For the first time in a long time I get to sit in front of the computer long enough to report my doings to a blog entry.

Monday was madness. In any given school day of the year, I'm normally supposed to have two free periods: one being fifth period for lunch and then the second being seventh period for doing whatever else it is that I need to do...like...eat more. But for the last three months or so I've been taking driver's ed, which I've been attending during school hours during my lunch period. Bam, half of my free time gone. Every driver's ed student is also required to spend a number of hours taking driving lessons. They can be taken during the free period. So that's it, all my free time's eliminated. Under these conditions I had no time to do the homework which I always leave over from the night before. It got hard. I got worn down. I trudged through the nine-period day without a break.

Monday was a prime example of my misery. No free periods, plenty of work. Then after school I needed to stay for tennis practice. That took until 5:30, when I tiredly left the courts. It took 40 minutes to get home. And guess what, I had an orchestra concert at 6:45. So I got dressed and somehow put food in my stomach in ten minutes and sped right back off to school. Of course in all this I had to be away from my TV for the return episode of Heroes, which was a huge bummer. Using my ultra-cool Archos device, however, I recorded the episode while I was gone. But I arrived back at school about 15 minutes late. No one cared, so I was alright. Then my performance itself actually went well. Finally, finally I was able to leave school at 8:30. So, once again exhausted and this time in formal wear, I rode home to watch my redording of the awesome Heroes episode 19. But at 10:00 I still found myself faced with a giant speech due the next day. I had to give a specifically-structured speech on Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, memorized introduction and conclusion. It had to be five minutes long. I had to be informative. I'm a big fan of Tesla, but I wasn't ready to relate his life story to anyone. I was ready to fall over, to make up for lost sleep from the night before from doing homework. Until 2:30 AM I worked rather futilely on my massive project.

The next morning, Tuesday (yesterday), I slept in the car ride to school. American lit greeted me as my first class of the day as it always does, through which I sat with much loathing. My speech was still unfinished. I planned to do it during my rarely-occuring seventh free period which I had managed to clear from driving on that day. But before that time came, I had to take the driver's ed final exam on the very last day of that class, in which I had been pulling a 77% average. I hadn't been able to study; and even though we always had boatloads of fun in that class, I could NOT afford to fail and be required to do it AGAIN. I took the test and thankfully passed with an 82. Then when seventh free came, I worked all the way through it, struggling to inscribe Tesla's life onto three 3-by-5 notecards. Then it happened. I gave the speech. If your mind's eye suddenly sees a boy standing in front of the classroom, all eyes on him, nervously struggling through his words about a guy from a century ago, that's me. I struggled, but survived. And, uh... the important thing is that it's DONE. I won't have to worry about it anymore. Woo hoo.

But the fun wasn't over. Oh no. Geometry test. Big one. Even though I had three or so questions unanswered by the time the bell rang, I cashed in my chips at last and decided just to head straight off to tennis practice.

Today I found myself at peace at last. Having completed driver's ed, I finally got my lunch period back. It was weird. I didn't know what to do with myself. Having free periods again just feels so strange, but there were days earlier in the year when that hadjust been so. Yeah, it's sad. I still had to go to my last driving lesson today during seventh free, so that lessened the shock. It rained today, so instead of doing tennis for a couple hours I just went straight home on the bus and train. I had so much free time at home. Really awkard. I'm just going to have to get used to it again. Tomorrow's the big day -- when I have both fifth and seventh free back. I don't know if I'm ready for that much freedom.