everyone up to see their semester grade. When she called this girl's name, the girl said, "Yes?" so quietly, and the teacher said, "Do you want me to read it?" The girl nodded, and the teacher did, and it was just barely an A. I think it's been a while since I was that happy for someone else.

So those were the highlights of my freshman year...I left out some things, like moving up in fencing, and not being able to go on my church's spring break mission trip, but I think I got most things.
And I leave for France in 6 hours!