Snow Bunny in Houston
We have an excited little snow bunny in Houston. She wore her white wool cap to school with a wool scarf around her neck. You look like a snow bunny, Cici, I told her. She is excited because the forecast is for snow to fall in Houston today, perhaps as much as 1-2 inches, with up to 6 inches in a few places.
Cici is skeptical about whether it will snow or not. It isn't cold enough, she told me. But the temperature will be dropping all day, and it is supposed to drop all the way to 25 degrees tonight, I told her. And if it starts snowing a lot, they will close your school. Really? Now she got very excited. In China we stay in school no matter how much it snows, she told me.
Ping rode with us today, just in case the weather does turn bad as predicted. The colder weather doesn't bother her. I found her outside last night when I arrived home from the office. She had bought bags of topsoil and was putting it around the roots of the plants in her little garden. Probably not a bad idea if the temperature is going to drop to the mid-twenties tonight.
The snow bunny isn't real happy with her school right now, and I share her view. The class schedule for next semester is such that she is being forced to drop either band or chemistry honors, and she is a star in both those classes. Then they are trying to force her to take art because it is the only available course in one part of the day, but she detests art and doesn't want to be forced to take it. The schedule would also force her out of web mastering, a class that she enjoys and in which she excels. Not to mention that web mastering is an important life skill while art class would be a complete waste of time for her.
Cici made the mature decision to drop band rather than dropping chemistry honors, which means she won't be able to go on the band tour to Chicago and Wisconsin. That is a big disappointment for her. She will likely take a study hall period rather than take art class.
That still leaves an issue with theology, which the school of course gave the highest priority to in deciding her class schedule. We give it the lowest priority, so I have told the school that they need to accommodate Cici in some way. All she does in sophomore theology is complete workbook sections each class period, she tells me. If that is the case, then she can complete those workbook sections while sitting in 9th grade theology class.
My other snow bunny also bundled up for the cold today. She is bustling around the office and has served a breakfast of bean soup with lots of brown rice in it so that it is more like a porridge than a soup. A cup of hot ginger tea is supposed to help with the cold weather. An apple will keep the doctor away.
But for now, back to the battle about Cici's class schedule.
Cici is skeptical about whether it will snow or not. It isn't cold enough, she told me. But the temperature will be dropping all day, and it is supposed to drop all the way to 25 degrees tonight, I told her. And if it starts snowing a lot, they will close your school. Really? Now she got very excited. In China we stay in school no matter how much it snows, she told me.
Ping rode with us today, just in case the weather does turn bad as predicted. The colder weather doesn't bother her. I found her outside last night when I arrived home from the office. She had bought bags of topsoil and was putting it around the roots of the plants in her little garden. Probably not a bad idea if the temperature is going to drop to the mid-twenties tonight.
The snow bunny isn't real happy with her school right now, and I share her view. The class schedule for next semester is such that she is being forced to drop either band or chemistry honors, and she is a star in both those classes. Then they are trying to force her to take art because it is the only available course in one part of the day, but she detests art and doesn't want to be forced to take it. The schedule would also force her out of web mastering, a class that she enjoys and in which she excels. Not to mention that web mastering is an important life skill while art class would be a complete waste of time for her.
Cici made the mature decision to drop band rather than dropping chemistry honors, which means she won't be able to go on the band tour to Chicago and Wisconsin. That is a big disappointment for her. She will likely take a study hall period rather than take art class.
That still leaves an issue with theology, which the school of course gave the highest priority to in deciding her class schedule. We give it the lowest priority, so I have told the school that they need to accommodate Cici in some way. All she does in sophomore theology is complete workbook sections each class period, she tells me. If that is the case, then she can complete those workbook sections while sitting in 9th grade theology class.
My other snow bunny also bundled up for the cold today. She is bustling around the office and has served a breakfast of bean soup with lots of brown rice in it so that it is more like a porridge than a soup. A cup of hot ginger tea is supposed to help with the cold weather. An apple will keep the doctor away.
But for now, back to the battle about Cici's class schedule.
hate to hear of the problems with school scheduling, hopefully they can accommodate her, alternative is private school or home school
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I hadn't thought about home schooling, Harry, but she might get a better education that way. This is a private school, which makes it all the more aggravating. We pay school taxes for the public school that she doesn't even attend, then pay private school tuition on top of those taxes, and then run into this kind of problem.
Cici's lawyer during the adoption process is a Vietnamese lady who has her children home schooled. She hired teachers to come to her home to teach a curriculum that she set up for her kids. The kids speak 5 languages. Cici met them and they feel very isolated from the world because they seldom mix with other kids their age. I guess that is a down side of home schooling.
Maybe we could have Cici office schooled by bringing teachers to our office every day for her classes. Cici and Ping have already claimed the Houston Suite as their work space anyway.
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isolation is the downside of home schooling, some solutions are to group with a few other home schooler for a mini class environment, & to add in extracurricular activities ie. the Chinese community center has many classes & activities evening & weekends. My wife is in a adult english class there M-F, 1-4pm & I have been impressed with the organization.
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You pay taxes for schools because this is a Republic. Much like some people I know that don't drive, don't want their tax money to go to road work. I guess they think food magically appears in the market they walk to!
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I don't disagree with your comment, Smitty, though our Republic (or at least the Houston Independent School District) has failed us miserably with the public school option that they offer to residents in our neighborhood. The school is a perennial loser, well known for failing to meet even minimum standards year after year. When I bought the house, the school district was immaterial to me. Now it matters, but the girls won't even discuss selling the house and moving.
I looked in to Harry's suggestion about home schooling, but Ping is strongly against it, so that isn't a viable option for us. We will just have to muddle through somehow.
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I imagine Angela will just have to bear with it for the rest of the academic year, until she can go somewhere more inline with what the three of you want for her education. Is she still interested in the arts school?
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She is still interested in that school, Smitty, but we can't apply until we receive the standardized test results that should be arriving any day now. The application deadline is January 8, so time is getting to be a little tight.
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Well, I've never been a fan of religious schools, so I hope it works out for her, to get to another school!
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