Day in the Life of an Idiot

I'm a Minnesotan. I actually don't MIND snow, but I was not entirely ready for the snow this morning and the cold. But, this is March, right? I guess that old saying has some merit: In like a lion, out like a lamb. Only this year it was in like a lamb, out like a snow-covered Siberian TIGER.

Also, it is Monday. So far today, I've dealt with at least one school issue and my cat's prozac prescription. Next on my list is getting myself an appointment to get my own prescription renewed (for an asthma inhaler, though I wouldn't necessarily turn down prozac, if offered, ATM. ;-)

The school is maybe fixed? Thing is, Mason's school has this required after school program hour, which they call 510. It extends Washington Technical's hours to 3 PM, which is nice, and provides a stable structure for all sorts of sports and theater and other enrichments. It's an elective, so students sign up for their own things. Mason's choices this year were 1) Baseball, 2) Krazy for Komputers (which is only open to people with a A or B GPA), and 3) Chess Club. When he looked at his schedule on Sunday, however, he discovered he'd been put in something called "Science Museum." He was disappointed. I asked, "Well, so what is 'Science Museum'? It sounds like it could be cool." Well, that's one of the problems. There are many, many things I love about Washington Technical, but this is an on-going problem: there are NO class descriptions to be found anywhere (not even available to the students from what Mason tells us) for these 501s. I mean, baseball seems obvious, but what is Science Museum? A series of field trips? Something more hands-on? He has NO IDEA. We can't find any info anywhere.

Now, I'm a big fan of staying out of Mason's business at school. I normally don't even ask him what he's signed up for because it's entirely up to him. But, if we can help him navigate the system in order to get into what he wants, that's my job as a parent--to advocate.

A back and forth with Mason's counselor got Mason into baseball, his first choice. But as part of that conversation we found out who normally is in charge of 501 assignments and... it looks like MAYBE (if we remember right) the person in charge of the assignments is in fact the very person running this mysterious 'Science Museum.' When I called Shawn to tell her all this, that gave us some pause, because, okay, so if the person in charge put Mason very specifically into her program.... well, is that because it's particularly suited to his interests?

One of the things I love about Washington is that there is a lot of coordination and teamwork among the teaching staff. They figured out that Mason needed to be not just in advanced 7th grade math, but advanced 8th grade math. He's been really, REALLY flourishing there. So, for the most part, I tend to trust their choices for him.

But that begged the question for us... is this the same sort of thing?

Well, I just got an email back from the coordinator. Turns out "Science Museum" is a placeholder because they're still coordinating things like who gets to be in baseball, etc. Our sense is that baseball is highly competitive (naturally) and they wanted to make sure that Mason would have somewhere to go, if he couldn't get in.

But... Ugh, okay, this part of the process is frustrating. I mean, I will bet you money they are getting INUNDATED with calls and emails right now. We know for a fact that Mason's friend Rosemary was complaining of "mistakes" in her 510, too. I just wrote another email thanking the coordinator for getting back to us so quickly with an explanation, but also wondering if it would be possible in the future for everyone to have better sense of this process--for their sake and those of the parents and students.

Also, why is it so hard to attach descriptions to some of these courses? I get that they change and someone would have to write them and update them and that's probably a big job, but this is where volunteers are super-handy. (I know for a fact that they have student workers who could probably do something to help with this or take over some other teacher's make-work duties so that she or he might have more time to devote to this. These are high schoolers and very smart. Some of them are very eager to have things for resumes, so you know, win/win.) Also why not have a course simply called "Placeholder" so students would be alerted they are in line for a high demand 501 and will just have to practice patience until things are sorted out? If they had a 501 course catalogue this could be explained, i.e., "If you see this course, 'placeholder' on your schedule please understand that you are in line/on the waiting list for a highly competitive course. Please check back in x many days."

Ah, well. The good news is, this is mostly sorted. And we now understand how it works.

I also had to call my vet today to try to get pills for Inky, because we've been using this liquid stuff and it's not only super-expensive, but he and I both HATE it. He hates it because, from his behavior, it's clear it tastes super-gross and is generally disgusting, and I hate it because it's clear he hates it and he ends up drooling everywhere and trying to throw it up. Weirdly, he accepted pills better.

And they were cheaper.

But I think I made my vet's office mad because we're basically asking them to give their money to someone else. I tried to explain that if there was a cheap, pill version IN HOUSE, we would totally take that. But, it doesn't seem there is.

So today so far? A lot of negotiating and back and forth.

I think I will leave off calling my doctor's office for a bit.

Also... did I mention? We have snow. It's a very spring-like snow, wet and already melting, but it is there. This Monday is being very Monday.