More School Rants

So I got this letter from the girls' school telling us how their school has once again been marked as a Program Improvement (PI) school because the kids API test scores did not attain an adequate level. Because of this, they have to hand out applications for us to transfer our kids out to a non PI district school should we wish it. The district will provide transportation as well.

However, if a lot of people apply to transfer their kids out of the district PI schools to non-PI district schools, then the students with the lowest scores and lowest income will get priority. So, in other words, what they would really like is to transport the "problem" children out so that they can raise their overall test scores and put the problem onto one of the other schools to bring down their average.

Does this not disturb anybody else?

And then, at the bottom of the school letterhead, it has a seal declaring that it is "A California Distinguished School." Now, I ask you, distinguished in what?! Certainly not for it's academics...I mean, clearly.

I'm not sure that it is worthwhile to bus my kids out to some other school since most of the objections I have with Emily's school and homework has to do with the Houghton Mifflin workbooks that the district forces all the schools and teachers to use.

I don't even know how to begin to explain some of the moronic and just grammatically incorrect statements and instructions they have on those worksheets. And you just sit there staring at it in horror thinking, these people are supposed to "teach" my kids? What I need to do is to probably scan one of those worksheets next time to illustrate my point.

Emily was always so eager to start school. She loved learning. Her favorite things to do were all those educational workbooks. But once she got into school, I've had to fight with her a lot to do homework. It is just too easy and boring for her (or really frustrating for us). Her first kindergarten teacher at her previous school, got her advanced work to do that was more of her level and she had a lot more fun with it. But when we transferred to this school, her teacher wasn't really willing to do any extra work to teach her anything. So far as I can tell, her new first grade teacher is of the same mind.

The most unfortunate side effect of the No Child Left Behind Act is this: if you are doing well, they don't bother with you. So as they are working to make it so that no one will fail, at the same time, it ends up that no one will excel either.

So, the question is, is it worth while to transfer the kids out of a PI school and doom my kids to long commutes and over crowded schools that work and dooming them to becoming a PI school a few years down the line? Probably not.

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Okay, it wasn't THAT bad but it felt like it for a while. Yesterday started out pretty well. We got the kids off to school without too much trouble. I went to yoga class. And then I went back to pick up Caitlyn from preschool.

She seemed her usual self when I picked her up but complained of some red stuff on her hands. She said she doesn't know where she got it from. I assured her that she can wash her hands when we got home. We got back and I ran to water the pumpkin as it was wilting under the heat. The hose wasn't quite long enough and the crappy plastic reel that the hose is coiled on tipped over and cut off a branch from our newly planted orange tree...along with one of three remaining oranges which was getting really nice and big. I was so upset.

Then I went in to check on Caitlyn and she was complaining that the red stuff wasn't coming off her hands even though she washed with soap and everything. I went to check her out and found she had some kind of rash all over her arms...and legs! I freaked out. I checked the lunch menu to see what they fed the kids and did not find anything unusual on there. I thought maybe she might have a mild case of chicken pox even though she's been vaccinated but she didn't have a fever and she didn't have any on her face. Plus they were not really blisters. Roseola seemed more possible but still no fever or anything. I thought maybe she had a heat rash but they didn't even let the kids out to the playground that day because of the heat. The rash was only mildly itchy so I put her in an oatmeal bath to make her feel better.

The house was covered in balloons and stuff from my birthday which had a really strong latex odor and I wondered if she was having an allergic reaction to them....not that she has ever had a problem with balloons before. But just in case, I gathered up all the balloons and had to dispose of them to be on the safe side.

And then while I was scouring the Internet on what might be affecting Caitlyn, the power went out throughout the house and I heard a bit of a boom in the distance like a car backfiring. It was getting a bit much and had to call Christian at work but the power returned within 5 minutes or so. I never did figure out what happened.

Luckily, that was all that went horribly wrong because I don't think I could have taken more if it was to continue. Caitlyn's rashes seemed less pronounced so I thought there was a chance she would even be better by morning. But when she went to bed she had a few more around her jaw line and cheeks.

I kept her home this morning. She still has the rash but it isn't any worse and she still has no other signs of sickness like fatigue or fever. Christian volunteered to stay with her this morning while my lovely visiting teachers took me out to breakfast for my birthday.

She spent the day doing puzzles...can you tell?

Birthday

Yesterday was my actual birthday. We didn't really have any big plans. The kids had school and the weather was supposed to be scorching hot (kind of like it is so far today). But the weather wasn't that bad.

Over the weekend, Emily started coughing and the night before last, complained of stomach pains. We were not even sure she would end up going to school yesterday but she seemed to feel much better by the morning and went off anyway.

After getting the kids off to school, Christian took me to the nursery to pick out a couple of flowers for my garden. He said the 'girls' wanted to get me a flower each for my birthday.

Shortly after we got back, my best friend Marian surprised me by coming by. Apparently, she and Christian had been making plans. She took the day off from work and drove out from the Pasadena area. We went to pick up Caitlyn from preschool together and she sent us out of the house by ourselves. Christian took us to the movies. I can't remember when the last time was that we went out to a theatre. Mostly because there aren't that many great movies to see.

We went to see Ponyo which is the new animated film by Miyazaki. We wanted to check it out and see if it was any good. We expected to buy it for the girls when it got released to video but it just wasn't as good as his other films. We were a bit disappointed. If we get it, I think we would have to edit out one particular scene. Even the animation was not up to his usual standard though.

After the movie, we went to the Botanic Gardens for a picnic. Marian secretly packed us up a lunch to take with us and everything. It's sad but it's the most time we've had away from the kids for a while where we were able to just spend time together. When we got back, we found that Marian and Caitlyn had decorated the house with balloons and stuff. I actually felt kind of guilty going off by ourselves to go to an animated movie and the botanic gardens without the kids!

Emily got back right after that and Christian had to try to make Emily take a nap so that she can recover from her illness. Marian and Caitlyn and I took off shopping. Unfortunately, Emily wouldn't nap but they got her homework done at least.

We had a little bbq together for dinner and Marian brought this tasty little Mango cake for my birthday. As a matter of fact, I think I'm going to go have the last piece of it right now!

Thanks so much Marian and Christian for making my birthday extra special!

Pictures!

Apparently, it's going to take some time and practice to relearn how to use my new camera. It's nothing like the previous point and shoot I'd been using for so many years now. It's been a long time since I've used my 35mm SLR and yet, its not exactly like using one of those either.

Meanwhile, I've been been harassing the girls with my camera in their faces whenever I can. For fun, I'd thought I would post a few of my results.

Caitlyn getting up from her nap to the sound of my camera. I need to remember to turn down some of the beeps and noises on the camera:

Here is Emily jumping rope in the driveway:

Some miscellaneous nature pictures:

Sky scenes:

This past weekend, we picked up my parents and went for a walk at the Fullerton Arboretum. The girls spent most of the time attempting to climb all the big and neat trees that were there. I don't think we dressed them appropriately (well, actually, they dressed themselves but I should have told them to put on something else)!

Here's a picture that Christian took of us.

I had my mom attempt to take one of us with Christian but she couldn't really hold the camera steady enough and they came out kind of blurred.

And lastly, here is the picture that I thought turned out the best so far. I don't know why I like it, I just do. There's a quality about it that I don't think that a point and shoot can produce.

End of an era

Christian and I have finally come to grips with the end of an era. The era of film that is. When I first met Christian, he was a photographer. Photo editor of the Highlander, that is. The school paper at UCR. I dabbled in photography myself back in high school. We spent our youth travelling our world (which consisted of mostly just the western United States) with cameras in tow. Backpacking and road trips were our great escapes from the world. We'd get home from work Friday night, throw our gear into the back of a truck and off we'd go.

I worked for an auto manufacturer, so I leased many of their vehicles and with the amount of miles I commuted back and forth to work plus our endless road trips, I ended up getting a new car about every 6 months!

We were never quite happy with the pictures we sent in to be developed. The prints invariably came back with heads cropped when the negative were fine. The negatives came back scratched. Or they developed them with dirty over used chemicals out of cheapness or neglect or both. We ended up starting up our own dark room. We'd seal up a closet or bathroom and worked for weekends at a time on our treasured memories. It was very time consuming. We could never quite keep up with the rolls of film we kept bringing back from our trips.

In the end, Christian got me my first digital camera some 7 years or more ago so that I could print my own pictures of family and friends and stuff. We kept the film cameras for our adventures.

Shortly after, we began our family. With kids and a greatly decreased income since I wasn't working anymore, our trips trickled down to once in a blue moon and the film cameras came out less and less until it basically sat packed away in the back of the closet along with all our darkroom equipment. With the hundreds (okay, thousands) of pictures we took of the kids, it would have been impossible to take them with film.

When we moved, we found no room anywhere to store all our now useless darkroom equipment and camera supplies (among other things). Our dreams of restarting our photography again when the kids grew up and left the house became just a pipe dream and we knew it. Film, chemicals, paper are all getting more and more difficult to procure. Digital photography has improved significantly, although it will never produce the same results.

First, we thought that we would have to end up throwing a lot of it away. Christian decided to try to sell them online. Most of it has all gone in the past couple of weeks. It has been a rather sad and stressful experience. It went rather a lot quicker than we anticipated though...probably due to the rock bottom prices he set them at. There is still a niche for this kind of thing apparently. Mostly by older, retired individuals who still hang on to the old art of photography. He priced them to go quickly so that the whole ordeal would be over sooner than later.

With some of the proceeds of the sale, he ended up getting me this baby for my birthday. My very own DSLR! I never thought we would be able to afford one. I'll still be able to use my old lenses and flash!

Unfortunately, my own 35mm SLR is quite worthless now. Although once a really nice camera in its own right, there is simply no market for it anymore. Christian's camera, a Nikon F4, was an icon of it's time. A professional work horse of a camera. Used by National Geographic photographers and such in it's day. I would have always thought that he would have been buried with it.

I was rather reluctant and horrified at the thought of him selling it. I told him I didn't want a new camera. It would be the camera that guilt built. I couldn't bare it. But he convinced me that the camera and all our other equipment was useless to us now. And that we might as well get something we can enjoy out of it.

Alas, all that is left now is the memories. Memories of a simpler time of our lives with less responsibility and care. An end of an era indeed.

p.s. This post is dedicated to my selfless husband. I love you!