By the way, guys, BY THE WAY, I am a finalist in The Hobbit Design Contest! This means that I advanced to the last level of judging, and do you know what this means? JOHN HOWE and ALAN LEE and RICHARD TAYLOR looked at my artwork!!!

(These three are the seriously talented artistic masterminds behind the Lord of the Rings movies. Howe and Lee are concept artists, Taylor heads Weta Workshop. I've been huge fans of their work ever since I was a young girl home sick, watching the extra features on the LotR DVDs. You can't imagine how much I'm bouncing off of walls).

I've no way of knowing if I "passed" or not-- they aren't announcing the winners yet-- so I'm not getting my hopes up, but the simple fact that I'm a finalist is HUGELY awesomesauce.

From the Dragon's Hoard by Shaylynn Rackers. Blog post about it here.

I want to strangle the person who told me that the senior year of high school is not as bad as junior year. Maybe this goes for people who attend regular schools, but the homeschool curricula I am using just upped the ante. I'm swamped. (Tell me you read that in Prince Humperdink's voice!).

Plus, I have finals in my chemistry class soon. Sitting in a classroom again, even if it is for college lectures, is weird. It takes so much time ohmygoodness.

I'm starting to like math again. Don't tell my mother. I'm doing not-really-calculus this year (half of it is far more advanced college algebra and trig, the other half is typical calculus).

In other news, I actually did well on my standardized tests and qualify for a good state scholarship. My choice just gets harder and harder. Do I go to an awesome, albiet expensive, liberal arts Catholic school? Or a good state school where I'll incur practically no debt?

School again-- do you know how hard it is to write scholarship application essays without sounding pretentious? "This is why I'm awesome and a good student and this is why you should give me money/let me be a part of such-and-such program, and by the way my ego isn't as big as it sounds from this essay."


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I was sick last night so I doodled a tree. And I found an old paper plate with leftover watercolors, so I wet the paint and colored in the tree.




Autumn is such a lovely season... but once November came in full swing, it brought along brown trees and headcolds. Here's some snapshots of the lovely fall colors! We've also had some spectacular sunsets, but I have always been heading to or from class and never got the chance to photograph them properly.





(ooooh, look, I discovered double exposure!)



My family is rather large compared to your typical American family. We have six kids, and no one from my class can seem to wrap their mind around that. They stare in shock and ask me if I like it!

For the record: my siblings are the most obnoxious little monsters in the world, and I love them to death. I think my family is one of the strangest ones I know of-- we are all geeks, and love to hang out, and tease each other quite rudely but it's all playful (my dad is particularly good at teasing...)-- and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Sure, being part of a large family can be stressful and my lifestyle is a lot different from small families... but I just don't get why people always respond with shock! It's like, gasp! Six kids! I wonder what they'd think about some of my best friends' families, with an average of eight or nine kids... heehee

I also wonder what they'd think if I told them that we are having some fifty family members over to our house for New Year's, and that we get together at least twice a year, and that normally it's at Grandma's house, where sleeping bags underneath the dining room table is prime real estate because no one can trip over you!



I've fallen in love with tea. It is so delicious and makes me feel so British-- "Oh, I'm going to just go get myself a cuppa tea to survive through my literature readings." "Got to go fetch some tea to cheer me up and soothe my sore throat..."

I don't usually add any sugar or cream, so I can drink three cups a day and not feel guilty at all!

By the way, my newest favorite tea is Spiced Chai rooibos brewed in apple juice. Yes, brewed in juice! It's brilliant! I've also been told to try making ginger tea in bubbly water with a dash of lime...