Variables updating only when opening the menu twice

Hello everybody! I'm making a visual novel for one of my courses. I've made a journal from scratch that follows the player's choices throughout the game. I finished up everything but when I started testing, I noticed I have to open the journal twice so that it updates to the latest events.

Here's how it looks like in short:

screen journal():

    tag menu

    use game_menu(_("Journal"), scroll="viewport"):

        style_prefix "journal"

        vbox:
                textbutton "Act 1": 
                    style_prefix "act"
                textbutton "Scene 1" action ShowMenu("act1scene1"):     
                    style_prefix "scene"   
                textbutton "Scene 2" action ShowMenu("act1scene2"):
                    style_prefix "scene"   
                textbutton "Scene 3" action ShowMenu("act1scene3"): 
                    style_prefix "scene"    


                textbutton "Act 2":
                    style_prefix "act"                
                textbutton "Scene 1" action ShowMenu("act2scene1"): 
                    style_prefix "scene"           
                textbutton "Scene 2" action ShowMenu("act2scene2"):
                    style_prefix "scene"   
                textbutton "Scene 3" action ShowMenu("act2scene3"):   
                    style_prefix "scene"         


                textbutton "Act 3":
                    style_prefix "act"
                textbutton "Scene 1" action ShowMenu("act3scene1"):  
                    style_prefix "scene"          
                textbutton "Scene 2" action ShowMenu("act3scene2"):
                    style_prefix "scene"   
                textbutton "Scene 3" action ShowMenu("act3scene3"):   
                    style_prefix "scene"                   


screen act1scene1():

    tag menu

    use game_menu(_("Journal"), scroll="viewport"):

        style_prefix "journal"    

        hbox:    
                xalign 0.5
                yalign 0.5  
                textbutton "Return" action ShowMenu("journal") 
        vbox: 
            if gui.about:
                text "[gui.about!t]\n"


            if reached_act1_scene1 == False: 
                label "???"



            if journal_wokeup == True:
                label "Waking up..."
                text _("∙ I woke up in a strange place with no memories whatsoever... I should try looking around and find out where I am.")   
            if journal...

Here's how it looks in the script/dialogue:

    ...
    oriwhat "(Just... very big eyes and black scleras-)"
    oriwhat "(!??)"
    $ journal_wokeup = True
    ...

At that point, it should be in the journal immediately - but it only shows up when I open it twice.

And this goes on and on. Lots of ifs and $ journal_whatevers because my python is very limited and, to be honest, I don't understand the more indepth coding either because I'm stupid and/or because of language problems D: anyone got a clue on why I have to open it twice? Did I do something wrong? Is there a workaround to fix it? Any help much appreciated!