The End

Hey guys and girls. This is the last blog I will be writing, as you all know. I am a very private person usually and I don't have much as far as emotions go, but writing this blog has not been so bad. There have been pros and cons to all of this, but it was also, in a funny way, relaxing and nice to open a little. I know we won't all go to the same class after this, but I'll see you around school. Thankyou for the experience.
Sincerely,
Malcolm MacMillan

Normality is strange

To anyone who cares, nothing really happened this week. The only thing that frustrated me slightly is that I found out my dad had hooked my grade book to his phone. If I score anything lower than a 90 he gets a notification. Who am I to question my dads motives tough. That's it really so I'll wrap things up here.

Pride of Country.

                A friend once asked me why I was so willing to be crazy things. I told him it was because I was willing to die for the honor of my family and if I was able to pull off the things’ I did the more honor my family gained in the eyes of others. Then he asked me why I wanted to join Delta Force where there is an even bigger chance of dying. I looked at him and asked him if he was willing to die for his country. He told me he wasn’t, and I immediately asked him why he was still living in this country. He got pissed at me and yesterday he insulted me publicly calling me a psychopath and things I’m not able to say on this blog. After two minutes he was crying like a baby. So, yeah, I went back in progress this week and I can’t say I regret doing what I did. 

Nearing the Holidays

Hey guys, I made progress in patience this week. The patience wasn't really that hard to accomplish. I was teaching a little kid a new outdoor skill at Trail Life and for some reason he just wasn't able to accomplish the task that was required of him. I got really mad at him and felt like drop kicking him across the room. I just walked away for a minute, drank some water and went back to the kid. after another thirty minutes he finished and I almost started to dance around in joy. That's really the only change that happened, but at least it was a change.

A stand still

Hey guys, sorry for the late post. I had a long weekend of work and homework. Nothing really exciting happened so I'm going to wrap this up. See you soon.

Progress...Finally

This week I made some significant progress. The first week of the new grading period and I managed to snatch at least one A in each class. I also managed to forgive three people for various mistakes they made. Normally I don't forgive someone, but I managed it. I don't completely trust these people one hundred percent again, but, maybe, I can learn how to re-trust people later. Not yet though. There is such a thing as too good.

Time??? What is this time you speak of???

Three weeks are getting to me. In a bad way. I woke up yesterday and thought it was Tuesday morning. I'm only half awake when I get home most of the time. On Thursday I got home around 5:30 and almost walked right into my sister within ten seconds of walking through the door. It was a poor mistake on my part. She later told me she had almost failed a Trig test earlier that day, but at the moment I didn't know. And my sister took this mistake of mine as a good chance to let out a little steam. She immediately took a swing at me. Believe me when I say nothing else wakes you up better that a fight. We ended up fighting back through our hallway and into the living room. My mom came out of the kitchen and told us to stop. I apologized to Autumn and asked her what was wrong. She told me and I did my best to show some compassion. Which means I gave her an awkward hug. But it's still an improvement. And I'm glad of it.

Staying In Place

             

A Minor Set Back

   is was at my taekwondo studio training and one of the kids I was helping said something that caught my attention. He had made a comment last month about his parents job and it contradicted what he was saying at that time. I asked him about it and he told me that he was lying. Straight up. Then he thought it was funny. He laughed at me for believing him. That was a big mistake. I have no compassion or patience for liars. Our senior instructor had the class spar a full rotation that day. Two minute rounds each. As soon as the instructor gave the class the go I hit this kid as hard as I could. The full two minutes I hit him as hard as I could.

Yet Another Week....

                    Dear Reader,
This week we I worked on forgiveness. I had started work on my AP World History book critique and my little sister deleted all my work. All three pages of it. I was ready to drop kick her to China. I took a step back and used the Void. The Void is a place in your mind where you focus on a flame and feed your emotions into the flame. I use the Void to fight. It helps me focus on my opponent and side line everything else. It also calms me down. Once I was calm I looked back up at my little sister and smiled. I told her it was all right. Then I sat down and started over.

Another week gone

This week I worked on compassion. For the first part of the week I could barely see anything out of my left eye. On Wednesday I went to the doctors and they fixed my eye pretty well. Medical magic I guess. The big part of this was the compassion I learned to have. My little sister sometimes complain about hurting herself I the dumbest and most illogical of ways. I find it almost impossible to comprehend her ability to make stupid mistakes. And then here I go and almost lose and eye because I didn't listen to my grand mother. Bravo past me. Bravo. So now I have more sympathy for my little sister. And I am a little more understanding.

A nasty suprise that forces patience.

This week was faster than last week. I'm used to a nice easy slow pace since I was homeschooled most of my life. Any way, fast weeks make for little time to work on virtue. I managed to work on patience. I was breaking branches in my grandmothers backyard yesterday and one of the branches snapped into my left eye. I'll be wearing a patch and antibacterial cream for the next ten days. The thing is, my grand mother had told me to take my time and to be careful. I have little patience so I took little heed to her advice. Sure enough, I'm paying for it now. I learned a valuable lesson and I am not going to forget this anytime soon.

                 Dear reader,
                                  This week has presented challenges and good opportunities. The week went by so fast it was hard to keep track of everything done and everything said. I did my best to be a little more understanding and patient with other people. I had a conversation with a girl on Wednesday after our gym class had ended. she had just broken up with a guy she had been with for three years. once she was done speaking I told her it wasn't the end of the world and then I tried to give her some advice. It probably sounded really bad, but I did my best. Then I had this one guy on Thursday insult me pretty badly. Normally I would have just gone ahead and decked him, but instead I told him that if he wanted to be a man he should fight me. I told him that if he wouldn't fight me then he had no business insulting me. Not the most graceful approach, but effective. And I was in control. this is most likely the first time I took it that easy on some one.
                      That's all for now. I will be back next week with an update on my progress.
             Sincerely,
             Malcolm McMillan

Malcolm MacMillan
8/26/18
             The three virtues I have elected to improve this school year are
forgiveness, patience and compassion. I was a homeschooler for most
of my life and I never really had to improve on these virtues. I also
compete in single sports, so I never had experience in working with
other people. I have always been a solo act. And I like being a one-man
team. I find other people just get in my way and complicate things
unnecessarily. And not having to work with other people or just not
wanting to create bad habits. Here is why I have elected to improve on
these three virtues.
             I find it hard to forgive people after they make a mistake and I
end up suffering the consequences of their mistake. Even a little
mistake frustrates me. I was born into a military family, and we take
personally. I have a habit of taking any assignment personal, even if I’m
working on it with another person. I just hate messing up so badly, it
takes me a very long time to forget the accident. I never look at them
the same way again. I begin to hesitate whenever I work with them
again. And once they mess up a second time I will do pretty much
anything to avoid working with them again. In the sports world you
need to be able to forgive your team mates or you will never be able to
work efficiently together. Taekwondo is more of a one-man sport, but
there are still group competitions that require team work and trust. Now
to the next virtue I must improve on.
                   I’m always in a rush and I hate being late or almost late for
anything. Whenever I have a deadline on a project I like to do it as soon
as possible. If it’s a partner project I will start rushing my partner to
finish so I can relax and not have to worry about it while I’m trying to
fall asleep. I start turning cold and I grow angry. It’s a contained kind of
angry. I don’t explode and yell at them, I just stop talking to them
unless it’s for the project and when I do talk to them I’m very brief in
my answers and for a while after that the person I was working with just
steers clear of me. I plan to work on understanding that other people
have problems at home sometimes and they sometimes need more
time to work on assignments. I need to have a broader view of other
peoples needs.
                   “I don’t care.” That’s my number one phrase to other people
when they complain. I’m pretty sure a lot of other people use this
phrase as a lazy way to escape a conversation with a person they’re
just too tired to listen to at that moment. I mean it in the way that I
really don’t give a crap that your offended or hurting. I really don’t. This
world doesn’t care either. Their worse things that can happen to you
decides a scolding by your parent or you get punched or you twisted an
ankle. Until the injury is a serious verbal assault on your family, like
someone lying about someone in your family assaulting them, I will not
care. And unless a physical injury you have is enough to prevent you
from walking or writing (breaking a bone.) I will not care. Now, my goal
this year is to learn to gage a persons’ pain tolerance. To be a little
more understanding with others. I need to understand that certain
people can’t take as much pain as others. But right now, I most likely
won’t care unless it’s serious.
So, there you have it. Yes, I might sound like a cold, impatient
jerk and I probably am, but I hope to improve. Archimedean will present
many challenges that I have never faced before. Though it will be hard
for most of us to improve on things we have never before tried to
improve on, I hope that together we can all work through the most
difficult parts of the year.