Monday
We got back from Daddy’s house at around noon today, so I only had about an hour to eat lunch and catch up with everyone before I had to leg it to my swimming lesson! I forgot my goggles this week and my really annoying swimming teacher had to make a big thing out of it and constantly remind everyone that the only reason why we were doing backstroke was because Lavinia had forgotten her goggles and couldn’t get any chlorinated water into her precious eyes, even though it was the swimming teacher, not me, who volunteered to do backstroke. Ugh. She is very irritating.
When I got home, I had a maths lesson with Damian pretty much straight away. We did problems from the Senior Maths Challenge, so just some random bits of knowledge, not any particular topic. It consists of 25 questions which get harder as you go along; Damian said that he thought it was at around Q. 20 that things started getting really complicated. I could do approximately the first fifteen questions by myself. Then, for maybe Questions 15-22 I needed to watch a little of Damian’s explanation to get started, and then could usually finish it off by myself. But after about Q. 22, it was all completely lost on me, regardless of how thorough and well-put Damian’s explanations were!
Tuesday
This morning, my mum and I had a conversation in which we decided to “drop” maths for a few weeks at least. I’m not planning on taking the GCSE particularly soon (probably 2022, if not 2023), but I am taking both Latin and Physics in November this year, so we’ve decided to just focus on those two subjects for now.
So this morning, I just did a lot of physics and then violin and piano. In physics, I did the end-of-topic questions on the Waves unit, and then finally, finally moved onto the next topic, Energy Resources and Transfer. From what I’ve seen of the later parts of the chapter, it’s going to be about fossil fuels and how we’re killing our planet and the rest of it, but so far it’s been quite interesting, about all the different types of energy. There does seem to be a lot of memorising to be done in this topic, but I think that’s one thing that I’m okay at – more than the problem-solving, knowledge-applying questions, surprisingly.
Wednesday
This morning, I did some more work on the Energy unit in physics, and did some Latin too. We’re now on the past perfect participle tense or something like that 🥴
In the afternoon, I started reading Beowulf, and wrote a summary/short analysis on it, which I’ve posted on this blog. I’m about halfway through now. It’s really good, very expertly written especially for its time, and reading the funny little exchanges between characters (who’re often competing to be the most ‘macho’) can be very interesting.
Thursday
I finished Beowulf today – or as much as my mum told me was interesting; I skipped some of the bits where he goes on for pages about what was in the three hundred treasure chests, etc. I also finished my analysis of it. One more awesome ancient text ticked off my list!
Friday
Nanny came round today. I haven’t seen her in ages so it was really nice to see her again. While Tilly and I were at Daddy’s, our mum repainted my room, converted Tilly’s into a study, put bunk beds and shelves and all sorts in mine, and now Tilly and I are sharing and it’s all lilac and grey and pretty and perfect! We showed Nanny the rooms this afternoon, and then went downstairs and she talked about tennis and shops that are closing down while I finished my pop art collection of Amy Winehouse. I’ve been doing these Andy-Warhol-style pop art drawings of people (I’m working on one of Amy Winehouse and one of Elvis Costello at the moment!).
Weekend
I finished my pop art thingy of Winehouse on Saturday morning. Then I was surprised with a new laptop! Mine has been playing up a bit recently but I didn’t expect to get a shiny new one so soon.
Because the football was on tonight and Andy was watching that for much of the evening, my mum and I started a film called The Blind Side. It’s the true story of Michael Oher, a homeless boy who was adopted by a family who helped him unlock his potential when it came to both schoolwork and football.
On Sunday afternoon, I caught up with some of the work I’d missed on Friday when Nanny came round by doing lots of reading (both Atlas Shrugged and The Book Thief, which I recently started rereading!), doing a Massolit course on the Ancient Greek hero cult, and doing both my instruments.