"Clean your room if you're bored," Mom said.
Summer vacations with no neighbors your age and a tiny local library are a recipe for boredom. Never in my wildest dreams could nine-year-old-me imagine someone actually longing for hours with nothing to do and days that pass by in a dull monotony that is broken only by thrilling rides on the tree-swing and good books read on the hammock.
Now I really miss those days. For several months, I lived on caffinated tea and mechanical pencils. Now I have a glorious "nothing" going on all summer-- but I'm just as busy as before. Creativity is a heavy burden sometimes!
Two weeks ago, my family rented a cabin the the mountains of Colorado and had a GREAT vacation. I'll write about that later and share some of the senic photos (which I, of course, have not yet edited.) By the way, this is the reason for my long blog absence! Thanks to all the lovely people who guest posted! I hope you enjoyed their posts!
Then there was math. It's very tempting to share the long version, but the long version will easily morph out of reality and turn into a nightmarish dragon that snorts great gobs of rants between spurts of fire. I think you'd prefer the short version. It's a much friendlier specimen, with scales the color of a summer sun seen from indoors, and it only spurts rants a little bit.
I come from a family of engineers and scientists. My parents met in engineering school and well over 90% of relatives on both sides do something related to the left side of the brain. I'm the mutant who thinks with both sides of the brain-- I can do math, and I relish big science concepts, but the idea of doing that sort of thing for the rest of my life makes me want to shudder. Well, not the big science concepts. Those are cool. So are things like number theory and conic sections and trignometry and probability (at least sometimes!). The awful things are algebra, algebra, and more algebra. Alebgra does not like right-brained mutants.
This summer we had this brilliant plan of having me take a summer math class at a "nearby" community college (hour long round trip) so that I would have one less subject senior year. But the class that I tested into was crazy-- 6 credit hours in 8 weeks. That's nearly a full load, and I'd have to spend three hours each day of my summer sitting in a classroom listening to lectures on precalculus mathematics that I'd already done (the first part of the class was going to be review) and then just as much time each evening on homework. It doesn't help that if algebra is involved, my pace is quite slow. It's so gosh darn hard to keep the big picture in mind when you're caught up in number acrobatics.
After the first week, I knew that I would have to stop everything-- big art projects, summer get-togethers, regular posting on my blog, even taekwando-- in order to fit in this class, the rest of my Junior year, and Ink and Fairydust. My parents were surprisingly (to me, at least) supportive and even encouraging of my decision to drop the class. I did feel like a complete failure for a few days, though. Math has always been a sore subject for me, and I've always felt a little guilty that I don't enjoy it. I can do it, I can pull A's, but it's not something to look forward to.
It's definitely a struggle for me to have to choose what to spend my time on. God has blessed me with many talents and perhaps too much brain for my own good. There is so much that I want to do. So much that I could do, if only I had the time and energy to learn it all. What you see on my blog is only a minuscule portion of my interests.
This summer I am going to really focus on my art. I'll try to make two or three large pieces that would be worthy of a portfolio. (I have to apply to colleges in the fall!) I also want to hang out with friends, learn some new unicycle tricks, get in shape, have a good time with my family... That and finish Junior year and do the math book Dad gave me so that I can get speedier at algebra. Because apparently that's a really big deal, even for someone wanting to go into graphic design.
This is likely the last real summer vacation of my life and I can't believe how many projects I have planned for it! I also can't believe that it's half gone before I've begun. I had had an idea for teaching an art class for local kids, and I really, really hope it's not too late to get the ball rolling. Heehee, I need gas money, and I really do love teaching. And art. And NO, I have no plans of being a school art teacher, I want to do graphic design or animation.
In case you can't tell, I'm overwhelmed and a little unsure about things and I just put you through a rant. Here's something that's not about school or how busy I am. An oil painting!
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