It’s That Time of Year…

… and no, at least not at this point in time, I am not talking about the annual collegiate basketball March Madness. I am talking about the annual ritual at my house of Division B Science Olympiad Regionals.

About seven years ago, I started volunteering as a coach for my school district’s division B (meaning middle school) Science Olympiad team. The goal is to place first or second as a team in the regional competition so that you could go on to the state level. Then, place first or second as a team in the state competition so you can go on to the national level. If you are into athletic competition, I would compare this to tennis, wrestling, track and field, swimming and diving. There is individual competition which earns points for a team total to claim the winning title.

In November of 2006, I volunteered for a much bigger role. The regional coordinator was not returning. I was going to take over. This, in itself, was amazing. I am not an educator. I am not a school district employee. I am parent and former coach. I am self-employed so my employer is not a big sponsor of the national event. And, to top it all off, I am starting at least two months late.

Anyway, Saturday is it! My competition will run on Saturday, March 3. This is just in time so that I don’t miss my older son’s high school state competition at West Point Military Academy on March 10. It is just in time so I am willing to blog later about the rest of the world’s March Madness. But for now, March Madness, in my little corner of the world, is getting the events ready, lining up the event supervisors, being sure the food is ready via a parent volunteer, and running a good tournament.

And the Oscar goes to…

Okay, I am hoping against hope that I can stay up long enough to see who wins Best Picture. I am sure this awards show will be just like the Grammys - I saw an hour. Actually, I should get to see more than an hour of the Oscars. It is Sunday night, a school night, so the kids should go to bed.

My problem with the Oscars is all those movies that come out just in time for consideration. I seldom get to an actual theatre to see a movie. I want to be able to watch it at home if I can’t see it at the theatre. When movies that came out in December are up for Best Picture - or any other of the honors for that matter, chances are I won’t see them until well after the awards are given and the show history.

This year, I don’t even know if all the Best Picture nominees even played in my town. That is definitely a funny statement but I live in a rural area. There are two major theatre chains in the general area - meaning within 15 miles from me - but they don’t get all the films that come out. Until I was watching some precursor to the Oscars, I had never heard of “The Queen,” nor had I heard of “The Last King of Scotland.” These both seem like good movies but nothing that has shown in my area.

Well, I have dressed up my avatar and am thinking about serving a special snack for the show but basically, it is just another Sunday evening at my house.

70’s Energy Crisis Hangover

I remember the long gas lines. I remember getting gas only on days that corresponded with the last number on your license plate (odd/even). I know I am dating myself but having had an environmental outlook and education since I was young, these things tended to be more in my mind than other things that were going on.

Then, came the way for schools in upstate NY to attempt to save money by closing schools. A quick look at historical data showed most districts that the third week in February tended to be the coldest week of the year on average. Remember, I am talking late 70’s.

So came the energy conservation week off. In upstate NY, this meant a week for vacation where it is warm or a week for winter sports. I will admit I say upstate but I really live along the PA border so while not near New York City, I am not truly up in the Adirondacks or where lake effect snow piles up by the foot. The area I am in stopped, sometime before I was back in the area or before my children were in school, having this week off in February. A lot of other districts, even those fairly close to where I know live, continued to have this break. Two years ago, our local area BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services) set out a calendar that reinstated the one week off in February. All 15 districts in the Broome-Tioga BOCES area went along with it. Here is where people have gone wrong.

In the 70’s, I do not recall there being sports events and other things going on that required the school buildings were open at least a part of the day. This is not the case now. It is possible that school officials do not need to conserve energy now. Is it that hard to close schools and not use the buildings at all? Due to weather last week, my son had no school this week but had a sporting event this week - sectional diving finals. This makes very little sense.

In the 70’s, the cold was definitely more in place than it is now. Global warning - possibly and most likely, but that is for another blog. This week here where I live has been the warmest week in February so far.

It is time to rethink this week off in February.

How do you, as a parent, live with a college student?

I always thought this was a question I needed to examine only for college breaks. Believe it or not, last year with three kids in college, none of them had the same spring break. This made dealing with the external things - extra laundry, more food at meals - was not difficult. The more difficult side to this is the more intangible items - another driver wanting the one car, curfew, church attendance.

How does a parent deal with those intangibles and a live-at-home college student? I have to say that this may be a mute issue if the college student in question had always lived at home. She would not have had that taste of freedom that comes with living away from home with a dorm roommate or teammates to answer to more than a mother. It seems she wants to be treated like she is a living-at-home member of the family. She wants to be included in meals - particularly the ones she loves - but then, will, at whim, just not show up for meals. This makes meal planning almost impossible. She will throw her laundry in with the rest of the family’s and then complain when what she wants to wear isn’t clean or dry. She thinks she can leave the house and not come home - without telling me where she is going or when she thinks she will be home.

I am toying with instituting a contract. If she is going to act like this is a dorm, she is going to pay rent. If she wants to live here and be a part of the family, that is fine but she will have to follow some rules. I just don’t know.

Have you found love online?

At the prompting of the Yahoo! 360 people, I will discuss finding love online. I will also tell you a bit about some parts of it.

The long and short of it is that I have not found love online. It is not for lack of trying. I did the Yahoo! Personals for a while. I may still have a profile there if I were to dig through. I don’t think so, though. I also have a profile on Cupid.com. I tried a few faith-based personals sites. The only profile that is currently active, and has been for almost a year now, is the one on Cupid.com.

Have I met love at Cupid.com or any of the others? Nope. I have, though, become very adept at not really answering questions fully - you never know who the other person is. This is really against my nature. It is normal for me to say, when asked about the age of my kids, that I have six kids from age 22 to age 12. My normal response in a personal’s chat or email is my kids range from 12 - 22. It is not bad until he suddenly realizes I am talking/answering questions about an awful lot of different kids when he asks other things.

I have also become very adept at avoiding questions about what I look like. I like the way I look most days. Unfortunately, I am not 5′10″ and 100 pounds. After all, go back a paragraph. I have birthed six children. I am not huge. I am, from what my friends tell me, attractive. I am just not a model these days. Actually, I am not sure I was ever a model, except for maybe those two years from 19-21. I get sick and tired of the very first thing people ask is what do you look like.

I think the next thing I need to become adept at is getting pictures taken of me that don’t really look like me. This would be a pic where I was in full make-up and dressed to the nines. I don’t dislike wearing make-up and getting dressed nicely. It is just not the norm. I am most likely to be found in jeans and boots. Sometimes those boots are 3″ stacked heels; sometimes, they are snow boots. In the summer, I wear Birkenstocks from May to October (that is really an optimistic idea where I live) but I never have been caught wearing them with socks. I try to wear shorts most of the time in the summer but, again, I don’t live where summer lasts too long. I am not afraid to be seen in public in a bathing suit. I have three but none of them are bikinis.

While I have not found love online, I have found friends. Some are friends I may meet or have met. Some are friends that I just chat with online.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, LET IT SNOW!!!

Well, I thought I had an image but can’t find one.

I love snow. It is amazing I have managed to live through this winter so far. It was in the 50s at the beginning of January. We have had negligible snowfall since October. It has just been weird. Cold, we have had. Snow, we have not.

That is all about to change, although I know I am jinxing it by blogging about it. We have a winter storm watch and it should become a warning soon. I am going to the store, which will be a zoo, and lay in provisions. I am going to be sure that there is bottled water and water in the tub overnight so I can flush the toilet if necessary - oh, the joys of having a pump and well for water. I am going to finally dig the snow shovel out of the garage and see about my snow boots also. I can’t wait!!!

I am going to do the snow dance tomorrow night - but not until after I pick up Suz from work at 10 pm. I really don’t want that three to four mile drive to take an hour.

Mountaineer Basketball

I have to admit I do not like watching basketball on television. I am not even sure I like watching basketball in person but if I have to, college ball is the way to go.

So it is a cold February Saturday and I am flipping around - anything to not watch another episode of “Dirty Jobs” on Discovery - and what do I discover? My alma mater is playing #2 UCLA in Morgantown on CBS. Much to the chagrin of my two sons - ages 16 and 12 - I keep the game on. Much to my surprise, it is half time and the Mountaineers are up by 10.

Go Mountaineers!!

What was your favorite song of 2006?

I have to say that my favorite song of 2006 is “Not Ready to Make Nice.” In case you were spending last year under a rock, it was sung and written by the Dixie Chicks. The song is a synopsis of the behaviour they endured after Natalie Maines made some comment about GWBush while in England on tour.

My reasons for it being my favorite song are many but probably highest on the list is that it really points out what is currently going on in our country. If you look back over music during times of public turmoil, the songs that are remembered are the ones that portrayed that turmoil in verse and music.

What’s your favorite song of 2006?

Maine-Endwell School Vote - Capital Project

A few facts before I am accused of being biased – I am the parent of student-athletes. I am also the parent of honors students. I am also the parent of Science Olympiads. I am the parent of band members. These classifications are not specific to individual students. I am the parent of at least one student that fits into all these categories. I like to think I am the parent of six well-rounded students.

I am the parent in a school district that is putting a major capital project up for vote in approximately 60 days and I am concerned. Four of my six children have graduated from Maine-Endwell schools. They have, at varying times, attended all four buildings currently in the school district. The improvements to classrooms are desperately needed.

I have had children that have had to eat in the gym either just after or just before it is being used for physical education class. What a scheduling nightmare this must be for the administration of that building. I have had children who are told their class will be meeting elsewhere for several days because their science classroom is the only one that is lab-ready and another science class needs the lab facilities. I have had children who have had to use the windowsill as a desk during a test as the classroom is not large enough for the class size, most likely due to the fact that the room was not intended to be a classroom when the building was designed. I have sat through concerts in a gymnasium as the auditorium in the building is not big enough to fit all the parents and the stage is not big enough to fit the group sizes.

I have attended sporting events where parents from the opposition cannot believe that “that” is a field. “We are in sectional playoffs but we are playing on that,” they would complain. I have attended sporting events where my mother, who is just mid-sixties, felt uncomfortable trying to get to a seat in our bleachers to the football field. I have driven my son to practice at another school because we do not have the facilities to allow him to practice at our schools. This means, in turn, that I have come to sporting events where my child is a member of the team but cannot compete at home because we do not have the capability to have diving in our swim meets.

An education is multi-purposed. Students need the knowledge from math, science, English, language arts, foreign language. Students need the intangibles from sports and music. Music helps with the core courses and this has been proven by many studies. Sports help in different ways – team building (which, believe it or not, is an important part of most businesses these days), perseverance, study skills, public speaking.

There are many reasons I support both propositions being presented to the voters in the Maine-Endwell school district for approval on March 20th. The classroom areas of the buildings in the schools are in need of the repairs and renovations in the propositions. The building infrastructures are also in need of the updates and repairs that are in the propositions. The athletic facilities are in need of updating and renovation. Parts of the classrooms are unacceptable. Parts of the educational setting are too small and not meant to be classrooms. Parts of the educational setting are not enough to educate to the state standards now in place. Parts of the athletic facilities do not meet state codes for new building. Parts of the athletic facilities do not encourage participation in sports. Parts of the athletic facilities are not acceptable.

Please inform yourself as to the parts of the propositions. Please see what the conditions are the students, teachers and staff are currently working with at the buildings. Please vote on March 20th to upgrade the classrooms, to upgrade the auditoriums, to upgrade the sports facilities. Please vote yes on proposition one AND proposition two on March 20th .

National Signing Day

I am sure you all are saying what does a mother of six from upstate New York know about National Signing day for college football recruits. What I know is it is a high stress time for college coaches and for incoming college freshmen or high school seniors. I also know that it is not a big deal where I live - small town in upstate NY. College coaches - the real big name ones - don’t come here often.

Here’s what I do know. Kids get all spastic about college recruiting. It doesn’t matter to the student-athlete if it is football, soccer, basketball or volleyball. Parents get equally thrown - mostly because the rule book on recruiting is written in a strange language and hard to go through and understand. Hence, the reason colleges hire compliance officers.

No school guidance counselor is going to know the answer to parents’ or student-athletes’ questions on recruiting. Use these people, guidance counselors, to answer your questions about the school, about the academics, about other parts of student life. Do not use them to answer athletic questions.

Do your research. Ask questions when you visit campus as a prospective student of other students and of staff and professors. Ask questions of other student-athletes when you have an official visit to the school. PLEASE do have both official and unofficial, athletic and other visits.

Visit the school’s web site and the athletic department’s web site. Check out the local newspaper. No coach or admissions counselor is going to tell you that the basketball team is beating up the baseball team, particularly if you are a basketball or baseball recruit. No admissions counselor or coach is going to tell you that town relationships are strained due to too many parties off campus. Both want you on campus for different reasons and are only going to tell you the “good” things about campus, the selling points.

Be prepared to make an informed decision. You would not buy a house, and the cost of a college education - in time and in money is similar, without making an informed decision. Do not sign a letter of intent without being informed.