Delusions of... Everything

This and That Thursday

Stream of consciousness blogging this morning...

• This day was saved for the Sea World post... Yeah, I haven't edited those pictures yet.
• The sun has been shining in Seattle, hence the reason the photos are not edited.
• Thanks to the sun garlic, radishes, spinach, lettuce and beets are breaking through the soil of my garden!
• We've installed a water feature in the front yard, it looks amazing and I will be blogging about it soon.
• Looks like Star Wars Sun got a job at the Pike Place Market.  Hopefully he will still be working there this summer during Blog Fest West.  We can go harass say "Hi" to him.  Are you planning to attend Blog Fest West?!  You really should consider it!
• Dancing Daughter had a piece of her artwork selected to be put on a banner that will be displayed in our little town.  Here's the article on the B-Town Blog.  Yes, I will be taking pictures!
• Opening night of "Little Shop of Horrors" is tonight.  Dancing Daughter plays a Ronette in her school's Drama Club production.  I'm super excited, she's super stressed.
• I got out of bed at 10:00 last night when I heard DD crying in her room above ours.  I spent 30 minutes calming her down.  She is very stressed about the play, her math class that she fears she is failing, drill tryouts, the upcoming dance show...  I'm sure the list goes on to include stress over friends and boys but we didn't get that far, I was trying to calm her down.

Why is it not Friday?

Attendance

There is one thing that Dancing Daughter is going to find a challenge during the rest of her high school years and that is attendance.  She is an amazing student.  She does all of her work quickly and efficiently and she remembers to turn it in, something Star Wars Son had trouble remembering to do.  She does extra work to get honors credit in the classes that offer it.  She's well behaved in the classroom and participates in discussions.

Her downfall is attendance.  She's an active girl doing both dance and church activities in the evenings.  She frequently wakes up exhausted and feeling sick, stomach ache, headache, overall aches.  Many times I make her get up and see how she feels, then I insist she goes to school but tell her she can call me if she keeps feeling sick.  Sometimes, like the other day, when I wake her up she is just so exhausted she starts crying, begging me to let her stay home. 

It's really conflicting to me because she is such a great student.  When she misses school she makes up the work even if she has to stay after school to do it.  Unfortunately teachers have the option of lowering a grade based only on attendance.  She hasn't had one of those teachers yet, but I know she will at some point.

I know as a parent I should make her avoid activities that keep her out in the evenings, but she loves dance and church youth activities so much that I feel really bad suggesting she cut back on them.  Plus I have that whole, "she is such a great student", idea in my head.  It's hard to justify to her why she needs to cut back when she's getting a 4.0.

I'm relieved it's the end of the school year and I don't have to worry about it until the Fall, but it's a worry in the back of my mind.  Have any of you been in a situation with your children like this and if so how did you resolve it?

Now For Something Different

The second semester of school started yesterday.  As I was making coffee this morning it hit me that my son is in his last semester of high school.  It took my breath away.  I remember my last semester of high school.  By planning ahead and getting most of my credits out of the way my final semester schedule was light and short.  Star Wars Son is in the same position.

Period 1 - Economics - I know this class sounds hard but the counselor told SWS it's the senior "skate" class.  Star Wars Son had this to say about the teacher... He's an older guy and I'm convinced he was high yesterday.  He talked really slow.  When his computer announced he had a  new email it was very loud and it startled him, in very slow speech he said, "I    guess    I    should    turn    that    down."

Period 2 - Beginning Guitar - The rumor is the final test of the class is to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?!!

Period 3 - Film Appreciation - SWS's very smart and sharp English teacher told him not to take this class.  She called it Movies For Dummies.  I'm pretty sure that comment convinced him to take the class.  SWS had this to say... The teacher is crazy!  She said if we bring a drink to class other than water she's going to spit in it!  But we are going to watch some cool movies like The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  First we have to sit through the silent movies.  I'm excited to hear how this class plays out.

Period 4 - Drawing and Painting - SWS finally has the best art teacher in the school who is retiring at the end of the year.  I'm very glad he gets to have the experience of being taught by her.

That's a schedule I would have loved as a final semester senior!

(I made it through a whole post without mentioning job hunting or being unemployed... almost)

Reflections of the First Day of School

Everything went surprisingly smooth for both my kids yesterday.  Neither one of their schedules were changed, which can happen sometimes.  They both like their teachers with the exception of DD's photography teacher who she says, "makes time go slower".

Dancing Daughter is in the class of 2013.  This means that every year they will have a special day.  This year they are 9th graders, yesterday's date was 9/9/09.  The school arranged to have a local hip hop band called the Blue Scholars play for the freshman.  I wonder what special day they will have next year when they are 10th graders on 10/10/10...

Star Wars Son is thrilled to be on the yearbook staff, especially when his first assignment was to cover the freshman concert!

SWS lamented about how there was only one possible class his ex-girlfriend Bri-brute could be in and she's in it.  He's not happy.  On a positive note Bri-brute is in DD's photography class, she is happy.

DD was put into Algebra 2 because all the Geometry classes were full.  She is only one of two freshman in that class.  She told me she feels very small and insignificant in there.  She's considering transferring out of it but is very conflicted.  She thinks she can do the math, she's just not comfortable in the class.  She wants to get both of her remaining math credits out of the way this year.  We talked and talked and talked about this last night, her crying the whole time and me holding my calm attitude (though I don't know how).  What it comes down to is her fear of failure.  She doesn't want "to be the little freshman who fails Algebra 2".  As of this morning I'm still not sure what she's going to do.  I hope she stays in the class and gets it over with, but I don't want her to be uncomfortable the whole semester.

On to day two...

Why I Have NO Faith Dancing Daughter's First Day Of School Will Go Smoothly Today

There is so much I haven't blogged about lately.  My mind is all over the place.  I'm having a hard time sticking with one train of thought, so I haven't written about much of anything.  I know most of it is stress about Dancing Daughter starting high school.  I also know I have good reason to be stressed and anxious.  I've had many experiences with this school district we live in.  I'm not a fan.

Last week was the school fair.  The idea is that you come with your paperwork all filled out to turn in at the stations they have set up before you can get your schedule.  Seems reasonable and a really good idea until you see the lines.  You are forced to wait in line to get your checklist initialed at each station, so you can finally pick up your schedule and see if you have to go see the counselor to get your schedule fixed.  For example one station is the Green Emergency Card/Computer Use Agreement station.  (Never mind that your emergency card is yellow, thus confusing everyone.)  There is another station called Athletics.  (Never mind that your child is not participating in athletics and you have no paperwork, you still have to wait in line to have your checklist initialed.)  When you have all the boxes on your checklist initialed you can get in the schedule line, there were 8 boxes to get initial, that's 8 different lines.

Between my two children I waited in line for a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes. 

SWS schedule was great, there were no surprises.  He got all the classes he requested.  I'd expected that for a Senior who has most of his credits already.

Dancing Daughter's schedule was blank.  After standing in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes she still had no schedule.  She was fighting back tears and I was furious.  We went to the office.  Her counselor had gone home for the day.  The office manager took one look at both of us, took the blank schedule, wrote my phone number on it and promptly stuck in on the counselor's door.  She assured me I would get a call the next day.

The next day I did get a call.  The counselor, Ms. B, was apologetic saying they lost DD course schedule paperwork.  (Side note... This is the second time they lost DD's course schedule paperwork.  We went to the school at the end of May to make sure we didn't need to fill out anymore paperwork and they had no registration information, even though I turned it in in March.  DD filled out the classes she wanted again and I saw it get added to the pile... Not sure where it went from there.)  Ms. B assured me DD would have her schedule on the first day of school.  I told her that wasn't good enough and that we wanted it as soon as possible.  She asked if we could come in that afternoon.   Ms. B went through each period and DD got the classes she wanted.  I saw Ms. B enter them into the computer!  We got a print out!

OK, great... DD has her schedule and everyone is happy.

Yesterday was Freshman Orientation.  We met the only other incoming Freshman we know at the door and found out they weren't allowing parents in.  The other mom and I went to the local pub Starbucks for a drink tea and killed an hour.

When I picked DD up I could tell right away something was wrong.  She was mad.  She went on to tell me how there was no name tag for her.  The name tags were important because they had numbers on them.  The numbers let you know what group you were supposed to be in for the tour.  The numbers told which Advisory class you had so you could meet the teacher and kids that would be in your Advisory class for the next four years.  DD told them she was in Mr R's Advisory, someone told her they would get it straightened out for her.  They didn't.  She was put in a random group where she spent two hours getting to know a group of kids and a teacher she will not be having.

The "friend" we met at the door ditched her.

DD said she didn't see anyone she wanted to get to know.  She said and I quote... "65% of those kids were greasy and dressed like slobs and everyone was immature."  Now she's whiny and doesn't want to go to school.

Today is the first day of school, god help us.