I should talk about the state of the world, but instead I'm going to talk about senior activities
tl;dr: lots of senior-related activities this week
Looks like I haven't updated in awhile. This is either because I haven't had time, I haven't had energy/brain cells, I haven't been able to properly marshal my thoughts into the right words (BLM), and/or because how many times can I talk about being appalled at the way the world is going and the horrible leader we have? :P
But there's been some positive stuff for MiniPlu lately, starting with the "Senior Decision Day" car parade last Saturday evening. So, under normal circumstances, last Friday (5 June) was supposed to be "Senior Decision Day" where kids wear their college shirts to school, and have a mock signing ceremony, and while they're in class, parents come out and decorate their kid's car with their school colors - balloons, streamers, window markers, you get the idea. Obviously, that wasn't happening in the traditional format this year, so instead the school organized a parade. Kids would drive their decorated cars through town, as a parade, and teachers would come to the school to wave and cheer for them.
And then the school decided to see if they could expand the parade so, instead of just driving once or twice through our small town, they got permits to drive through the ENTIRE area serviced by our elementary and middle school. (The high school serves another adjacent area that lacks its own HS, but they were not able to get permits to parade through there - which turned out to be just as well!) Since it's a semi-rural area, with a LOT of open farmland between residential neighborhoods, this ended up being a really extensive tour. In the end, it was pretty fun, but, wow, it was long. We only found out about the change in plans (from tiny parade route to giant parade route) two days before; the principal said it would take about 2 hours. In reality, it took 3:15. It's funny, because at one point MiniPlu theorized that it might actually take a little less time than planned, but we didn't remember how extensive the district's territory was, nor did I realize how freakin' far some kids travel to get to school. I would guess that it might take nearly 25 mins to get to the farthest reach that we achieved, from our house. Hard to gauge, of course, given the convoluted route.
There was one cop car at the head, and one at the end of the line of kids, and a few other cops and fire trucks (we saw the same handful of officers/firefighters over and over again) were used to block off major intersections or where we made turns, to control traffic. They did a great job (although a Retro Fitness van still barged in and joined our parade line, right in front of one of MiniPlu's friends, and drove with us for several miles until their route diverged).
So, anyway, there was a period around Hour 2-3 that kind of dragged because we were still going further *away* and we were in a pretty rural area with a lot of driving around between small neighborhoods where not a lot of people came out. But aside from that, it was pretty fun, honestly. (And if you want to know why I drove, it's because I wanted MiniPlu to be able to look around and enjoy the moment, and not have to keep her eyes on the road.) It was really amazing, the number of people who came out to cheer, many of them clearly having zero seniors at their house, because the kids were too small (some of the tiny kids were just *adorable*), or the adults were senior citizens. But they came out and clapped and waved or blew air horns and just in general were enthusiastic, and it was really sweet. Those who did have seniors often had homemade or professionally-made signs, or balloons. One kid had an entourage which kept moving around - I think we saw them at least four times over the course of the route. One neighborhood had fancy balloon arrangements at the beginning and end of the route through their area, and we were wondering if maybe everyone in the neighborhood chipped in $5 to pay for it as a group or if one family had just gone crazy and splurged. Some families had clearly come straight from the pool to come wave, as everyone was in swimsuits, with towels around their shoulders. There was a lot of non-social-distancing going on, with groups that clearly comprised more than one household standing together and waving, without masks. Some people were people in cars, who were stuck in their driveways or cross streets or parking lots because we were going by, so they figured they might as well cheer for us while they were waiting. And cars going the opposite way on the roads often honked to cheer for us, or the drivers waved as they went by. A cyclist stopped at a crossroads because we were going by waved at us. It was pretty awesome.
I saw a lot of kids I knew, both elem and middle schoolers. It's been so long since I've seen them, there were a bunch whose names I was temporarily drawing a blank on, so I couldn't say "hi" as we went by, and it wouldn't come to me until 20 minutes later. :-P
Oh, and at the high school itself - there was an entire line of teachers and administrators (including the superintendent) as you went past the building, on the way to the parking lot - all masked and waving and clapping. And then, just before it was time to leave, they all moved to stand by the exit to the parking lot (it's a one-way loop) so they could clap and cheer for us as we were leaving, too. Plus, we finally found out what a parent had collected a voluntary $10 donation for, from each family (I threw in a little extra, figuring someone else probably wouldn't be able to or wouldn't want to pay): Lining the entire route to the parking lot were giant lawn signs, over a meter tall, with every single kid's yearbook photo on it. One for each of the ~280 graduating seniors. They had been removed by the time we returned and were later delivered to the seniors along with their yearbooks this past Wed.
It was fun to see the different ways people decorated their vehicles, too. The ones with single seniors were more college-oriented, with banners or designs or whatever indicating their chosen school, which is what Will and I did for MiniPlu. Other vehicles had several friends in it (argh! no social distancing! Why did their parents allow this?), so their cars were often more just "let's party!" decorated, with multicolored streamers or balloons. A lot of kids (and these were always ones with multiple teenagers together) had chosen Jeeps that had their sides removed so they were open-air, which I suppose made it marginally safer. Kids in vehicles with sunroofs stood up and waved to people when we were in the residential neighborhoods. Two of MiniPlu's friends - the girls had made sure to park next to each other in the parking lot so we were in a string of 7 cars together - had flags for their colleges, and were waving them through their sunroofs. And given that both are on the flag team - one was the captain - they were pretty darn good at flag waving. :D
The light was fading pretty quickly when we got back since it's so late, but we managed to take some pictures of the girls all together in front of the "Home of the [mascot]" sign over the back entrance to the school. They staggered themselves front and back so they would all fit in one picture and be seen, without being on top of each other. (Unlike a lot of the other teens, when they were socializing in the parking lot before the parade, our seven were good at keeping a reasonable distance between them when talking. Almost nobody was wearing a mask except a couple of parents and the one friend of MiniPlu's who's been convinced she's going to die if she goes outside. But she was allowed to step out of her car with her mask on, and chat with her friends, which was a surprise, so that was good.) Oh, and MiniPlu's boy showed up so we got a pic with him, too.
So, yes, it would have been much better if it had been 2 hours, and not a Gilligan-like "three hour tour" (we drove approx 50 miles/80km all told!) but it had a lot of really great moments along the way, and seeing all that love and support was pretty awesome.
Saturday was supposed to have been the Senior Prom, and the Monday afterwards is always Senior Ditch Day. Even though there was no prom, most seniors decided to ditch anyway. MiniPlu and her friends (same friends as in their car parade caravan) chose to get takeout breakfast/brunch at a local eatery and have a socially-distant picnic in a nearby park. They stayed until about noon, and then reconvened at another friend's porch/yard for ice cream later in the afternoon, as that friend had not been able to skip school. (Fun fact: that friend is another trans boy, although much earlier in the transition process.)
Then Wednesday was Adopt-a-Senior deliveries, Round II. (Round I had been the caps, gowns and honor cords, plus a small treat from her teacher.) This round involved yearbooks (younger sibs' yearbooks were supposed to be included but there were some hiccups here and there - including Two's - so I had to pick his up on Thurs. Not a big deal, honestly), the giant photo yard signs from the parade, a Ziploc bag seniors are to use to return all their textbooks, Chromebooks, etc - and possibly their spare elephants as well, given how ginormous the bag is, lol. And another treat from the teacher. In this case, Mrs. T got the kids on her list a copy of Dr. Seuss's traditional grad-gift book: Oh, the Places You'll Go! And she'd written a nice personal note on the inside, as well. Since she was the Human Geography teacher "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" seems particularly apt.
(Side note: I got MiniPlu's graduation card off Etsy, with a funny twist on that same title.)
Then Thursday (yesterday) was the Senior awards. Sadly, they decided to cancel the underclassmen academic awards this year, and I feel bad for those kids who worked hard and now won't be recognized. But I guess they just felt there was only so much extra they could do, given the circumstances.
Anyway, there are three parts to the senior awards. 1) Departmental awards, to the top students in various subjects 2) Community scholarships, the applications for which were provided by the school and 3) the Smart Cookie award, given to all students who have a cumulated weighted GPA of 3.85 (out of 4) or higher. Smart Cookie is given every year (normally) and MiniPlu just missed out on it the first two years, because (by her own admission) she hadn't applied herself quite enough in Latin. She was absolutely devastated, especially freshman year, when literally - and not even in the drama-queen way teens have - all MiniPlu's friends earned one. Except her.
Anyway, she had applied for a Lion's Club scholarship, because of her extensive work with Leo (the junior version of Lions International), and - as far as we knew - going to get a Smart Cookie award, too. So, we tuned in to the pre-recorded YouTube awards presentation after dinner on Thurs, with MiniPlu providing *cough* color commentary on all the award winners who were known cheats, jerks, or otherwise unworthy of their prize. :-P Of course, it was gratifying to hear her friends win various prizes. And to MiniPlu's surprise, she won a departmental award - for being the top student in her science class last semester (Emerging Diseases). Given that MiniPlu doesn't generally like science, this was pretty funny, actually. I will say that she liked Emerging Diseases better than other science classes (Bio, Chem, and Anatomy) and retained more of it, more easily, as well. But still - kudos to her for that. She also did win the Lion's scholarship, but it was split between her and another girl (whom MiniPlu does not like :P) so the $1000 prize turned out to be just $500 per girl. Still better than nothing. Might pay for a few textbooks, anyway. And, yes, she won a Smart Cookie award.
But I was really ticked off about how they presented the Smart Cookie award. I don't think they did it this way for the underclass awards last year, but that's also because three underclassmen grades are involved. For the seniors, instead of reading names alphabetically, they read them in descending class order. Valedictorian first, then Salutatorian, then the kid who ranked 3rd, and so on. MiniPlu's highest-ranked friend turned out to be 12th, which is pretty damn good. But, anyway, it meant MiniPlu was able to literally count her class rank by just ticking off all the names - in fact, she lost track the first time so she replayed the video at that spot just so she could count correctly - and then she was upset. She did eventually calm down - she made the top 25% - but she was towards the end of the list, maybe about 3/4 of the way down. And she was mad at herself for not doing better (again, it was Latin in Fresh/Soph year that did it) because even after all this time, stats like that still matter to her. And it was frustrating, that she couldn't be happy for what she'd achieved - now she was focusing on something else.
The reason I was annoyed is because this school takes pains NOT to let students know their class rank. (No idea why, but they do.) They report class rank to colleges if asked, but a student is not allowed to find out their own rank, just to avoid this sort of issue. And yet, here they were, making it absolutely plain what everyone's class rank is. *bangs head*
I know MiniPlu still sometimes gets bummed that she's smart but not THAT smart, not one of the top 10% or whatever, but we're still proud of what she's achieved. And two of her friends didn't get ANY awards and were understandably upset, so I'm selfishly glad that didn't happen to MiniPlu.
Award certificates, cookies - yes, Smart Cookie winners get a cookie - and scholarship checks will be delivered as part of Adopt-a-Senior Round III on the 20th, and that's when the seniors will hand over their Gargantuan Ziploc Bags full of textbooks, library books, Chromebooks hippopotami and anything else that belongs to the school. (No word yet on how underclassmen are supposed to return their stuff.) Honestly, I am beyond grateful for how far this school has gone in trying to make things special for our seniors, despite the pandemic.
And that's pretty much it for seniors, aside from the in-person graduation, which will be allowed in July. We've been told they're borrowing the local minor-league baseball stadium in Trenton, in order to allow proper spacing, and that sounds great and all except. The governor has said that by July, the maximum outdoor gathering size will be 500 people. There are ~280 students, plus teachers and administrators. Even if each student only had ONE guest/family member attend, that's still more than 500 people. So ... will we really get to do this after all?
Two days of school left. Well, technically three - school ends on Wed the 17th. But for the last month or so, our district has limited Wednesdays to catch-up days. Teachers can review lessons, or provide chances for kids to catch up on something they missed, but no new material can be taught. At the high school level, there are no official lessons on Wednesdays, unless you are one of the people who has to catch up. So, anyway, school is essentially over for my kids on Tuesday the 16th. Just a couple of minor assignments left for them, plus a biology test for Two - which makes zero sense since semester grades were due today. Why give a test after final grades have been submitted? *eyeroll*
Looks like I haven't updated in awhile. This is either because I haven't had time, I haven't had energy/brain cells, I haven't been able to properly marshal my thoughts into the right words (BLM), and/or because how many times can I talk about being appalled at the way the world is going and the horrible leader we have? :P
But there's been some positive stuff for MiniPlu lately, starting with the "Senior Decision Day" car parade last Saturday evening. So, under normal circumstances, last Friday (5 June) was supposed to be "Senior Decision Day" where kids wear their college shirts to school, and have a mock signing ceremony, and while they're in class, parents come out and decorate their kid's car with their school colors - balloons, streamers, window markers, you get the idea. Obviously, that wasn't happening in the traditional format this year, so instead the school organized a parade. Kids would drive their decorated cars through town, as a parade, and teachers would come to the school to wave and cheer for them.
And then the school decided to see if they could expand the parade so, instead of just driving once or twice through our small town, they got permits to drive through the ENTIRE area serviced by our elementary and middle school. (The high school serves another adjacent area that lacks its own HS, but they were not able to get permits to parade through there - which turned out to be just as well!) Since it's a semi-rural area, with a LOT of open farmland between residential neighborhoods, this ended up being a really extensive tour. In the end, it was pretty fun, but, wow, it was long. We only found out about the change in plans (from tiny parade route to giant parade route) two days before; the principal said it would take about 2 hours. In reality, it took 3:15. It's funny, because at one point MiniPlu theorized that it might actually take a little less time than planned, but we didn't remember how extensive the district's territory was, nor did I realize how freakin' far some kids travel to get to school. I would guess that it might take nearly 25 mins to get to the farthest reach that we achieved, from our house. Hard to gauge, of course, given the convoluted route.
There was one cop car at the head, and one at the end of the line of kids, and a few other cops and fire trucks (we saw the same handful of officers/firefighters over and over again) were used to block off major intersections or where we made turns, to control traffic. They did a great job (although a Retro Fitness van still barged in and joined our parade line, right in front of one of MiniPlu's friends, and drove with us for several miles until their route diverged).
So, anyway, there was a period around Hour 2-3 that kind of dragged because we were still going further *away* and we were in a pretty rural area with a lot of driving around between small neighborhoods where not a lot of people came out. But aside from that, it was pretty fun, honestly. (And if you want to know why I drove, it's because I wanted MiniPlu to be able to look around and enjoy the moment, and not have to keep her eyes on the road.) It was really amazing, the number of people who came out to cheer, many of them clearly having zero seniors at their house, because the kids were too small (some of the tiny kids were just *adorable*), or the adults were senior citizens. But they came out and clapped and waved or blew air horns and just in general were enthusiastic, and it was really sweet. Those who did have seniors often had homemade or professionally-made signs, or balloons. One kid had an entourage which kept moving around - I think we saw them at least four times over the course of the route. One neighborhood had fancy balloon arrangements at the beginning and end of the route through their area, and we were wondering if maybe everyone in the neighborhood chipped in $5 to pay for it as a group or if one family had just gone crazy and splurged. Some families had clearly come straight from the pool to come wave, as everyone was in swimsuits, with towels around their shoulders. There was a lot of non-social-distancing going on, with groups that clearly comprised more than one household standing together and waving, without masks. Some people were people in cars, who were stuck in their driveways or cross streets or parking lots because we were going by, so they figured they might as well cheer for us while they were waiting. And cars going the opposite way on the roads often honked to cheer for us, or the drivers waved as they went by. A cyclist stopped at a crossroads because we were going by waved at us. It was pretty awesome.
I saw a lot of kids I knew, both elem and middle schoolers. It's been so long since I've seen them, there were a bunch whose names I was temporarily drawing a blank on, so I couldn't say "hi" as we went by, and it wouldn't come to me until 20 minutes later. :-P
Oh, and at the high school itself - there was an entire line of teachers and administrators (including the superintendent) as you went past the building, on the way to the parking lot - all masked and waving and clapping. And then, just before it was time to leave, they all moved to stand by the exit to the parking lot (it's a one-way loop) so they could clap and cheer for us as we were leaving, too. Plus, we finally found out what a parent had collected a voluntary $10 donation for, from each family (I threw in a little extra, figuring someone else probably wouldn't be able to or wouldn't want to pay): Lining the entire route to the parking lot were giant lawn signs, over a meter tall, with every single kid's yearbook photo on it. One for each of the ~280 graduating seniors. They had been removed by the time we returned and were later delivered to the seniors along with their yearbooks this past Wed.
It was fun to see the different ways people decorated their vehicles, too. The ones with single seniors were more college-oriented, with banners or designs or whatever indicating their chosen school, which is what Will and I did for MiniPlu. Other vehicles had several friends in it (argh! no social distancing! Why did their parents allow this?), so their cars were often more just "let's party!" decorated, with multicolored streamers or balloons. A lot of kids (and these were always ones with multiple teenagers together) had chosen Jeeps that had their sides removed so they were open-air, which I suppose made it marginally safer. Kids in vehicles with sunroofs stood up and waved to people when we were in the residential neighborhoods. Two of MiniPlu's friends - the girls had made sure to park next to each other in the parking lot so we were in a string of 7 cars together - had flags for their colleges, and were waving them through their sunroofs. And given that both are on the flag team - one was the captain - they were pretty darn good at flag waving. :D
The light was fading pretty quickly when we got back since it's so late, but we managed to take some pictures of the girls all together in front of the "Home of the [mascot]" sign over the back entrance to the school. They staggered themselves front and back so they would all fit in one picture and be seen, without being on top of each other. (Unlike a lot of the other teens, when they were socializing in the parking lot before the parade, our seven were good at keeping a reasonable distance between them when talking. Almost nobody was wearing a mask except a couple of parents and the one friend of MiniPlu's who's been convinced she's going to die if she goes outside. But she was allowed to step out of her car with her mask on, and chat with her friends, which was a surprise, so that was good.) Oh, and MiniPlu's boy showed up so we got a pic with him, too.
So, yes, it would have been much better if it had been 2 hours, and not a Gilligan-like "three hour tour" (we drove approx 50 miles/80km all told!) but it had a lot of really great moments along the way, and seeing all that love and support was pretty awesome.
Saturday was supposed to have been the Senior Prom, and the Monday afterwards is always Senior Ditch Day. Even though there was no prom, most seniors decided to ditch anyway. MiniPlu and her friends (same friends as in their car parade caravan) chose to get takeout breakfast/brunch at a local eatery and have a socially-distant picnic in a nearby park. They stayed until about noon, and then reconvened at another friend's porch/yard for ice cream later in the afternoon, as that friend had not been able to skip school. (Fun fact: that friend is another trans boy, although much earlier in the transition process.)
Then Wednesday was Adopt-a-Senior deliveries, Round II. (Round I had been the caps, gowns and honor cords, plus a small treat from her teacher.) This round involved yearbooks (younger sibs' yearbooks were supposed to be included but there were some hiccups here and there - including Two's - so I had to pick his up on Thurs. Not a big deal, honestly), the giant photo yard signs from the parade, a Ziploc bag seniors are to use to return all their textbooks, Chromebooks, etc - and possibly their spare elephants as well, given how ginormous the bag is, lol. And another treat from the teacher. In this case, Mrs. T got the kids on her list a copy of Dr. Seuss's traditional grad-gift book: Oh, the Places You'll Go! And she'd written a nice personal note on the inside, as well. Since she was the Human Geography teacher "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" seems particularly apt.
(Side note: I got MiniPlu's graduation card off Etsy, with a funny twist on that same title.)
Then Thursday (yesterday) was the Senior awards. Sadly, they decided to cancel the underclassmen academic awards this year, and I feel bad for those kids who worked hard and now won't be recognized. But I guess they just felt there was only so much extra they could do, given the circumstances.
Anyway, there are three parts to the senior awards. 1) Departmental awards, to the top students in various subjects 2) Community scholarships, the applications for which were provided by the school and 3) the Smart Cookie award, given to all students who have a cumulated weighted GPA of 3.85 (out of 4) or higher. Smart Cookie is given every year (normally) and MiniPlu just missed out on it the first two years, because (by her own admission) she hadn't applied herself quite enough in Latin. She was absolutely devastated, especially freshman year, when literally - and not even in the drama-queen way teens have - all MiniPlu's friends earned one. Except her.
Anyway, she had applied for a Lion's Club scholarship, because of her extensive work with Leo (the junior version of Lions International), and - as far as we knew - going to get a Smart Cookie award, too. So, we tuned in to the pre-recorded YouTube awards presentation after dinner on Thurs, with MiniPlu providing *cough* color commentary on all the award winners who were known cheats, jerks, or otherwise unworthy of their prize. :-P Of course, it was gratifying to hear her friends win various prizes. And to MiniPlu's surprise, she won a departmental award - for being the top student in her science class last semester (Emerging Diseases). Given that MiniPlu doesn't generally like science, this was pretty funny, actually. I will say that she liked Emerging Diseases better than other science classes (Bio, Chem, and Anatomy) and retained more of it, more easily, as well. But still - kudos to her for that. She also did win the Lion's scholarship, but it was split between her and another girl (whom MiniPlu does not like :P) so the $1000 prize turned out to be just $500 per girl. Still better than nothing. Might pay for a few textbooks, anyway. And, yes, she won a Smart Cookie award.
But I was really ticked off about how they presented the Smart Cookie award. I don't think they did it this way for the underclass awards last year, but that's also because three underclassmen grades are involved. For the seniors, instead of reading names alphabetically, they read them in descending class order. Valedictorian first, then Salutatorian, then the kid who ranked 3rd, and so on. MiniPlu's highest-ranked friend turned out to be 12th, which is pretty damn good. But, anyway, it meant MiniPlu was able to literally count her class rank by just ticking off all the names - in fact, she lost track the first time so she replayed the video at that spot just so she could count correctly - and then she was upset. She did eventually calm down - she made the top 25% - but she was towards the end of the list, maybe about 3/4 of the way down. And she was mad at herself for not doing better (again, it was Latin in Fresh/Soph year that did it) because even after all this time, stats like that still matter to her. And it was frustrating, that she couldn't be happy for what she'd achieved - now she was focusing on something else.
The reason I was annoyed is because this school takes pains NOT to let students know their class rank. (No idea why, but they do.) They report class rank to colleges if asked, but a student is not allowed to find out their own rank, just to avoid this sort of issue. And yet, here they were, making it absolutely plain what everyone's class rank is. *bangs head*
I know MiniPlu still sometimes gets bummed that she's smart but not THAT smart, not one of the top 10% or whatever, but we're still proud of what she's achieved. And two of her friends didn't get ANY awards and were understandably upset, so I'm selfishly glad that didn't happen to MiniPlu.
Award certificates, cookies - yes, Smart Cookie winners get a cookie - and scholarship checks will be delivered as part of Adopt-a-Senior Round III on the 20th, and that's when the seniors will hand over their Gargantuan Ziploc Bags full of textbooks, library books, Chromebooks hippopotami and anything else that belongs to the school. (No word yet on how underclassmen are supposed to return their stuff.) Honestly, I am beyond grateful for how far this school has gone in trying to make things special for our seniors, despite the pandemic.
And that's pretty much it for seniors, aside from the in-person graduation, which will be allowed in July. We've been told they're borrowing the local minor-league baseball stadium in Trenton, in order to allow proper spacing, and that sounds great and all except. The governor has said that by July, the maximum outdoor gathering size will be 500 people. There are ~280 students, plus teachers and administrators. Even if each student only had ONE guest/family member attend, that's still more than 500 people. So ... will we really get to do this after all?
Two days of school left. Well, technically three - school ends on Wed the 17th. But for the last month or so, our district has limited Wednesdays to catch-up days. Teachers can review lessons, or provide chances for kids to catch up on something they missed, but no new material can be taught. At the high school level, there are no official lessons on Wednesdays, unless you are one of the people who has to catch up. So, anyway, school is essentially over for my kids on Tuesday the 16th. Just a couple of minor assignments left for them, plus a biology test for Two - which makes zero sense since semester grades were due today. Why give a test after final grades have been submitted? *eyeroll*