Parents of the Class of 2019

[Gumbo4x4]

DD has been invited to a coed sleepover & we do not know the girl's parents. DD is having trouble understanding why DW & I aren't quite as thrilled as she is.

 

[wishesuponastar]

I agree with you and your wife. No co-ed sleepover for my 15yo daughter either.

 

[mom2rtk]

DD has been invited to a coed sleepover & we do not know the girl's parents. DD is having trouble understanding why DW & I aren't quite as thrilled as she is.

Parents can be so unfair.

 

[momz]

DD has been invited to a coed sleepover & we do not know the girl's parents. DD is having trouble understanding why DW & I aren't quite as thrilled as she is.

It seems your DD has COMPLETELY LOST HER MIND!!!

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

Even as lazy a parent as I am, I don't think I'd let DD go to a coed sleepover! If she were having a party at the house and a male friend had an emergency and couldn't get home, he'd be welcome to stay, in her little brother's room with him, so not at a sleepover!

 

[soccerdad72]

First semester grades are in and DS was just under 4.0 (3.98) for the semester, but keeps his overall GPA above 4.0, so that's good. The best part is that even with battling illness midterm week, all but one of his midterm scores raised his semester GPA (Qtr 1 and 2 grades count as 40%, with the midterm scores counting for 20%).

He's applied to take Honors Physics (AP Physics is only offered senior year) and was recommended for AP Calc AB. Still up in the air on Spanish, but I think he'll take Honors Spanish 4. He's also adding Computer Programming courses next year (replacing Band) plus is looking into joining the Robotics Club. I think he's finally coming out of the funk he seemed to go through for a lot of the fall.

 

[mjkacmom]

Dd (and her bff) got into the elite choir (only 4 alto slots, and dozens auditioned). I'm so glad, she was going to quit choir if she didn't get in (she's not a fan of the main choir's director). It's a weighted class, and she'll be inducted into the music honor society next year. Looks like straight A's this marking period, but by the skin of her teeth in some classes.

 

[bjscheel]

Good jobs on the above!

We spent a lot of time this weekend trying to figure out an acting piece for DD to do at individual speech contest. She can't do musical theater because there can only be 3 and 4 seniors want to do it. I found some "cute" monologues, or a collection of shorter Disney monologues, but she wants more dramatic emotion. Seems like a lot of the monologues we've found for teens are either too 'teeny-bopper OMG' stuff or cliche teen angst or very dark and uncomfortable like sexual abuse. I found a couple she hasn't looked at yet- Nora from Brighton Beach Memoirs, but at the moment she's hoping to write her own original piece. She's been dying to do something Hamilton, so she wants to write Aaron Burr's thoughts during and after the duel (not using any lines from the musical). The assistant coach is going to try to find something too but she doesn't always come up with the best stuff so DD wants something to propose if she doesn't like hers. She has until Friday to figure this out. This is the most stressful part of speech contest!

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

DD is taking creative writing this semester and they just finished the introduction to poetry. Now, I'll caveat with the typical Dis parent's statement that DD loves to write, and she is honestly really good at it...

So, we're talking about how it's going, and she relates this story to me about her class. She said there's 3 types of kids in the class, the ones who like to write, the ones who think it's going to be an easy A, and the emo kids you'd see at a Starbucks poetry slam (I know they don't exist, but mental picture here). After they've finished going over the introduction, there's about half the class time left, so the teach tells them to take 10 minutes and write a quick poem, about writing as the subject. Then, after the 10 minutes are up the kids who wanted to could share their poems. So, after 10 minutes, the teacher asks for volunteers to share, and of course the emo kid's hands all go up like Horshack calling to Mr. Kotter. The poems are all about the same, a boy/girl staring angstily at their paper trying to write angsty stuff. She could only take about 3 of these before DD decides to hold up her hand. The teacher calls on her, and she reads her poem. After she's done, the teacher literally looks at her with her jaw dropped and says "What the hell?! You just wrote that? You didn't have it from before?!" DD says nope, just made it up and the teacher is thrilled. Apparently you could hear emo egos crashing against the floor all over the room. Rather than writing about someone trying to write, she decided to write about words, and the power they have. So, for your reading pleasure, here is her poem... Yeah, I'm kind of proud.

Words writhe and twist on paper, death throes for scribbles with deep heartbeats
Meaning floods each page,
While color spins helter-skelter in black and white scratches
Artistry in articulation, power in being purposeless, creativity in commentary
Subtle twitches forcing new connotations in the shackles of definition

Words erupt with pen strokes,
Lines of scrawl in no longer copy paste rows of hazy lines,
But hazy sentiment that warms a being back to weakly glowing mornings and soft kisses,
Reminiscing about times that have never existed
And glassy havens outside the confines of reality and entropy
Artistry

Volumes and volumes of convoluted screeching rants
Digging away chunks of the mind and psyche for deep-seated authorial intent
A proverbial treasure that can prove ultimately meaningless, indecipherable frantic screams
Or soft caresses with gentle description that pull one’s eyes closed like shutters,
Sliding curtains down on the quiet landscape of story and morality,
Anger tucked under the babbles of a brook in a soft satin blanket
Power

Feathers of colors that have never existed,
Logical fractals of words on the primaries, spurts of spontaneity on the secondaries,
Ideas being shed like soft down in molting season
Poisonous promise and promises drip from every crook in the words
Or shining power dribbling from the chin of the creator
Fit into one word, one line, one sentence, stanza or epic,
Creativity

 

[bjscheel]

That is quite the poem! Amazing!

State Speech was yesterday. They got two 2's and a 1. I was surprised because they did so much better than at districts. I guess the judges' comments were more on the play itself than the acting but anyway they did it well. They had fun and watched a lot of musical theater entries.

Then they had a party after and DD got asked to prom. We knew it was coming but it's nice to have it official now. We already got a dress that we found on a Facebook swap. It was 1.5 hours away but we were going to be in the area last weekend so we decided to check it out. She loves it and it's very similar to the $629 dress she had wanted.

Then today friends that had moved 3 hours away stopped by on their way home from a retreat and the boy asked her to his dance next weekend. She would love to go but 3 hours away is a problem. She is having quite the weekend!

She ended up writing her own monologue for individual speech. Now that group speech is over, time to memorize that. There is a practice contest for comments only already this Friday. IDK if they are going or if anyone will be ready that soon.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

This is a busy weekend! So far, DD isn't interested in going to dances, she's gone to a couple of the casual ones, and said it's just very loud music and bad dancing. They tend to go hit laser tag or dart warz instead.

I always hated when judges for performances graded on whether or not they liked the content rather than whether or not the content was well delivered. It shouldn't matter if they didn't like the play, as long as the acting was great, judge that!

 

[Gumbo4x4]

One of DD's friends has a plan to ask a boy to prom. Apparently, he's a big Tom Brady fan, so the girl is going to write the invitation on a deflated football. DD's a big football fan, so she practically fell out of her seat laughing when she heard that one

 

[bjscheel]

Good one! DD's was hastily written on a piece of stationery that had a cat singing Jingle Bells on it...because that's what was laying around at the friend's house. DD and her date were Audrey and Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors last fall, so he wrote "Audrey would you go 'II' prom with me" on it and taped it on her back while they were playing Just Dance. So not a big production but that's okay. At least he made a musical reference He had asked DD18 who is known as the school artist to make a poster, but he didn't ask until Thursday and she asked for supply money up front and it didn't happen.

DD's main reason for wanting to go to prom this year is so she can be at one with her sister.

 

[PollyannaMom]

DD's main reason for wanting to go to prom this year is so she can be at one with her sister.

Awww, that's sweet!

 

[PollyannaMom]

For those with driving teens, did your insurance go up when they got their permit, or when they got their actual license?

 

[mjkacmom]

For those with driving teens, did your insurance go up when they got their permit, or when they got their actual license?

No permit yet, but my insurance went up after my older two got their licenses, not permits.

 

[bjscheel]

For those with driving teens, did your insurance go up when they got their permit, or when they got their actual license?

For us I think it was the school permit- so I guess whenever they can be out on their own.

DD had a conference speech contest yesterday, which is really just a practice run for districts. DD decided on Thursday afternoon that the acting piece she wrote just didn't have enough movement in it so her friend started writing her a new piece around 4:00 and she had it before supper. She crammed to memorize and block it in one night. They did let her refer to her script at this contest since it's practice, and she got a 1 so I think she'll stick with this piece.

 

[mom2rtk]

For those with driving teens, did your insurance go up when they got their permit, or when they got their actual license?

No change until they got a full license.

 

[bjscheel]

Awww, that's sweet!

Well now in the week since she got asked to prom, I think she will also be happy to be at prom with her date, I think something is developing there...

 

[PollyannaMom]

Thanks, everyone!