School is well under way now. The Imp has settled in and is basically okay with her classes and teachers. Her science teacher will be the thorn in her side all year, but hey, you can't have all your teachers be great.
The Singer came home from school the first day and exclaimed, "I'm never gonna make it through this year!!!" Trying to be sympathetic and not laugh at her dramatics, I inquired about her day. She proceeded to tell me that her classes were going to be hard. [This realization astonished me, as she's taking AP Spanish, Government, Calculus, and English; dual enrollment Anatomy and Physiology; Shakespeare; and Catholic Morality. I'm not sure how she thought her classes WOULDN'T be hard?] After more investigative work on my part (kids rarely tell the real problem outright), I discovered that her AP Spanish was the class really worrying her. Apparently she sat through the first class, not understanding most of what the teacher said. To keep afloat in that class would require extensive time, and she didn't see how she could give it that much time and still keep up in all her other classes. So Thursday she talked to her Spanish teacher and her guidance counselor and she's now taking Honors Spanish IV. She was worried about dropping an AP class hurting her chances of getting in to college. Of course, her friends fueled that worry with comments of "Colleges want you to take the most rigorous courses. Even if you get lower grades. You can't drop an AP class." Ugh. Thankfully, her guidance counselor told her graduating with 6 AP credits and a dual enrollment credit was fine. I know life has changed, but I didn't take ANY AP classes and still was able to get into William and Mary...go figure.
The college search is revving up. Hubby and the Singer are off to UCF for an official tour on August 29. Then the 3 of us (possibly the Imp, too) are head to FSU on Sept 10. We're hoping that these visits will help her get a feel for the campus and help her decide which she prefers.
While doing the college thing, the Imp is stressing over high school choices. And while it seems early, we've got to have applications to the Catholic schools and the magnet schools in by January, and if we decide on a Catholic school, registration payments (non-refundable) are due early March. So I'm praying for lots of patience and guidance this year.
Hubby's off to work already today. He'll put in 8 hours or so today. We've gotten spoiled with him rarely working more than 45 or 50 hours a week, and we don't even usually notice as he often works for an hour or two at home in the evenings. When he first started working for IBM back in 1988, a 50 hour week felt like vacation. In fact, he usually would work for 3 or 4 weeks at 70-80 hour/wk, and then the next 2 months would be 50-55 hour weeks, then things would pick up and a deadline would be coming and the 70-80 hour/wks would resume. I'm not sure how either of us survived that. He use to get up at 4:30 to be at work by 5:15 am. Then he'd come home about 5 to have dinner and spend time with me and the Singer, and then he'd go back into work around 7:30 and stay till midnight. When we talk about that time in our lives, we both marvel at the resiliency of youth.
The girls are waking up and I need to go start my Saturday chores.
2 comments:
Adele,
From what I've been reading, the pendulum seems to be swinging to not overdoing the AP courses. I can't remember exactly when, maybe last spring, the Post had an article, which as I recall recommended 5 as about right. Here's a more recent article, with discussion of pros and cons of over-emphasis on AP: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701116.html
Thanks, Kevin. Her counselor said that UCF and FSU "recommend" 5-6 AP courses. We're all meeting with the counselor next week to try to make sure we have our ducks in a row.
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