Caitlyn had a lot of things going on in January. She had her appointment at the DMV for her behind the wheel test so we practiced as much as we could around the local area. She passed her test and is now an official driver!
She started looking for a job in December but the only company that replied called her while she was still in school. They wanted her to come in for an interview the next morning but it was still finals week. She would literally be done in a couple of days. She told them but they never called her back and it looked like they still had the job opening so I'm not sure what the heck their problem was. I couldn't get Caitlyn to follow up with them again. She applied for a bunch of retail jobs, mostly in the mall but did't get any bites. She was really hoping to be able to avoid slinging burgers at a fast food joint but it seems as if that is the only thing available to 16 year olds with no experience.
Meanwhile, we were trying to get her school to finalize their records to show that she had graduated so that she could get a job and so that she could take some classes at city college. First we had to wait for them to post the grades from last semester and then they had to wait for the city college to send her grade to the district and for the district to turn around and send the grade to her school to show that she satisfied all her graduation requirements.
During all this, the school keeps calling me every day to tell me that Caitlyn has been truant. We finally got her counselor to take her off the school roster so that they would stop calling me but a week later, Caitlyn got a call to tell her to keep up the good work on her attendance this year. The counselor suggested that I pay for the city college to send them her transcript directly so that they don't have to wait for the district to update her records. I didn't think that was fair, so I started calling the district to get them to do their job since I know that the city college has already posted grades for the semester. They must have finally done something because the next day, her grade for the english class she took at RCC got posted. It took another day for them to acknowledge that she had satisfied all the requirements to graduate early. Of course a week after that, I got a letter in the mail telling me that Caitlyn is missing a whole week of school and basically how she is required by law to go to school...freaking oblivious idiots.
Caitlyn graduated Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors. She will attend BYU in the fall to study business administration. We do not yet know which campus she will attend. Idaho gave their acceptance within a couple of weeks of submitting her application, but we have not yet heard from Provo.
Marian left a little graduation care package for her. They are mostly supplies for college.
Even though she is done with school, we wanted her to graduate from seminary. They have no fast track through seminary but we thought it unfair to make her get up at the crack of dawn to go to her normal seminary class. I'd been working on trying to get her in to an independent study program which will allow her to do it from home on her own time but the guy in charge of it would not respond to any of my e-mails or text messages.
We have another friend that wanted to get her two kids into the program as well since they did not have a ride to church but he would not return her phone call either.
Finally, I had enough and went over his head to talk to the seminary supervisor. The supervisor could not even get a hold of him. Finally the stake presidency had to get involved and only got an answer because they contacted the guy's mother! We were all wondering if he had actually moved away, since he was not even listed in the directory. He got called into a meeting with the presidency and we were hopeful that something would be done about this guy at last but apparently, it was too much to hope for. Which is pretty ridiculous since this is not just his calling but an actual paid position that our tithing pays for. We also found out that the kids that were supposed to be in his class last semester did not always even get their assignments from him so he has been slacking off for quite some time.
In the end, he sent us one e-mail and Caitlyn finally got added after missing the first week of seminary. The other two kids still do not have access. We don't know what the problem is and he still won't respond directly to any of us to figure it out. I have pressed the supervisor and the guy above him but nothing has been done. I know the supervisor has been frustrated with this whole situation but it in not under his control. I do not know anything beyond that.
It is all so ridiculous. I feel like I have spent half the month chasing after well paid individuals to do the damned job they are paid to do.
Anyway, after a couple of weeks, Caitlyn finally caved on her idea of getting a retail job. She finally started applying for fast food type jobs. Once that got set in motion, she got job interviews left and right. Some didn't work out because they wanted her to work late nights. Others wanted her to work long term and when they found out she would be leaving for college in the fall, they opted to look elsewhere. She got offered a job at McDonalds like her sister. She applied for the Day St. McDonalds but they called her to interview at the Sunnymead one. We are not sure if she clicked on the wrong location, or they just lied to her because they wanted to hire her for that location. Both locations were severely short on help. She said that she would contact the other location and gave her paperwork to get started but it was very vague about where she would be working. Sunnymead is not in as good of a location and we did not want her working there.
Meanwhile, she interviewed and got offered a job at Jack in the Box. She decided that she would much rather work at Jack in the Box that try to figure out the fiasco that is McDonalds. The manager seemed more professional and so she took her chances with them. It has gotten off to a bit of a shaky start because they scheduled her to go in for orientation but later postponed it to the next day. The next day, it got cancelled. The manager decided to just start scheduling her regardless, so she has gotten to work 3 days a week so far. She said that she would give her more time as she learned the ropes and that is what we are praying for now.
Christian had also finished Caitlyn's back bumper and got it painted and installed at the beginning of the month, so now she is able to drive her own car around to work by herself!
We still have quite a bit of work to do on the Jeep, but she is able to use it for now. Once we get the TJ back together and running, we will have her drive that one while Christian finishes up the work that needs to be completed on the XJ.
We are so very proud of all the hard work Caitlyn has put in and all her accomplishments. She ended up missing registration for the winter quarter for RCC because they have a hold on her registration. It took several more weeks for her to even get an appointment with the counselor to find out what the problems is.
Meanwhile, she has enrolled in a fun coding class at La Sierra University. There are no credits but she will get an introduction to Python to see if it is something that she wants to pursue. We have tried to get her into several other so called coding classes over the years; one with the girls scouts program and another at UCR but they were all jokes. They didn't teaching anything of any substance. This online class at La Sierra University seems to at least use actual Python code even though they are just coding little games to learn it. She seems to being having some fun with it anyway.
In addition, at the end of the month, she agreed to play the prelude and postlude music on the organ at church, so we were excited to hear her. The lady that plays on the fifth Sunday of the month is an accomplished pianist that is learning to play the organ, so she asked Caitlyn to help her out with the prelude and postlude so that she can concentrate on learning the songs for the actual program.
