So I am back at home. This is definitely interesting. My grandpa installed a new system on our Mac--Mac OS X, so I have to find my way around a whole new system... Plus I can't get to some of my stuff yet because Grandpa can't get access to the old system. :( Weird.

My cat gained a lot of weight; that was suprising! My dog's fur all grew back. We shaved her in the summer 'cause she sheds like none other and it was driving us all Nuts. (LOL... Punny! My dog's name is Walnut. :D ) Now we're back to the shedding and the (white, I might add) dog hair all over the place. Especially on black clothes. :P

I haven't seen my sister yet. We got home at 11:30 last night and she goes to bed at, like, 8:30. I'm not kidding you. She is 18--whoops, not yet--17 years old and goes to bed at 8:30! What a weirdo. LOL.

Anyway, then they had school today so I didn't see her when I got up, either.

My mom got home at 1:00 last night (uh, this morning) because of something at work, so she wasn't home when I got there, but she came up to my room when she got back and so I got to see her.

I woke up this morning at 9:00 and took a shower and then went and visited my grandparents next door. They were happy to see me. :) Grandpa actually forgot I was coming home yesterday, LOL! I forgive him for it. :D

Since my mom has today off, hopefully we will do some Christmas shopping! But first I want to go see my French teacher at the high school. I love her!! She's the greatest. She'll be happy to see I got a 92.5% on my French final. YAY!

Oh, yeah, about that. Yesterday after my impromptu speech final, I went up to my French teacher's office and to wish him a merry Christmas. He had actually just finished grading our finals, and had them by him at his desk. So he gave mine back to me--that's how I know what I got. He also said, "I have been very impressed with you this semester." Aww!!! Yay!! What a good thing to hear!

On my essay for the final he gave me "advanced criticism." It was awful 'cause I saw all the little tiny mistakes I made--like, I said, "I was boring" instead of "I was bored"--how humiliating!!!--but then underneath he said, more or less, "I gave you advanced criticism because you're that good." LOL... Sorry I couldn't say that more humbly. :/ I couldn't think how to say it. Oh well; anyway, so I felt really good after reading that. It was especially nice after my stupid impromptu speech. :P

Ugh, that speech. When I got the card, there were five choices, and I narrowed it down to two that I might want to talk on, but then I couldn't decide between the two for a long time and so had, like, 10 seconds to "prep" what I would say on the quote: "Love of learning is the gate of knowledge." Ugh. After about 20 seconds of talking (we had to go a minute and a half at least), I went completely blank. I couldn't think of anything. I sat there staring at my card, trying to figure out what to say while the whole class--and the prof--were staring at me, waiting for me to continue. Finally, I grasped at a straw (is that the right phrase?) and rambled something about how in church sometimes you hear a thing a million times but you never really learn what it means until you actually experience it. It was a lousy speech (in my opinion), and I hate that class, and I'm SO glad I'm done with it!

Okay, so I don't hate the class. But I hate that I got a B in it. :( I'm usually so good at school, and this dumb speech class ruined my potential 4.0 for the first semester! :'(

Gosh, that sounded bad! I'm really sorry, guys... I do usually get A's and A-'s, and when I do badly in something I feel like I could've done a much better job in, it's really upsetting. :(

Okay, enough of that... What else to write? I also wished my aunt a merry Christmas before I left. Since she got married to Lester and had AleAnn, she doesn't usually come to Christmas anymore.

Okay... I think I have said mostly everything relevant. I'm going to go try to figure out the computer some more. :)

Later!

-Stephanie