<p>Is it happy hour yet? What a week I’ve had…YY cheers.</p>
<p>That’s right, we had cosmo a few weeks ago. Here is a virtual champagne to everyone (since it’s virtual, we could do expensive).</p>
<p>I decided to take today off to get rested up for D2’s party tomorrow night.</p>
<p>Our house has been hit by the flu. My youngest has had a low fever on and off since Tues. (when she got the H1N1 shot, BTW.) I thought it was a reaction but now I believe she was already exposed. DS definitely had the flu this past week.</p>
<p>DS and I got the H1N1 shot yesterday at his school ( I was a non-medical volunteer and they offered us shots as a perk). I hope that it “kicks in” before the virus is rampant at his school (not yet). My arm was very sore last night but DS says he dosen’t feel a thing.</p>
<p>About this recent round of virus or flu, I took D to the doctor thurs. She had over 100 after starting to feel sick weds pm. He said he did not think it was flu, but couldn’t be sure. It is not fun even f it isn’t flu.</p>
<p>I’m a little annoyed by my D’s long-time friend. D is so busy with ECs and school that she doesn’t pay too much attention to “fun” stuff like going to the movies, ftbl games, etc. She chooses to join her long-time friend and her group when she wants to go out. Last night, D told me she was going to the movies with them. Late in the afternoon, when she hadn’t heard from her friend, she texted her and found out they had changed their plans. D didn’t feel included so she ended up staying home with me watching TV. I feel bad because D does everything right. She’s doing well in school, sports, ec’s and I’d like her to have relax and have fun but then she’s got a flaky friend like that. I haven’t talked to her about it because I don’t want to upset her. And I’m friends with this girl’s mom. We actually have plans next summer to take them out of town for their birthdays. At this rate, I don’t know if that’s going to happen!</p>
<p>My d2 and I had h1N1 and seasonal flu shots. no reactions. she had her 2 weks ago. I had mine friday.
its frustrating when kids behave that way, hopefully the friend was just oblivious.</p>
<p>On a lighter note , we just came back from D2’s sweet 16 party. The night club scene was a complete success. I requested “Sweet Caroline” as their last song. Every kid was out on the dance floor singing and dancing to the song. The kids had a great time. The only down side was D2 came down with a cold/flu today, but she was able to make it through the party.</p>
<p>ACT scores are out online…
score is looking good for a 10th grader. ds is on the right track.</p>
<p>What? ACT scores? Our kids are sophomores! This is the cafe thread. Lets not have any of that CC/overacheiver stuff here. Please pass the kahlua for my morning coffee.</p>
<p>lilmom - It sounds like our DD’s have the same friend! Last Friday DD said she was going to do something after school with her friend. When I got home from work Friday afternoon DD is there and says that her friend “ditched” her as she got an invite to some cool party that night. DD was mad and decided to make plans with a friend that goes to a different school to go to the movies. Before DD leaves for the movies she gets a text from the friend that ditched her saying the party is off and does DD want to go do something. DD told her she was busy and did not respond to anymore texts from her that night. This friend has done this to DD before so I think she is going to be spending less time with her and more time with her friends that ride at her barn.</p>
<p>Yesterday I offhandedly asked D2 how much her EC (SMART team) was going to cost. I know they are doing some molecular research, so it must cost something (her school charges us for everything). She said, “You signed the permission slip, didn’t you read it? I think it’s really expensive.” Now, that got my attention. I said, " Ok, how much, give a ball park. Why would it be really expensive." She said, “I think it’s like a few thousand $$.” I am generally pretty good about paying for things, especially if it’s educational. I had her quickly contact the director. Turned out, it would just be the cost of a trip from East coast to CA for a presentation next spring. Whew!</p>
<p>Parents - make sure you read the fine print before signing any permission slip.:)</p>
<p>D1 went through this upheaval of longstanding friendships around this age. Problem was she didn’t talk about it so I never really knew what was going on and couldn’t give her advice or a shoulder. Makes me sad now to think about it. But D2 (class of 12) seems to still have her group of friends intact. So far.</p>
<p>Agree with you seiclan - this is the anti-overachiever '12 thread! Too late to join you with coffee and kahlua - must be about time for a glass of chardonnay ;)</p>
<p>It’s only wednesday, but I’ll go for the chardonnay now. Another unbelievably stressfull week…</p>
<p>showmom858, in a way, I’m thankful for D’s flaky friend. It’s allowed me to talk to her about the “not-so-cool” decisions her friend’s been making. D’s sport is really demanding of her time and I wish she had decent friends with whom she can spend her limited free time.</p>
<p>just giving this a bump because it was on page 7… our first term ends tomorrow and conferences on Tuesday to see grades and talk to advisors.</p>
<p>Had one of the first college talks with D last night, she usually isn’t interested AT ALL (her sis is a senior) but she did listen to me talking about test optional schools, schools with spirit, I think she would like a school with some spirit in a football/basketball team (but I don’t play those? to watch! silly!) and other considerations. I told her we would start visiting this summer.</p>
<p>With this one I need to be carefully but slowly laying the groundwork. Her sister was on the college websites herself at this stage.</p>
<p>My son isn’t really interested in the college search thing either. I think that in December, when the PSAT’s come back (all sophomores take them here for practice) he may be ready to start to discuss his options. He is a very very hardworking student and gets decents grades (more A’s than B’s) in very challenging classes but, he is not a great standardized test taker. I am not sure what his actual target schools will be at this point or even if he wants to leave the state (we live in South Florida) or go locally, which can still be 300-500 miles from home!!! There were so many more accessible choices for my husband and myself when we were applying to college (some 35 years ago) since we lived in the tri state area. There are so many choices that are within a 4 hour car drive. Not so here. After going through the whole college search/application process with his two sisters, I would love if he would jump in early and take the reins on this one. </p>
<p>Jackief…does your child go to private school? I never heard of public high schools having conferences unless the kid was in some kind of trouble. My son’s high school has 3250 students (850 in his sophomore class). There is very little actual feedback from teachers…only online access to grades and email.</p>
<p>jackief - thanks for the bump. we had conferences last week - small public school where very few parents take advantage of the conferences, but this time H and I both went, along with D, to check in with all the teachers. D is (hopefully) at the tail end of mono - still going in late some days and still catching up on homework. her grades may slip a little this quarter. oh well.</p>
<p>no idea on colleges for her either. we will probably check in with the college counselor we used for D1 at the end of this school year. seiclan - D2 sounds a lot like your S - decent grades but not a strong standardized test taker. her PSAT scores will tell us a lot. D1 was NMF with a 3.7 GPA - very bright, but unmotivated in HS. D2 will be just the opposite, I expect. and hopefully, she will lead the college search process. we really had to push D1, although I will be more relaxed this time. really. I promise.</p>
<p>What I wonder, is how do kids like my son and PRJ’s D2 do (historically) in college admissions? I hear a lot on CC about those high stats/over achievers with hypsm dreams and we also read about the B students with high SAT’s, but what about the kids with high GPA’s and so so SAT’s? I am not sure what colleges would be a good match for them. Many of the B student’s threads discuss colleges from CTCL and our kids GPA’s and class rank are really…way above these schools BUT…they will go to the auto-reject pile of top 25 schools because of test scores. I guess we will have to cast a very wide net?</p>
<p>seiclan, my D has a really big class in her school, it has been an awkward bulge going through the grades, I think it is down to the high 60’s now 
So yeah, it is a small private school. The whole school 6-12 has fewer than 400 students…</p>
<p>We get mid term reports which include about half a page of comments from each teacher. At the end of the term, we usually get comments from the advisor, but they have having conferences after the first term now. </p>
<p>PRJ and seiclan, my D is another very weak standardized test taker. In fact, if it wasn’t for her sister being at this school, her dismal SSAT scores would have kept her out. But she gets good grades, B+/A- in a school where good grades are not easy to come by. She did a practice PSAT with not encouraging results. </p>
<p>My strategy right now is to take her to a bunch of test optional schools and see what she thinks. She might like what she sees. But we will tell her that this is only a small fraction of what is out there, if she is interested in schools which need tests, then she has to want to do test prep and will do it during next school year. I don’t want to fight with her on this, she needs to want it. Luckily, we are in the northeast and there are lots of test optional schools to look at to get the flavor of lots of different “types” of school.</p>
<p>Good luck, fellow parents, for this ride we are starting :)</p>