High School Angst, Part III

I've just been trying to untangle where J. is actually registered at for next year.

I guess the answer is both at Auburn Mountainview and Auburn Senior High. I received a letter in the mail last week, announcing that AMV had received J.'s waiver and it had been accepted. Now, could we please register her for classes.

????

J. had already sent one registration packet in about two months ago. They lost that. So she filled out another one and sent it to counselors from AMV visiting the school. They lost that too. Well, maybe lost isn't the right term.

Through some form of IT magic I don't understand, the registration packet ended up over at ASH, so she's all set for classes over there. They are now awaiting her waiver to be approved (I waivered her to both schools, until we made up our minds.)

So this weekend, we were filling out class schedule #3 to AMV, and I'm calling the district offices today, to see whither her waiver to ASH. Frankly, at this stage of the game, I'm about ready to cut bait and let her go to ASH. She has a good group of friends, she's in the honors classes she wants, and I've been reading blogs about the school. Both students and parents have posted some pretty good comments. They were pretty negative before 2004, before AMV opened. I think ASH had over 3,000 kids then. Overcrowding seemed to be making both the students and the parents act like lab rats.

Unless of course, the waiver has been lost in the IT ether too. And I have no idea whether her best friend, who started this fall down the rabbit hole, has been accepted into ASH as either.

Knowing Karma as I do (even before I started watching My Name is Earl), let me guess. J. ends up going to ASH, and BF gets kicked back to AMV, where she was set to go in the first place.

Manson, The Musical

J. stayed home from school yesterday (it was teachers' training day - and for those that missed the punishment this weekend, they were scraping gum off the bottom of desks on monday).

So she wanted to rent a few classics from the songs she heard at the symphony this weekend, and no, she wanted to go, I didn't have to drag her. We struck out on Casablanca, so we settled for West Side Story and Schindler's List. Gary was a bit worried about the latter, and wondered if she should hold off until we could watch it with her - although I'm a little unsure what I'd say about the scene where the girl in the red dress, now dead, is thrown into a pile of bodies being burned. "Gee, that didn't happen in real life?"

She ended up watching both shows by herself anyway. Apparently, not much angst on SL, but when I started asking her about West Side Story, it was a different story. I could feel the angst(mine) bubbling up as she started describing what happened after she watched WSS.

She first was interested in Natalie Wood, so googled her, and found out, she died young of drowning, then she went after Richard Beymer, who played Tony. Guy didn't have much of a dating life, but did date, for a few short months, Sharon Tate. Who's that, J. wonders.

So she wikipedia's Tate, and of course finds out how she died and who slashed her to death (8 months pregnant), so now she's wikiing Manson. And the whole entire clan. She then started to ask what Manson wanted to accomplish by all this (race war), his inspiration (Helter Skelter), and where he is now. (alive, in prison).

Well **&^. No more Rodgers and Hammerstein for you.

Mother's Day at the Mall

That's where we ended up, after an aborted attempt at going to the track. We went outside to try to catch the third race at Emerald Downs, and alas, it started to pour. So we headed to the mall and the Nordstrom's shoe department.

It was a good day tho. I got to sleep in, unlike, ahem, Saturday, and the fam made me breakfast and even made sure I got to church, although they wouldn't go with me, as usual.

J. refused to sign Gary's card, which said "reasons I love you" and went and got her own at Top Foods, and a bouquet of $7 tulips (shouldn't they be cheaper by now?) So all in all, very nice.

Ah Time to Sleep In, No Wait, We Have to Get Up at 6 am

That's what was going through my head today.

Yes, Gary and I will take J. to an Auburn Park so she and about 25 other malcontents from her school can pick up trash for an hour or two.

This is the punishment they received when they decided "not to bow to the man" and not applaud or play nice during a pep assembly they felt was fixed. (see earlier post).

If they want to go to the last, and coolest pep assembly and dance next week, they have to show up at 7 am tomorrow and grab a trash bag. Okay fine. But how do the teachers think these 14-year-old malcontents are going to get there?

I guess this is our punishment for raising a bunch of rabble rousers.

This is Why they Don't have Middle School Jurors

That's the beginning of the conversation my daughter and I had on the way to school this am.

Her history class has created a mock courtroom, where there are two sides, of course. One is defending the captain at Andersonville Prison in the South, and the other side are prosecutors. J. is on the defendant's side.

"I know now why they don't have middle school juries," she said. "They just side with who they like the best."

Hate to tell her, but that's probably true of adult juries too. I'm about ready to find out if that's really true in a few weeks, when I go on jury duty. Since I'm out of the news biz now, I may even get seated.

Hang in There Hillary

As we were watching election returns Tuesday night, J. kept having me drag the cursor over Indiana (cool NYT gizmo). News was good, until we came to the Gary, Ind. area. Not so good.

Hillary ended up winning the state, of course, but barely. But still J. and I are watching GMA every morning to see the update on whether Hillary's staying in the race or not. I'm not hopeful she's going to pull this nomination out of a hat, and I'll vote for Obama, even tho his supporters are rude, superior, jerks. But I'm glad Hillary is staying in.

It shows J. that even tho the going is rough, you should stick to what you believe and believe in yourself. It's showing her to push through, stay tough and embrace your inner biach. Go Hillary.

As an update on Monday, May 12, at least this one Newsweek pundit seems to agree with me.

So How Much Do You Tell Your Daughter About Past Lives?

This is the question pondered in this Washington Post essay.

I've told Jennifer alot, but not all, like that one night-stand I had with an Israeli soldier-turned-tour-guide 25 years ago. I figure when she gets serious about someone I may have a deeper conversation about my love life with her.

She's already been asking about my first kiss (and I told her) and when I lost my virginity (in college...well depends on one defines virginity-another conversation I'm postponing with her).

So how much are you planning on telling your daughter or son?