Children! Beware the baobabs!

This is a mean, mean week. And today it got even meaner. All week long I've been going back and forth between feeling genuinely swamped in self-pity and being purposely over-dramatic about it so as to make fun of myself. But this has simply resulted in my being confused, moody, and generally unimpressed with the occurrences of the week. The other day I found myself sitting between piles of math books, notebooks, calculators and tabs of my online homework, holding a bag of potato chips and telling my mother: "I'm going to hide in a hole this week. That hole - that goes through to the rafters. I'll stay there until Friday morning and not come out before. And I will only take this bag of potato chips with me. That's all."

Today was our second math test and I feel like I just may have flunked that one, too. Correction: I didn't flunk the other test, but nearly. Besides, today I came to the stunning realization that my standards have been seriously compromised this semester. I actually found myself telling Caleb as we walked into class, "A B would be really nice." Months ago, I was sent into depression at the idea of a B. sigh. I think what's really gotten me about this test is that I studied. HARD. I was so ignorant about math for the first test that I couldn't really feel stressed about it. This one, though - man. I've been working so hard to get it, and the second the paper was handed to me today, it all went out of my head. Perseverance is supposed to pay off! That's what they tell us, anyway. But I guess, as with most rules, there are always those darned exceptions.

Yesterday in speech we had our debate lecture - the next three weeks will be dedicated to debate, and our resolution is that the US should ban all oil drilling. Our class picked the negative side, which is good. The bad news is that my job is to research BP and other oil companies, which is not terribly exciting. Anyway - I was sitting in class yesterday as we had a mock debate and all the memories from debate camp came back, and suddenly I was my scared little 12 year old self again. It's strange how nervous I get about that. I obviously don't mind performing in front of people, but debate is just... agh. There's no script there. Anyway, so that was speech (terrifying), and from there we picked up Amelia and went home. Caleb came over and the three of us studied until 4 or 5, and after they went home I studied again until 9 or 10. I also had to take a psychology test online. (Thankfully that went well... an A, and I didn't even read the whole chapter. That's irony for you.)

Then there was today. Gag. Math test (fail), art appreciation (zzzzz), and then I couldn't get a hold of Dad when I got out of class... I called him like 15 times and he didn't answer, so I (being my mother's daughter) assumed that he was lying dead somewhere, and sat on the grass by the LRC after a half hour search. Turns out he'd left his phone in the car. I finally found him on my second round of the campus at 2:30. After that I drove us home, and didn't get us killed, which was nice.

Finally, there's tomorrow. I can't actually describe how nervous I am about tomorrow. I'm taking my license test at 11:40. I know people say it's no big deal if you don't pass the first time, but I actually do HAVE to. My permit expires that week, so it's either now or I wait until I'm 18 to try again. It's only 6 months but that's 6 months of my dad driving me to school every day on the time he can't afford to lose. So if you happen to read this before September 30th at 11:40, would you mind praying for me?

A drivers license would pretty much make this whole week worth it. I'm tired of feeling beat up by weekdays.