Is it the end of the year already?

Despite a great deal of confusion, reorganization, misinterpretation, and stressful situations, my junior year actually turned out to be pretty good. Since seventh grade, something has been forcing me to take whatever classes are the highest for each year. I never knew exactly why, but I've always somehow managed to get myself into Honors This or Accelerated That. In hindsight that was a good thing, as many of the classes do get more interesting in high school, and of course they are the ones all your friends take anyways. But this year was different. I was so proud of myself to be finally breaking free of the must-be-the-best-at-everything mentality. I seized the opportunity to pass up such outrageous course selections as AP U.S. History and AP Chemistry. And man, was it worth it. With that little bit of extra space, I was able to focus more my music, and relax a little at the end of the day (Don't get me wrong, I still had a couple classes here and there that required plenty of extra brain power). For my senior year, I am even going to pass over the science credit all together. Though I am very interested in Physics and would've loved to take AP, the calculus requirement and high difficulty level of the class put together would be too much for somebody who will be practicing for waaaaay to many college auditions next year. But I'm looking forward to AP European and AP English next year, and there's no doubt that I will have plenty of space in my schedule for band and orchestra.