Q: How do you spell "busy?"
A: "V-E-T-E-R-A-N-S-W-E-E-K"

Veterans Day (November 11) is a huge deal in Branson. Branson is a very patriotic town, and it's something of a Mecca for veterans, especially during Veterans Week (11/5-11/11). There are special events throughout the week to honor the vets, culminating in a parade beginning at 11:11 AM on 11/11/06.

AIM is heavily involved in Veterans Week, both through presentations and service opportunities. We have a total of nine outreaches this week. For the rest of this week, I will be doing AIM stuff during these times:
WED - 10:45 AM - 1:30 PM
THURS - 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM
FRI - 10:45 AM - 1:30 PM
SAT - 9:30 AM - 6:00 PM

Now do you see why I spell "busy" the way I do?

Actually, I really enjoy to all the presentations, plus I especially enjoyed the opportunity we had to serve food to the veterans earlier today. It was a really neat experience. Despite that, it seems that every time I turn around there's another presentation coming up! Mom's given me the week off academics b/c of all the presentations, but I still have all my writing projects (Elijah, National History Day, and two essay contest entries due at the end of the month), plus the science module that I didn't finish last week.

Theoretically, I do have enough time to do all those things, but the problem is, I come home from presentations totally exhausted and want to crash. I was so tired, I think I inadvertantly fell asleep this afternoon. Thank God for Yahoo Messenger... the little "you've got mail" sound was what woke me up. :) But I really need to be diligent in my work. I guess I need to figure out how to be productive even when I can barely keep my eyes open. Sigh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, it looks like Claire McCaskill is not going to be a MO Senator, and our Constitution will not be amended to allow unlimited stem cell research. With over half of precincts reporting, Talent leads McCaskill by about 6 percentage points, and Amendment 2 is being defeated by about 5 points. It seems that the good people of Missouri retain some semblance of common sense (and basic moral values), unlike quite a few others across the country.