Monday
After a crushing defeat in the football tournament last night which has frankly ruined my mood for the next week even though yesterday’s twenty minutes was the only time I have ever watched football in my life, *inhales deeply* we made a delicious berry smoothie bowl in our new blender for breakfast today. It was really quick and easy to make; it just had some frozen mixed berries, protein powder, soya milk and some weird fibre powder thing that my mum had in her cupboard!
In the afternoon, I had a swimming lesson with my friends and got lectured at by our swimming instructor about how we should be wearing masks and getting tested every time we come. Maths and physics lessons with Damian, Niall and Dave are off now until September, so instead of a maths lesson I did my instruments then and started a documentary with Tilly. The documentary is an overview of ancient history starting from the Big Bang – it’s really well done and very helpful as a quick summary of all the major events in history.
Tuesday
Today I finally got to see some people!! Excluding swimming lessons, it’s been a really long time since I’ve met up with my friends, mostly due to all these restrictions and covid-y things. I met my friend Lillian in the park this afternoon, and we all chatted and wandered around while eating oat cookies we’d made in our new blender!
Wednesday
As I’ve done quite a lot this week, I spent the entirety of the morning reading Atlas Shrugged and (re)reading The Book Thief. Atlas Shrugged is an excellent but veryryyryry long novel about a dystopian America where collectivist laws and restrictions are limiting industrial progression, which was previously thriving under more capitalist laws. The Book Thief is a beautifully written book aimed at slightly younger children about a little girl whose German foster family risk their lives to hide a Jew during World War II. Both very different but absolutely remarkable works of literature.
In the afternoon, I spent a lot of time on Herodotus’ Histories – I’m now all set to start on Book 6 tomorrow! I started watching a Massolit course on the more important chapters of the Histories, which I’ll finish tomorrow as well.
Thursday
Surprise surprise, I spent most of this morning reading Atlas Shrugged. The rest of it I spent doing Herodotus, reading through Book 6, and adding some quick notes to my Book-by-Book Summary (which you can find on this blog – it keeps updating every time I add a new book to it!). My aim is to completely finish the Histories by the end of August, if not before.
In the evening, I made a delicious mug cake and watched some X-Files with Andy. My new “go-to recipe” for my mug cake is a keto one (which is a bit less keto when you sprinkle it with squares of chocolate, but that’s optional).
Friday
This morning, my mum showed me some potential university options that she’s been looking at for me recently. Ever since I discovered it when I was 12, I’ve always wanted to go to St John’s College in Annapolis, but looking at these other colleges has maybe made me change my mind!
I now have my eye on Hillsdale College in Michigan. It’s a liberal arts college like St John’s, but you still get to major there (you didn’t at St John’s). In the US, your major is the one subject that you study the most at uni, but you still have to study all the other subjects at liberal arts colleges like Hillsdale, just in less detail. That means that I can learn all about quantum physics and American politics while still spending most of my time reading Shakespeare and Keats!
Inspired by everything that we’d been reading about as regards all these American universities, my mum set me an essay to write: What is the Purpose of Education? I’ve done my essay plan and written the introduction and a couple of other bits and bobs, but I have so much to say and I think it’ll take me quite a while! Keep checking this blog and it’ll appear soon 😉
In the afternoon, we did a load of work on Book 6 of Herodotus, which was all about the Battle of Marathon and the events leading up to it. I’m ready to start on Book 7 tomorrow. I’m getting through it quite quickly now and my analysis/summary is going really well too (touch wood)!
Weekend
I spent the vast majority of this weekend doing lots and lots of art! My last couple of portraits I did haven’t been as successful as I would have liked, so I reverted back to basics this weekend and did a lot of mini sketchbook drawings of eyes, mouths, etc. On Saturday, Nanny came round and we started watching Red Dragon, the prequel to Silence of the Lambs which I’ve seen before. We also made another batch of oat and raisin cookies in my mum’s miracle blender, which were gone by Sunday morning!
