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01/12/2007
Well here goes another one ...
And that curious entity known as the Ruth becomes 17. Having steadily reviewed her progress over the past year we are now in a position to make some rather curious observations about this strange species (althought further examination is necesssary to back any statements made)
January 12 2006 was a very long day for our test subject. It is ironic to think that whilst she spent this particular 24 hours making a, somewhat morbid, concious descision not to move out of home, she has now done exactly that. Granted, this process has been somewhat smoother and more acceptable than has been previously anticipated; but the fact still remains that our subject (hence forward referred to as "R") now lives 6/7 days at school with the final day being occupied mostly by a combination of friends and church.
This latest change had been preceeded by a somewhat less noticable alteration (though no less critical to thwe development of R) in her progression to the status commonly referred to as "A Level Student". Unfortunately for our test subject, whilst this has given her much greater oportunity to carry out sucessful social interaction (see Para 5), it has not given her any greater stimulation or occupation. Her lack of patience has now led to an interesting combination of "tweaks" to her educational system.
She now
- Teaches herself Applied Mathematics alongside sporadic dips into Game Theory
- Teaches other people Chemistry (with a view to being given something in the following months*)
- Listens in Core Mathematics and gives the teacher some light relief o dry "English" wit
- Sleeps in Biology - there has been some rumour of work in this dept. as well but no concrete evidense as yet
- Makes plans to become bilingual French
- Works in Music - as ever this is the one subject R feels the need to actually work is, and welcomes the break
- Discusses Philosophy, politics, religion... with anyone and everyone willing to spend time with her
- STILL has no prep*
*R's best birthday present was the first piece of chemistry prep which challenged her and made her think = dative and covalent bonding :D
On a music level R has found the year somewhat difficult, a period of severe depression just before her Music GCSE performance/composition had some negative consequences and she came away with an A. This has however, strenghtened her resolve to work and achieve in the following 2 years. In general many things have come and gone and R has made the unfortunate discovery that music is intrinsically linked to her state of mind. The uphill battle to overcome this slight obstacle still continues peaking with the Prospective Organists Course (Oundle Run) and taking a painful dip with a Merit for G5 Organ and Pass (117) for G8 Piano - the latter of which R will retake in the next few years.
Finally in the general analysis comes the development of social (and therefore religious) aspects (God is a very socialble entity). The progression to the Leys put our subject in a much better position to increase her number of sucessful social interations and the addition of various entertaining characters has given her many opotunities to engage in mental warfare of a bloodthirsty kind. The welcome addition of a boyfriend (James/Twig) has made an astounding change in her demenour and we are pleased with the result - we hope to see conintued strong positive correllation in this trend.
The much anticipated Kestrels cruise was a success as ever. (NB, we have considered giving our subject a portable storm maker, but decided this is too far from her perception of "normal". Instead we have sped up Global Warming and doubled the average wind strength - this has lead to incredible readings on both the "exhileration" and "calm" scales.) Whilst in the summer the Soul Survivor trip gave our subject a great chance to sort things our with both people and God, reducing many of the pressures that had piled up prior to the summer.
In general this year has been very mixed with a substantial quantity of events piling high on either side of the "good/bad attitude index" (GBAI). Still battling with the many voices directing her life and their somewhat substantial power over her actions, R has found a number of times very hard and painful and she has to keep radjusting her definition of the phrase "eternally grateful" to fit the new feelings. R has made considerable progress over the last year - although she rarely admits it - and is slowly but surely building up her list of strategies and (safe) coping mechanisms. We hope to see continued progress over the next few years and will keep you posted. We no longer have the fear we had for our test subject previously.
Other notable mentions include: A year of sucessful holidays, a suitable set of GCSE results, loosing her phone more times than she can count, a rapidly developing knowledge of Cambridges cafes and restaurants, better ways to cope with insomnia that do not invlove throwing up after caffeine poisoning (these do not include *sleep* yet, but we are working on it, one very orange ball dress, one sacked DT teacher ( :D ) and of course...
One more year of often unwanted, sometimes painful, occasionally destructive, but always benefial experiance.
The management would like to thank all concerned with the running and control of this project, we feel we have made good progress in our investigations and are well on the way to reaching some profound and enlightening conclusions within the next 200 years. We would like to congratulate all of you on a highly sucessful year - although we do hope there will be area where we can cut the "bad factor" as this may have been a little strong for a large proportion of the time.
Wishing you a Happy New Year
The Management
Human Research Sector, Developing Life, Test Case 1201199017
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