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<p>that is an interesting tactic, have not heard that before. My son’s school if you do not sit for the AP exam, you have to sit for the teacher’s final exam. Some kids pay the $80 and sleep through the test just to avoid the final exam.</p>
<p>Good Morning all!! DS just left for his AP Bio test… then he has 2 Econ AP’s on Thursday and it’s over. He is having a great time enjoying his last days of school… has a GF… but I think it will be short lived as he leaves for his hike in 2 weeks.</p>
<p>Texas… THANKS for the gap year link!!!</p>
<p>My girl’s prom date is doing a gap year with his family. He’s accepted at Perdue, but will be traveling to Brazil, S.Africa, Malaysia and more this year. Lucky guy! </p>
<p>Thanks for the beer tip, Narragansett makes some nice ales. I’ll look for their summer seasonal.</p>
<p>Didn’t have anything cool to write this am, so I thought I would just say good morning so I can write about my fave movies in the edit box. But instead I will write some of it here: Disney Hercules is the most underrated Disney movie. Sure they got the story wrong (what kids wants to know that a mortal woman had an illegitimate child and another goddess wants to kill a child) but the “fates” singing, the little imps (especially Bobcat Goldwaith) and pointy-boobed Megara are some of my favorite moments.
Love Up, Love Wall-e, and cry during the scene in Cars where it shows how the highways killed small town America. The worst was Toy Story 3, where the little boy is going off to college and is giving away his toys. DS went to the theater with us to see it, and all the parents came out with red eyes.</p>
<p>Yeah, Toy Story 3 was a killer when it came out a couple of years ago, I can’t even imagine watching it now! I’ve never seen any of the Cars movies. And I do love Hercules and Tarzan–adoption storylines always get me, being a reunited adoptee myself. Phil Collin’s “You’ll Be in My Heart”–omg, can’t hear that one without becoming a blubbering mess.</p>
<p>So graduation speakers at my girl’s school are always the class president and two students who volunteer/audition to speak. (There’s no valedictorian/salutorian because pretty much everyone’s GPA is phenomenal.) My girl is auditioning Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>I win the prize: I fell asleep during Wall-e, Up, and Harry Potter (during an “exciting” quidditch match scene). And I find board games boring. Plus, chaperoning elementary school field trips was my idea of hell.</p>
<p>MizzBee–you just beat me to it! Hercules was and is our all time favorite. S watched it almost everyday, whilst wearing a hercules costume and carrrying a sword. He ran around the house acting out the parts when the movie was done. Very fond memories of that.</p>
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<p>Sista! I only chaperoned one–a kindergarten trip to a farm. After that I “had to work.”</p>
<p>So he got the tux rented. His date needs to go in sometime this week to pick the color for his bow tie (he wants to match her dress). He’s very excited that he picked the style of tux with the bow tie. It’s become one of his trademarks for the few times he dresses up.</p>
<p>AP/IB weighting here also depends on sitting for the exams. Though yeah–not sure it really matters at this point GPA-wise. He’s IB full diploma and as a point of personal/academic pride DOES want to get the diploma. He’ll need to get that info sent into S’more, though again, will it really make a difference in the long run?</p>
<p>Our school pays AP tests if you took the class (i.e., not for self-study). In return, you have to take the test if you want the AP grade weight. At last ranking, he had gone from 8 to 6 with no weighting for senior APs as no exams had been taken at the time. I think S cares about the weight because there will be a final ranking and there might be one person in the top five he’d like a shot at displacing.</p>
<p>Two spring concerts last week. S and I had trouble spotting D so when the saxophone section was introduced, I pointed her out. She saw me pointing and stuck out her tongue at me (from the stage). 
S’s concert reminded us why he’s mostly just glad it’s over. He won the John Philip Sousa award (outstanding band student) but didn’t get the WKRP reference when I called it the “coveted silver sow award.” <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>Had the grad shrine at church yesterday. I could tell he was getting the feeling it was more about the adults so I told him, “here’s the table; do what you want with it.” It was his last Sunday as a youth acolyte (possibly understood by most folks as “altar boy,” but since we’ve had girls for years, we use “acolyte”) and was recognized for nine years of service.</p>
<p>Three APs this week (Bio, US Govt, and Macro) and school board recognition of National Merit Commended status. Friday we go to Michigan for a weekend rehearsal with his summer jazz ensemble. He comes back to a week of little-to-nothing school-wise and graduates next Friday.</p>
<p>Youngsters today know nothing about Les Nessman and the flying birds.</p>
<p>I think it’s basic cultural literacy to know whether you’re a “Jennifer guy” (Loni Anderson) or a “Bailey guy” (Jan Smithers). :)</p>
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<p>Grad shrines will be next Sunday at our church. I cringed at this extra assignment for the seniors, but surprisingly, D spent a little time on hers last week, and seemed to be getting into it. So maybe this will be OK.</p>
<p>Acolyte master is encouraging graduating seniors to continue to serve during the summer when available. Need to get more younger people trained as servers…</p>
<p>Finished with my nap, so am playing around on Naviance because the Guidance Office finally updated it (the kids were supposed to be updated their counselors on their admits, but evidently they weren’t, because they had a short activity period last week where the all the seniors filled out “senior surveys” with that information. Of the smallish liberal arts places S applied and turned down, a few others got in also, but no one’s going there. One classmate is heading to M-bury, but that seems to be it for the small liberal arts of that level crowd. His friends are all going to much bigger places. Interesting. And no wonder no one’s heard of S-more. He’s the first one to get in since they started using Naviance in 2006.</p>
<p>I knew D was a chip off the old block when she insisted we walk out of the Rugrats movie at age 3. Phew. I have never chaperoned anything. I have done the minimum baking possible without having the school call DSS. On the other hand I spend hours listening to every day’s minute-by-minute account of school adventures (most of it I find really interesting). I have driven countless miles and spent hours that must amount to months working on a laptop in the car while she was rehearsing one thing or another. </p>
<p>Val, Sal, and StuCo pres give speeches at our graduation. D wrote one anyway, couldn’t help herself. I guess she’ll have to give it to the rabbits who are finishing off my garden at the moment. She has 2 weeks left of school but she’s calling it in at this point. Rehearsal will mean she skips senior awards night etc. She wants to have a little family party here and skip the grad night extravaganza (they put them on an all night Boston harbor cruise, basically to keep them off the roads). I clearly remember the wave of nostalgia that overwhelmed me as I graduated from high school (It involved listening to Macarthur Park over and over for hours)-- I can’t imagine such a thing will strike her but we’ll see.</p>
<p>SteveC has endeared himself to me forever for quoting the WKRP turkey episode and revealing he’s a Bailey man. That is all.</p>
<p>“Oh the humanity!”</p>
<p>D’s school has val and sal as people with the highest GPA. Two student grad speakers selected by audition. D is a top-10 student but not val/sal. She wrote a speech and auditioned last week; made it to the final round (4 candidates for the 2 speaker positions). Final auditions are this afternoon (right after AP physics). Would be so nice for her and the visiting g’parents if she gets picked.</p>
<p>D woke up with sore neck and headache. 
Of course I’m a little worried, but she thinks she probably tweaked something at swing dance which is highly probable. She also said she might be getting sick, which would be really bad this week - her Capstone performance is Thursday morning - which is a big deal at her school. I told her to go to the nurses office if she really feels sick later - and hope she doesn’t. She also has dance pictures on Wednesday and we’re at the point where every day there is something essential. Academically she only has one important test left - her Econ final… so after Thursday a lot should be easier. Stress will be in the red zone until then.</p>
<p>Thinking about Disney movies and hearing people’s memories really brought back a lot of fun memories, especially of the music. D danced to some of those songs when she was younger. I agree on Toy Story 3 - we were ALL in tears by the time their lives were in peril (you know the part - no spoilers), and giving away toys!! noooo. We are a devoted stuffed animal family who felt like all our beloved toys were real. Hard to pick favs but my childhood fav was 101 Dalmations and I have to say I do love the Fantasias and Mulan - and music from Tarzan and Lion King. Least favorite has to be Hunchback of Notre Dame. Could there BE a more inappropriate Disney movie? D was 3 when we went… Here’s a quote from Wiki - “Frollo soon develops lustful feelings for Esmeralda and, upon learning of her escape, instigates a city-wide manhunt for her in which he burns down countless houses in his way.” Charming and age appropriate, right? We went with her petite southern grandma - and we all had a good laugh over it afterwards. Maybe they could revive it in 3D?</p>
<p>One fun animation memory. D loved loved loved The Land Before Time series. They were our go-to calming videos to take on trips. At some point our little girl started saying “Me don’t want to…” and other grammatically incorrect things. I was panicking at her language problems, until I realized that’s how Petrie talks in LBT… lol.</p>
<p>Today I’m going to work on pictures and figure out grad party invites. I wish I had done TinyPrints. I didn’t realize the Jostens annoucements are completely generic invites to the commencement of the class as a whole - and not really appropriate for anyone on our list.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much time you have, kathie-- but the Tinyprints ones don’t take super long to get to you… </p>
<p>We loved the Land Before Time series here, too, though they became increasingly lame with each sequel, didn’t they? The first one gets every time. That was actually quite a well-done movie with a great score, imo. D (the scaredy cat) would cry at daycare dropoff every morning when she was two, and the only thing that helped was that they had these kind of big plastic Sera, Little Foot and Petrie dolls. Pretty soon the other kids would run and get them as soon as we walked in the door-- it was so sweet. Compassion in little ones=priceless.</p>