Wordy Wednesday

Hello, everyone!
    So, lots of stuff has been happening lately.... definitely keeping me busy! I apologize for not having posted for a few days.
    First of all -- most of you probably know this from my mom's Facebook posts, but we're trying to adopt! We don't know how many yet, or what age, or even really gender... but it's exciting! We've had our first home study, where the caseworker assigned to us came over and basically checked to make sure that our house is safe for any kids we adopt. My brother is pretty excited about the possibility of getting a little brother that he can play with. I think it would be cool to adopt a girl, since I've never had a little sister, and honestly I think I could relate to a girl more easily. I think Aly doesn't have as strong of a preference as James and I do, as she will be going to college soon, but she seems to be leaning slightly towards adopting a girl. My parents don't have a preference either, at least not that I know of. However, I do know that my mom would love to adopt a younger child -- just yesterday, she was talking about a sibling set with a 1-year-old, 2-year-old, 3-year-old, and 4-year-old! The 1 and 3 are boys (because all boys are odd, haha!) and the 2 and 4 are girls. We've also looked at another sibling set: twin 6-year-olds, one boy and one girl; a 10- or 12-year-old boy, I can't remember which; and a 15-year-old girl, who goes by the nickname of Maddy, wants to be teacher, loves school, and reads/writes! ...she sounds like the twin I never knew I had.
    My mom's birthday was this past Friday! (Happy belated birthday, Mama!) I've also got a birthday coming up -- tomorrow, actually! It's kind of hard to believe that I'm going to be 16. I'm not sure if I'm ready... I've really enjoyed being 15! But then again, Sweet Sixteen!! Woo-hoo! And this summer, I think I'm going to take a Driver's Ed. course, so that I can get my license.... I'm pretty excited about that, too! FREEDOM! Haha. And presents, too... who doesn't like presents? And who doesn't love a good party? My grandparents are also coming over this weekend for a 'birthday dinner', which will be a ton o' fun! I've got one of the best, most amazing/crazy families in the universe.
    AP exams at school are coming up -- as are EOCs, EOCTs, Milestones, SPGs, etc. I'm ready for the last four (bring it on!) but I'm not so sure about the AP exams. I really want to do well on those, because not only will it bring up my grades, but it will also reflect well on my teachers and allow me to earn college credits as well. I'm fairly confident I can get at least a 3, which is passing, on both my AP World History and AP Biology tests, but I'm really wanting and aiming for 4's and 5's, aka "exceeds" and "superior". Let's face it: the odds of me getting a 5 on both tests is pretty low. But there's always the possibility! And seeing as how I've managed a 4 on my last two Mock AP Bio tests, I think I can probably get a 4 on the real thing. My parents have gotten me some workbooks and flashcards designed specifically for the AP courses, too, and they're super helpful.
    Does anyone here use Pinterest? I do, and I'm finding myself super addicted to it. As in, every spare moment is spent on Pinterest. I've got more boards than I know what to do with, almost 900 followers, over a million likes and two million pins.... yeah. It's getting a little out of hand. But I can't bring myself to stop, since it's so... *ahem* Pinteresting! I love it. I could, would, and quite possibly already do spend hours online every single day. The thing about this site that really appeals to me is that there is, quite literally, a pin for EVERYTHING. You can follow any board or person, like/follow certain topics that you're interested in, upload any pictures or sites of your own..... it's really quite amazing, actually. Hours are wasted, never to be regained.... is it worth it? I'm not sure yet. I'm trying to spend less time on there, though.... I've got poems to write, pictures to draw, and books to read!
    School's awesome, as usual. I've got all A's again -- yay me -- as opposed to those two B's I had as of last week! (...both of which were in my AP classes....) Here's hoping that the A's are here to stay~! Biology is really interesting right now -- we've just finished learning about neurons and now we're learning about the immune system. When we were talking about neurons, I actually managed to think of a question my teacher couldn't answer: I asked what causes some people (like me) to have high or low pain tolerances. Did their neurons have higher thresholds, and therefore send fewer action potentials? Or did the action potentials have lower frequencies? Or did the brain simply receive these potentials differently? ....neither my teacher nor the assistant teacher could answer, which was funny. I've never managed to render a teacher speechless before! In World History, we've officially stopped learning new things and will be reviewing until the end of the year. We play Kahoot a lot (it's an online review game), and I usually manage to end up on the leaderboard! In French, we've begun talking about prepositions, which is really interesting actually. It's all so different from English, which is to be expected, I suppose, but it's also very beautiful. French is an amazing language. One day, I want to move to Canada -- where people speak French, and where the weather is usually cool, which I like! Math: we're currently in the middle of our logarithmic functions unit. It's kind of fun! And in Language Arts, I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451. It was a pretty good book (but I'd read it three times before, so....). Different groups in the class will be teaching everyone else about different parts of the book. My group is going on Tuesday next week, and we're discussing the symbols and motifs! We've decided we're going to teach through a PowerPoint/lecture and then have our "students" debate over different topics afterwards. My teacher -- she's awesome -- says that usually when she does this with her classes, she gets other teachers to come and watch/listen/act like students! And apparently, they like to talk in class, play on their phones, etc. So I've talked with my team members and we decided that we'll be taking everyone's phones as they walk into the class, and send anyone who talks out into the hall, where we will then have to talk to them. We're supposed to act like we are actual teachers, which I think is really cool since I want to be one! My friends keep joking that I'm going to be a natural with this, since I love to learn and teach others. In my Journalism/Yearbook class, we've finished the actual yearbook -- actually, it was finished about a month ago. Now, we're busy completing various "journalism brush-up tasks" and coming up with different marketing strategies, so that we can get more of our books sold. We only have 125 of them left, as of this morning, which is awesome... and apparently we're selling more every day!!
    And now that I've finished this relatively-long update full of my ramblings about various topics, I shall leave you all with a poem and a picture. I hope you enjoy both of them, in addition to the actual post!

~Mattie <3

How do pencils
Leave such perfect marks on paper?
Curves. Sharp edges. Shading.
To draw,
You need nothing except
A pencil and paper, and a bit of imagination.
Start here, add some detail there, color it in, create a new person or place or thing.
It forms from your thoughts.
Flows down your arm,
Into your hand,
Your fingertips,
Out, down the pencil,
Guiding it across the paper.
And all of a sudden, you see it --
The picture you'd imagined, seen in your mind,
It is suddenly there in front of you,
Tangible, changeable, shareable.
Now it is there
For the entire world to see, if you choose to show it.
And then you reach down, and flip the page in your notebook --
And you see a fresh, clean, new page appear.
Perfectly smooth and white.
It seems almost a shame, a waste, to put any marking on it.
But as soon as you've gotten a new idea,
You have no other choice.
You place the tip of your pencil back down, move it across the paper,
Watch as the graphite trails behind.
And you cannot help but smile
As your new creation slowly
Begins to come to life.

Ruby Rose - from the show RWBY