Christmas Present

The Senior has been accepted to the college he applied Early Action to at the end of last month!  It will still be a "working holiday" but this takes a big load off.

Application FAIL

Last week the Senior made a recording and uploaded it for a pre-screen for music majors and scholarships at First Choice College.  It was a big ordeal, as we know nothing at home about making good quality audio recordings or what level is expected for this kind of thing.  He managed to squeeze in some time after school to use the school's equipment in the auditorium.

Last night he got an email from the admission counselor for music that some recordings were missing.  I re-read all the guidelines, and he was missing some scales.  I had just misread the instructions thinking that scales were done at the in-person audition.  The email also mentioned some other excerpts, which we are hoping is just confusion.  Different degrees require different things, and other than the scales, we are pretty sure we have every thing for the B.A. degree he would be interested in, rather than the B.M. degree.  I feel really bad about this, as all last week my gut was telling me that one piece surely couldn't be enough.  I am waiting for business hours so I can call and get this cleared up.  We are probably going to end up recording the scales on my iPad at home and hope that will do.  It is nice that they are allowing him to still upload these.

I hear different opinions on how involved parents should be in the student's college process.  While I definitely do not like the extremes of the helicopter parents that you hear about, I've got to tell you, if everything was 100% student-managed, the only people in college would be a certain breed of high-achieving, hyper-organized girl.  The typical teenage boy simply does not have the organizational mindset required to navigate a sea of varying deadlines, requirements, and activities required by the typical "selective admission" college.  Quite a few girls do not either.  This is probably one reason why most liberal arts colleges skew female in gender distribution. This problem is magnified if the student is first-generation college or comes from a family unfamiliar with the process or also lacks the organizational mindset.  I pretty much am playing the role of administrative assistant and project manager here.  He does all the important work - he writes the essays, does the interviews, and makes the recordings, but I keep it all organized and on-track.  This is even more difficult than with the oldest because of music in the mix this time.  This is my second job right now.

In other news, the oldest comes home from college today IF he makes his flight.  He got an offer to move off -campus with some people that he has been hanging out with and surprised us with this yesterday.  Today he has to take a final, move all of his stuff out of his dorm and check out, pack for a 1 month visit instead of a weekend (i.e. checked bags) and make a flight at 5 p.m. EST.  In general, we view this a very positive development.  He has not been thriving with on-campus life and we are glad he has found some people he feels he could live with.  We think he is ready for a little more independence.

Be Angry FOR Those Parents

The onslaught of stress that is senior year continues unabated.  The overload of difficult classes on the new schedule, the lack of sleep, the too-many practices, and deadlines just go on and on.

There have been some milestones met.  He got in the music application for first-choice school a good 24 hours before the deadline.  (He is not particularly happy with his recording, but it will have to do).  This weekend is the annual band-choir holiday concert, a school tradition, and a wonderful, beautiful event.  I had hoped to have a post on that, as it is one event that I will miss terribly next year.

But of course, current events have rendered all personal stresses moot and irrelevant.  I will not link to other posts on this atrocity nor recount any details; everyone who might be reading this knows what I am talking about.  If by chance you have stumbled on this blog in some cyberspace archive in the future, just look up Connecticut 12-14-12 and you will understand.

I do have things to say, however.  First of all this comes against a weird backdrop of local events.  On Thursday, everyone got recorded phone messages from the school district.  After some strange ramblings about the last day of school, the winter solstice, and the Mayan calendar on December 21st, the message finally got to the point that rumors were running rampant in all the schools about violence on that day.  A call that was probably meant to reassure parents they were on top of things ended up being rattling because of poor execution.  Talked with another parent about it that night at the dress rehearsal and she was rattled too.  December 14th was also apparently part of the rumor mill.  And so then the next day, this happened. (And the China thing too, in case you missed it.  The difference being those 22 kids were only wounded, the weapon of choice being a knife).

In my time as a mother, I have witnessed numerous of these horrific events.  My youngest, this senior I write about now, was exactly six months old at the time of the Oklahoma City bombings.  Remember that photo carrying the body of the bloody, dead toddler from the day care center?  We were on kid-centric family vacation to Washington D.C. to see the Star Wars exhibit at the Air & Space Museum the day of the Jonesboro, Arkansas shooting (remember those two - they themselves were just kids).  I have a college friend whose first child was born the day of the Columbine shootings only a suburb or two away from Littleton.  And there was 9/11 - the first month for all of us in the new neighborhood to go to a brand new school, all the moms walking their kids to the bus stop.  We had heard the first inklings about it that morning and talked a little about what we had heard, but still all seemed okay.  When we went to meet the bus that afternoon, we just stood in stunned silence.  I first heard about Virginia Tech while teaching a college class, and while I don't like to out my location on this blog, we are just down the road from the site of another major university shooting.  And on and on.

I realize 9/11 is fundamentally different from all these other atrocities, in terms of both scale and intent.  But really, isn't the effect the same?  An act of terrorism that makes us fearful of living our everyday lives?  What did we do after 9/11, after memorial services and the shock was over?  We followed our president into two wars, we watched while major legislation was passed to enhance national security despite the very legitimate civil liberties concerns it raised.  We tolerate all sorts of inconvenience now so those "others" won't get us.

Where is this kind of action about these shootings?  Why are we not demanding a no-holds barred, everything on the table conversation by ourselves, our politicians, our news media, our communities?  Why are we not angry?  I already see on my Facebook feed the familiar pattern.  Everyone will post a "what is the world coming to" status.  A "our hearts and prayers go out the families" status.  Several "Remember" photo memes are going around.  We are being told to hug our kids, be grateful, be appreciative, pray.  Total strangers will send cards and leave teddy bears and flowers and light candles.  And then . . .  we will feel we have done what we can.  After all, what can we do?  We will not act. We will allow ourselves to be helpless.

We need to turn our grief and shock into anger.  Not the kind of internalized anger that led to this.  But anger that fuels action, that demands change, that won't back down from asking the hard questions.  We owe it to our children.  We owe it to those children.  We owe it to those parents.  This is not a tragedy.  This is an atrocity.  What are you going to do?

November Update: Triage

TRIAGE

1

a : the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors

b : the sorting of patients (as in an emergency room) according to the urgency of their need for care

2

: the assigning of priority order to projects on the basis of where funds and other resources can be best used, are most needed, or are most likely to achieve success 

November has been a month of allocating scarce resources, mainly time, to where the most good can be done.  This has especially been true of homework.  There is SO MUCH (mainly due to the switch from block to traditional schedules) combined with college work and activities that the senior simply has to choose the work that is most urgent or has the largest effect on his grade, and let the little stuff go.  Apparently we are not alone as the school administration has created a special email address just for homework concerns, and other parents have nodded knowingly when I have used the word triage to describe our lives.

(Isn't triage a good SAT word too?  I learned the word from M*A*S*H, which I watched religiously after school in my teens.  In fact, I learned much biology, history, and much else from that show!)

My time has also been subject to triage so keeping up this blog has not been a priority.  

What's more, I've even had to perform triage on this entry, as it got way too long, too fast as I started to recount all the November happenings with the senior!

At this point, there is only one piece of news that matters for November.  The Common App is done, and the first application (for non-binding Early Action December 1) is submitted! 

With the Common App done, the things that remain to do are the supplements specific for each school.  Our next deadline is December 15th, when a music recording needs to be uploaded.  This will be a big one!

He had a return visit/scholarship audition to an in-state choice and a local interview with reps from an out-of-state choice this month.  I'll close with a couple of pictures of those two schools.

Outside shot of residence hall of one of the interview schools.

Common area of a freshman suite for the other interview school.

October Update

October is the craziest month.  Always has been.  A senior in the mix makes it more so.  Here is a quick update since the last post.

1) We had our last Panther Marching Band Review on October 11th.  This is always the best event on the marching band schedule.  The stadium is filled with band fans, the crowd is quiet and attentive when the bands are playing, and no one stands up in front of your video camera.  Our band always sounds their best, and this night did not disappoint.  I will say the music selection could be better.  How much (2nd tier) classic rock could these kids really want to play?  Journey?  Billy Joel?  Blood, Sweat, and Tears.  And then, Nirvana?  That one was a train wreck folks.  No way that is marching music.  Kurt Cobain is rolling in his grave.

2) First Choice College has a top notch music program and their orchestra went on tour in the middle of the month.  Their one stop around these parts was on a Sunday afternoon about 45 minutes away, so we were able to get free tickets to their performance.  We also went to a lunch and information session for perspective students.  Definitely could have skipped that, the other students & parents were mostly legacies, and we heard nothing we didn't hear during the summer visit.  You have to show interest though, and this is how you do it.  The concert, however, was wonderful.  I found a new piece for my iPod (Danzon No. 2 by Marquez) and I think the senior enjoyed it.  Most of their performers are not music majors (or music and something else) so this is, we hope, a very reachable school.

3) The last regular football game and marching show ever was two weekends ago.  Very emotional.  We finally were able to stay to hear what we call "The Tree".  At the end of each football game, the band marches back to the band room side of the school.  As they approach, there is total silence except for the drum captain tapping the beat.  They form a circle around a tree and then play a very moving rendition of Amazing Grace.  No one tells you about this; you learn about it as a freshman parent when you are sitting in the parking lot waiting to pick your kid up.  We had not stayed for it yet this year, and I was worried rain and cold were going to make us miss it again.  It all worked out though.  And now this is done.

4) The oldest came home for a quick fall break.  We learned more about the harrowing trip to meet the band at the amusement park (one of those things as a parent you are glad that you didn't know while it was happening).

5) Applications are going slowly and the 4 AP classes plus double band practices plus Early Bird Gym are taking their toll.  I am trying to ignore the parents already posting acceptances on Facebook.

6)  The football team won conference, so the first playoff game was at home Friday night.  This meant a pep band so he had one more night of fun.  Pep band at football games has never been something I felt I needed to see, so parents enjoyed an evening at home.

7) Had to say no to the trumpet campout Saturday night.  Between the schoolwork and the application work, and an interview with Reach College today, something had to give.  He was angry at first, but perhaps his close friends couldn't go either, because in the end, he opted to stay home completely, even though we said he go for the evening and not sleep out.  Has worked on AP History all weekend.

8) Interview at Reach College did not go as well as he would have liked.  He said it was awkward, the questions were "strange" and it was not like the other interview he had this summer with a different school.  Being as we are a family of introverts and not always comfortably on our verbal feet, we are taking the position that even awkward interviews are a learning experience and to let it roll off and move on.  Not really sure what the purpose of the interview is anyway.  Perhaps he shouldn't do them unless they are absolutely required.

Class of 84 Flashback: Homecoming Week

This past week was Homecoming so I thought I'd supplement my very few current pictures with pictures from back in my day.  A little compare-contrast of Homecoming traditions past and present, Texas vs. Not Texas.

 Exhibit #1: Homecoming Mums.  Very Texas. These are relatively understated.  Round these parts?  Never heard of them!

Exhibit #2: Pep Rallies.  Every Friday, for 10 weeks during football season, we had a shortened class schedule so we could all go to a pep rally at the end of the day.  Because when it comes down to learning vs. football, everyone knows the primary purpose of the Texas high school is football.   I think where we live now, there might be a pep rally.  One.  Maybe.  I'm really not sure.

Exhibit #3: Theme Weeks and Class Competitions.  We had elaborate Homecoming themes, and every class sponsored an event to raise money for their prom.  (My class was always awesome).  My junior year the theme was music and our class got punk rock.  We held a dance. Each class also decorated their halls.  This is my junior year hall.  Our senior year hall was really fantastic, but I don't have a picture of that.

This is what passed for "punk" in suburban Dallas in 1982.

Exhibit 4: Parades.  Here my kid's school has my old school beat.  On Wednesday on Homecoming Week, they stop 5 p.m. rush hour traffic on a major U.S. highway which is already enough of a mess to hold a parade.  Made sense when this was a little farm town.  Not so much anymore with 30,000 people and roads that can't take the traffic as it is.  After 7 years of deliberately missing it, I decided to go for this last year.  It was . . .  cute.

They changed them around and I was on the wrong side of the street to get a good shot of the youngest.

I had to take a picture of the Mu Alpha Theta float since I rode on that one in the one parade my school had.

My school started a parade my senior year.  Here is my view from the Mu Alpha Theta / National Honor Society float.  Hey, those people were the cool kids.

I had to add this picture because BOTH my boys have been the AP Stats Correlation King.  My oldest was supposed to ride in this parade as Correlation King, but the band director at the time would not let him out of marching with the band.  The youngest was Correlation King in the spring, so no parade but he wore the crown in school all day.

It turned out to be too cold for good pictures at the football game, and my children are refuseniks when it comes to the dance.  As usual, the Band Boosters did the coat check at the dance, which is always entertaining, but I sat that one out this year.  Hope you enjoyed my Class of 84 flashback!

College Report Saturday

Part of the purpose for writing this blog was to document the college process.  Since I started the blog with the process already in progress, I haven't found an entry point to write about it yet.  So let's just jump in.

You would think, having done this before, that this time it would be a piece of cake.  We definitely learned things from the first time around, but it is still an overwhelming process.  Even with all the experience & knowledge that the husband, who teaches at a specialized high school where ALL the kids go to college, most of them selective colleges, and myself from teaching at the community college and involved in a statewide transfer panel, bring to the game, we still find it confusing and overwhelming at times.

One lesson learned from the first child - VISIT the college!  Every school he visited, he got into.  Every school he applied to with no contact, wait-listed. All otherwise equal schools.  (Except the safety school where if you met the criteria, you were in).  With electronic applications, kids can apply to way too many schools, so colleges need some way to sort the otherwise qualified applicants to determine who is likely to enroll.  Visiting shows interest, not just playing a numbers game.

 So the past two summers we have visited a total of 13 schools. From the start, the youngest was pretty sure about two things.  He liked small.  He hates heat.  (So that dashed my dream of sending him to the school in my native state of Texas, the one I should have gone to, but chickened out of).

 Turns out 13 may have been too many, as ALL of us were burned out on visits by the end.  We ended up missing a couple that were promising but none of us had it in us to go out again.  The youngest certainly, wasn't having it.

From the visits, he has narrowed it to 8 schools.  All of them are in our region of the country.  One in our home state, and 5 other states represented.  All liberal arts colleges, with the smallest about 1200 students and the largest about 3200.  All Division 3; three with exceptionally good music programs.  (The 3rd thing he is sure about, he wants to continue playing).

 Part of my paranoia of privacy means that I will NOT be mentioning their names until the big reveal when he makes his final selection, but have included some random pictures of some to keep it interesting.

Empty Nest Preview Weekend: Fun & Worry

This past weekend, we got a taste of life with the empty nest.  The youngest went with the Marching Band to Very Large Amusement Park two states over.  They left after school Friday and returned before 5 (a.m.) Sunday morning.  Now, this is not the first time we have had this preview.  Oldest & youngest took this same trip when they were senior/freshman.  The youngest has also had two Spring Break Band Trips during the past two years, which did not coincide with the oldest's Spring Break.  But since this is the last band trip, and since we actually had stuff planned, instead of just working, this was a particularly nice weekend.

Friday afternoon was lovely weather to help with bus loading.  The smell of diesel buses always takes me back to my church choir tour days in high school.  Perhaps I will write about that formative experience sometime as they were the number one motivation for me to push my kids hard into music.  That evening the husband & I, along with my mom, went to a very nice restaurant with gift cards that had been sitting in a drawer for over a year.  Foodies and vegetarians may shudder, but to me, nothing says fancy dinner better than prime rib, a potato, and onion bread!  Paired with a Blood Orange Cosmo beforehand and Coconut Banana Cream Pie!  Yum.

Saturday morning I skipped yoga class and we took a long walk at a large nature preserve.  This was how we spent many weekends pre- and early marriage, before kids.  Later we went to a beer tasting event in our town, within walking distance of our house.  Ever had a Saison?  Or a smoked porter with vanilla bean?  Yes, please.  And finally relaxing in front of the fire pit.  Early to bed, because like I said, up at 4 to go pick up the retuning musician.

Nice as it was, the weekend also provided some of the anxiety from a distance that one experiences when the (grown) children are away.  I was not worried about the one on the band trip; we are old hands at that.  However, I heard from one of the kids going on the trip that my oldest, who goes to college about an hour and a half from the Very Large Amusement Park, was planning on taking a road trip, as he still has close ties to certain kids in the band.  He doesn't have a car at college, so we weren't sure if or how he would get there.  I decided that he is 20 years old, and it would be best to just let it happen if it was going to happen (just hoping he wouldn't make any of the kids miss call time or something).  It turns out that he took Amtrak to the town the park is near, then WALKED to the park.  Then back.  Now it was only a five mile walk, but after the fact I Google mapped it.  I'm glad I didn't know.  I am very sensitive to location privacy and my kids' privacy with this blog, so I won't say where this park is, but lets just say, very hazardous roadways!  Far worse than I would have imagined, and I am thankful no one ran him over or tried to pick him up.  Or that the cops didn't haul him in.  I have gently explained to him that it is possible to call a cab!

I find with the college student that anxiety is out of sight, out of mind.  I don't worry about him when he is away, unless I know (and I usually don't) that something is happening.  I guess I have to brace myself for two next year!

Senior Night & the High Note King

Last Friday was Senior Night at the football game, where the football players, cheerleaders, poms, trainers, and yes, marching band seniors and their parents get to parade around the track for a brief moment of glory.  (Very brief compared to the interminable waiting beforehand).

Here is the brief moment of glory.

And here is a relaxed moment with friends during the interminable waiting.

The JV game went late, so by the time the Senior Night ceremonies and 9/11 commemorations were done, and a shortened pre-game show on the track, the varsity game didn't get started until about 8:15 p.m.  Despite how exhausted the senior was, occasional glances through the binoculars showed he was having a lot of fun.  The junior high bands played in the stands with them, and the band was loud.

Believe it or not, we have learned to pick his trumpet out of the crowd at times.  I have designated him the High Note King, because in a lineup of good senior trumpet players, the high notes have become his niche.  He's the one hitting that killer note -"land of the free" in the Star-Spangled Banner.   He also gets a high note in at the end of "Thriller" during the Marching Show.  He is not one for solos - he is not part of the trio of trumpets featured during the Elvis medley.  He does, however, have a few solo bars during "Bohemian Rhapsody", which made its debut that night.  As is typical, he did not share with us beforehand that this was coming.  But we had a great view of him on the field and as soon as we heard the notes, we knew it was him.  Tremendous parental pride - this is the kid who really struggled with his instrument in 6th grade and he has had periods of challenge with it from time to time since.  But this is also the kid who works and works and doesn't give up.  Both me and his dad were just beaming Friday night!

Band Boosters: Emptying the Nest, Losing a Community Connection

Tonight is the first Band Boosters meeting of the year.  I am starting my 5th year as an officer - my second year as President.   And though I have been telling myself, just one more year of monthly Monday commitments, I am wondering if it is going to be a big shock when next year, it is just gone out of my life.  For that is the thing, when your last one goes, it is not just your child that is missing from the house, but it is all the activities, schedules, organizations, and connections to community that goes with him.  For our family, our children's involvement in the high school band, and my involvement with Band Boosters, is really the only connection to the town we live in.  Since neither myself nor my husband are from here, and neither of us have family here, the schools are our link to this town.  When that connection is severed next year, there is really nothing holding us here (Except pathetic real estate values and virtually unsellable homes - it was great living in one of the fastest growing counties in the country.  Until it wasn't.)  We do have nice neighbors, but the majority of them are still firmly in the "kids in school" stage of life.  Our jobs take our focus away from here, though the community college where I am on faculty includes this town and draws many students from our town.  Working through this process of leaving this part of the community and figuring out what to replace it with is part of the purpose of this blog.  I know there are plenty of empty next blogs out there, but those are for another day.

For now, I have a meeting to run and new band families to welcome!

Friday Night Lights

Marching band season started a few weeks ago (and I will post my pictures of that some time I promise) but this past weekend was the football home-opener so the band had their "official" field show debut.  Bands don't travel to away games where we are - if any of my Texas friends are reading this, I would like to know if Texas bands still travel -  so this was in fact the second week of football.  They won last week.

Whatever, as always, lead-up time is crazy around here, so this is what passes for asking the youngest to pose for a picture.  It is actually not too bad, but what you don't see is that I grabbed the half-eaten hot dog out of his hand in order to take the picture.  Then he & the hot dog were out the door.  Hopefully the hot dog is not still in the car!

The band only marched two songs, stood for the third, and substituted the fight song for the fourth.  He is disappointed with their progress.  We left in the 3rd quarter.  And the team lost, but to a Top 20 team in the state.

I thought I took more pictures at the game, but I seem to have deleted them, so here are a couple to hold us over until next home game in two weeks.  Which should be Senior Night. Record: 1-1

Band walking in for pre-game show on the track.

Color guard leading the way.  Coin toss going on in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Block Out

Fourth day of school today, and the wear & tear is already starting to show.  You see, our high school had been on a 4x4 block schedule for the past 10 years or so.  That means the school day was 4x 90-minute class periods.  The kids took only 4 classes at a time, and since ours always had 1 class of band/gym alternating days, they never had more than 3 academic classes at a time.  Sometimes only two classes were really "serious".   And because the classes were so long each day, we found with our kids, at least, that homework was a rare occurrence.

But this year, the district switched back to a traditional schedule of 7 - 8 classes, 40 minutes a day, all year long.  The educator in me thinks this is far superior to block (we see one result at the college where I teach in the form of poor math placement scores due to extended time off from math).  But, I think it is really unfortunate that the youngest & his classmates had to make the transition with only one year left to go.  These kids are now adjusting to a heavier class load, actual homework because there is not time in class, the same full schedule of extra-curriculars, and at the same time, starting the college process, which is the equivalent of a class in and of itself, at least during fall semester..

Check out "early bird gym" -  zero hour, which means 6:20 a.m.  This is the child who prefers to sleep til noon then stay up til the wee hours of the a.m.  Full schedule then band after school.  He is exhausted, but won't admit it yet.

He chose this schedule, btw, after three years of not going for a challenge.  We are proud of him for not slacking senior year, but warned him that he had no idea what was coming with the end of block.  I think he is starting to figure it out.

P.S. That 2013-2014 course request list is new this year.  I was a little sad to see it since there won't be any 2013-2014 course requests!  At least not at this school.

Class of 2013

I am starting this blog to capture this final year of active, full-time parenting by chronicling the senior year of the youngest (second) child.  I know from the first go-round with the older child that senior year, applying to college, graduation, and the college send-off are fraught with emotion, and require intensive hands-on parenting to successfully navigate.  It was literally the most stressful parenting year since toddler-hood.

I was originally going to do "Year of Lasts" on my Facebook page, but that venue has become increasingly unsatisfying and I am trying to reduce my presence there.  Instead, I will try to use this blog to force myself to SLOW DOWN and enjoy this process and my kids, and maybe at the same time offer advice to other parents going through the same thing now or in the future.  (Ha, ha if anyone reads this).

So, I am already behind - school started three days ago!  Here we go, Class of 2013!