Just a quick bit of kvelling here... Someone got straight A's on her report card this quarter. :-)
I've always loved learning, but have at best a so-so relationship with organized schooling. Lil' sis is about the same, the difference being she's usually got a tighter focus on what she wants to learn while my interest in learning tends toward the omnivorous (as in, "Dude, your head is stuffed full of relatively useless facts, when you gonna make some space for more useful knowledge...?").
Miriam, on the other hand, not only likes to do well in school -- she kinda needs to do well in school. We don't push her; I've lost count of how many conversations have occurred between the Pipsqueak and other family members in various combinations where she's been reassured that as long as she's really tried and actually learned something, the grade she receives really isn't all that important. (Oh, sure, dropping grades or low grades in areas we know that she knows her stuff will be looked into -- gently and diplomatically -- but we all have experience on both sides of the teacher's desk so the letters assigned to her results are just a guide, definitely not a goal.)
My niece's push for excellence comes 100% from within her, and while we occasionally remind her to just sit back & enjoy the ride, we just let her set her own goals and she inevitably aims higher than her mother or uncle ever did during their academic careers.
So... yeah, she did it again. Straight A's. Congrats, Pipsqueak!
