Ok, so Halloween was a bit anticlimactic. I really do feel sorry for Griffin - all these things that are new and exciting to him are old hat for the rest of us. I was exhausted from work, blog and life. Bill was wiped out from filling the turtle pen with enough dirt so they can burrow and maybe even hibernate. He and Griff took their shirts off for the job, it was pretty cute. Then, of course, the hose was turned on and Griff was a walking mud puddle. Then, while I did my weekly grocery shopping Bill took the boys to Daly Ranch for a bike ride. Zoey had homecoming last night and work today, so she was wiped out too. We managed to get Griff in his costume and Aidan donned his but refused to go trick-or-treating. He and Liane sat in front of the house (to keep the dogs from going berserk every time the doorbell rang) at dusk and watched Nightmare Before Christmas on her computer and handed out candy. Bill and I took Griff trick-or-treating then we came home and watched the Halloween episode of The Office and ate pizza. After Griff went to bed Bill, Aidan and I watched Shaun of the Dead. Soooo funny. And gross.
Zoey's Homecoming Dance was held at the Bahia Hotel in San Diego. She and (one of her various) group of friends met at Natasha's house for a pot luck (I made my awesome Mac 'n Cheese for her to take) then took a limo to the dance. Matt Freidman, leader of the band Regime, for which Zoey and Natasha provide vocals, asked Zoey to be his date for the night.
It was a bit tough for Zoey. She had a hard time being a social butterfly and missed seeing her other friends, but I think it was a success overall.
Today was Griffin's school halloween parade where all the grades walk around the playground a class at a time showing off their costumes. Technically, this is my third Halloween with a North Broadway Elementary student, but it is only my second parade. See the bottom for details.
Class picture
Waiting for the parade to start
Still waiting
Colten/ Luke Skywalker + Mackenzie/Princess Leia = Too Cute!
Diego (aka Fieddie Kruger) Logan (aka Ninja) and Griffin
Class picture!
Today reminded me of Halloween's past.
Zoey as Katie Bell, the Quidditch Chaser for Gryffindor, Umpire's gear courtesy of Sport About. 10/01.
Going to the Legoland Costume Contest 10/01
Our beautiful Katie Bell, cape made by Nonnie, sweater by Grandma Annie and Gryffindor patch embroidered by ME.
I made a pretty lame Hedwig costume for Aidan which he only wore for pictures
Aidan's kindergarden Hallween, October 2003
2003 was the year of the FIRST firestorm to sweep San Diego county. The smoke was so bad that school was closed (including Bill's) for a whole week, which just happened to be the week preceding Halloween. This meant that Aidan's class did not get to walk in the parade or participate in the traditional Halloween Carnival for kindergardeners. Although we felt mighty guilty, we went to Disneyland and got to see the Nightmare Before Christmas decorations in the Haunted Mansion.
Our best Jack-o-Lantern EVER, as worn by Bill, 10/03
On the train at Disneyland, a few days before Halloween 2003
Zoey, in the amazing fairy costume I made her and Aidan in the lame skeleton costume I made him. I thought I could buy one of those plastic skeleton decorations and sew it onto the black satin body suit I made. Not my best scheme. Interestingly enough, he wanted to be a skeleton the following year and I bought him a premade costume which we still have. I think Griffin can wear it next year.
Zoey's Kindergarden Halloween 1998
My parents had taken Zoey to see the musical CATS a couple of months earlier and she wanted to be one of THOSE cats for Halloween. This is my best effort - a turtleneck painted like a cat's tummy and ears, paws and a tail made by me.
Griffin decided from the get-go that he wanted to be Harry Potter for Halloween this year. Fine by me! We didn't have to buy a thing! We did borrow a handmade robe from a friend. Already had the glasses, Hedwig, light-up wand and broom, made by ME, when Zoey was Katie Bell a few years ago. I think I might dress up as a Hogwarts student this year, too!
Griff let me put gell in his hair but when he saw it insisted that I flatten it out. Occasionally after a bath he will comb his own hair, styling it off his face. Then he will look in the mirror and insist he looks like Draco Malfoy. Griff has seen the movies and heard snippets of all the books when I listen to them in bed at night, but we have yet to read him the saga out loud. I think we are a little bored with it and we haven't committed to reading over such a long time span to him at night yet. The Potterverse is definitely a big part of Griffin's world, though, and we really owe it to him to get cracking. He even knows the words to the Potter-Puppet-Pals songs. I guess I am kind of hoping he will devour them in a few years when he is able to read them on his own. The joy of discovery is worth the wait - I just wonder how much of it will be exciting to him knwoing so much about the books already.
I think he looks more like Madame Hooch than Harry, but don't tell him I said that...
A fairly typical night at our house - sitting at the table after dinner and doing homework. In an effort to help Griffin learn to recognize his numbers I decided to bribe him with peanubutter M&Ms. He has a hard time remembering the visuals, it seems. We go over letters and numbers again and again and he forgets them a minute later. Maybe I have forgotten how much effort goes in to learning the basics, or maybe he just learns at a different rate than Zoey and Aidan did.
Aidan likes to leave his homework until the last minute and usually does it in front of the television. Not optimal, but that's how I did it and I came out ok, right??? Zoey is clearly worn out by AP music theory, or is it AP Calc?
Is the face for homework or being photographed? Either way, she nailed it!
See, Zoey watches TV (on her computer) when she does homework also! Unfortunately, she is not as good at getting it done in a timely fashion as Aidan is. She's a bit of a procrastinator.
Zoey completed her application last night! The song was the last thing she got done and, after much procrastinating, she pulled off a pretty great piece of work! On top of it all, she figured out how to do some cool stuff on iMovie. I am very proud of her - everything that she wrote, performed and edited - and the way that she let us be involved in the process and took our advice. All Bill has to do is get all of our financial information sent in, Zoey has another SAT subject test to take and then we sit on our hands and wait until 12/15/10 for the letter...
COMMON APPLICATION ESSAY
The hardest part of the college application process is being asked to write about myself. I am a people person and I would much rather list the merits of my friends than talk about myself. But I can tell you about what I will bring to the diversity of the college community that I will be joining next year. A teacher of mine who has known me for my entire high school tenure recently referred to me as a rainbow penguin, meaning that I love going with the flow and being part of a group but also that I am always an individual and never lose my identity, and I think this fits me perfectly. While I have always been good at socializing with a wide range of people, this talent became a necessity for me seven years ago when I became a scholarship student at a private school thirty miles away from my home. Since then, I have lived in two different worlds, my school and home worlds. These worlds are socially, culturally and economically diverse, and while learning to live in both worlds comfortably and simultaneously has been a challenge at times, the experience and knowledge I have gained from living in two different worlds has made me a more tolerant and open-minded person.I never realized how small the bubble of my home world was until I was forced to expand it to include La Jolla Country Day School. I went from a ten-minute bike ride from home to school to a one hour bus ride each way, leaving me very little free time at home during the week. While I value the time to get extra schoolwork done or just listen to music and talk to friends on the bus, it is a bit awkward and more than a bit restrictive being the only senior student riding the bus this year. This is only one of the many ways that my life is different from my peers. Besides living in a different city than all my friends, making spontaneous get-togethers tough, it has been hard to adjust to the idea that I don’t lead the same kind of life they do. My family doesn’t travel to Europe or even out of the state on holidays; we don’t have a big house; we can’t afford for me to have my own car; and I am the only one of my friends who has had a part-time job for the last two years. It is hard sometimes not to have a common base of experiences to share with my school friends, but it has been as hard if not harder, to make a life for myself in my hometown with whatever free time I can find. I have maintained a few friendships here and made a few new ones over the years through municipal sports and a local theater group. I even helped a theatre friend start her own troupe! Over the years I have learned not to look outward and see what I don’t have, but to look inward and appreciate what I do have.
What I do have is a passion for singing and a love of being part of a group. Looking back, I can see that the bridge that helped me to straddle my home life and my school life, the common theme that connects the two, is music and sharing it with others. I am never ashamed to sing along with my iPod or burst out into song, no matter where I am or who is around me, a condition I jokingly refer to as "singing Tourette's." Regardless of what has happened over the course of a school day, when I step into the music room the real world falls away leaving only the joy of singing with my classmates and friends. Music is truly the universal language, capable of transmitting ideas, emotions, and cultural oddities solely through the combination of rhythm and pitch, and I am honored to be able to communicate in this unique language. At school, I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in annual school musicals as well as the Madrigals, a vocal group that is active in competitions and performances around the community. My voice has taken me to the Southern California Vocal Association’s Honor Choir, where I had the chance to spend a weekend singing with students from schools all over Southern California, to Spain, where I and the rest of the Madrigals sang in a 14th century cathedral in Avila. I have also had the opportunity to participate in musicals in my hometown with groups of performers of all ages and backgrounds in performances over the summers, enriching my experience of school musicals with only freshman through senior students.
I know that I am naturally inclined to reach out and connect with others and reach across cultural, economic and social lines, and I have found that music is the language that speaks the loudest for me when I am doing this. In addition to breaking out of my little bubble seven years ago when I transferred schools, I feel like my love and enthusiasm for music will allow me to cross even more bridges and make connections with my peers when I am in college.
Tufts Supplements
Which aspects of Tufts’ curriculum or undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short: “Why Tufts?”
After touring more than 30 college campuses in the past year, I belong at only one. My experiences in talking to admissions officers and past and current students have only strengthened my desire to attend Tufts. The minute I set foot on campus, I knew Tufts was a place where I would get the most out of the college experience and become the person I want to be. Tufts’ campus in Talloires, the Dual-Degree program with the New England Conservatory, the experimental college and the ILVS major caught my interest instantly and held it.
There is a Quaker saying: “Let your life speak.” Describe the environment in which you were raised – your family, home, neighborhood, or community – and how it influenced the person you are today.
I live in a house that could double as a library. Because my family didn’t have a television until I was seven, I grew up reading. My mother, a literature major and children’s book aficionado, has worked for a bookstore for almost as long I have been alive and started a blog a few years ago where she reviews kid’s books. Our bookshelves (of which there is at least one in every room of our house except the bathroom) are overflowing. Some of my earliest and best memories are of bedtimes when my parents would take turns reading aloud to me. I was four when the first Harry Potter book was released, and I remember how exciting it was trying to sound out words on my own but having my mother there for help when my fledgling literacy wasn’t enough. Attending the midnight release parties for the last four Harry Potter books became a tradition, and being in a huge group of people whose common bond is a book is wonderful! For the last three years, I have been a member of Little, Brown, & Company’s Hip Scouts, a group of devoted teens who review soon-to-be-published books, and have discovered many of my favorite authors through this program. Books are the foundation of my life, linking me not only to my mom but a worldwide community. If I am alone, I know I can turn to a book to find a new set of friends waiting inside the pages.
For some, it’s politics or sports or reading. For others, it may be researching solar power fuel cells or arranging hip-hop mashups. What makes you tick?
People make me tick! I love being part of a group, whether it’s social, academic, musical or work-oriented, whether I am a leader or a follower. While some children dread going away to summer camp and refuse to leave without a friend in tow, I have always embraced the opportunity to travel and make new friends. At school, I have developed a very tight group of friends, and it is hard for me to go a day without seeing them. Group projects in school are without a doubt my favorites, as I love the amazing synthesis of different opinions and ideas. I am a capable leader in group situations, proven by my positions as editor-in-chief of my school’s newspaper, the Palette, and co-editor-in-chief of our yearbook, both of which I have been a part of for the last four years. However, I am equally comfortable taking orders and not being in control, as in my school choir. I can sing a lovely solo, but when I collaborate with the other members of my choir, suddenly the piece is transformed. Instead of a single melody, we create a complex harmony, a blending of voices that create magic together. I believe that together we do our best work. This coming together of individuals to create something bigger than ourselves is food for my soul.
Aidan played his penultimate flag football game on Monday against Francis Parker School on their campus. Bill and Griffin went to watch. LJCDS has a no cut policy, so everyone who wants to play gets to. This meant that there were 3 teams in 7th grade this year and the guys played both older and younger teams during the season. I think Aidan enjoyed it...
Last year we actually forgot to carve our pumpkins and it was only partially intentional. This year, all the kindergardeners got free pumpkins and Griffin was very insistent and excited to carve his. He drew the face on and I did my best with the knife and this is what we got! He was so funny about it. He was sure he wanted to help me scoop out the inside, but the minute I pulled the top off and he smelled it he refused to help. I made him at least touch the inside to make sure he wouldn't reach in and scoop the goop. He refused again...
LJCDS has a tradition of having the seniors write a speech and present it to their advisory, which is like homeroom. Each advisory votes on the best speech and the students then give their speeches to the whole senior class (about 110 kids.) A final speech is chosen and it is presented to the whole school at graduation.
Zoey presents her speech today and this morning she read it to us for practice. I had not heard it, actually, I don't even think I had read a copy at any point in the writing process. Must have been too busy with the college applications...
Once upon a time, there was a young girl. This young girl had a dream: to grow up, become an astronaut ballerina firewoman dinosaur, cure cancer, and marry a movie star. While this young girl might have gone on to do all these things and more, I wouldn’t know because that girl was not me.
I am different. I live in a mid-sized town in north San Diego County, but I go to an exclusive private school in La Jolla. My parents cannot afford to buy me a car, like many of my classmates’ parents can, so I wake up at 5:45 every morning to get to school by 8 because it takes an hour to get to school on the school bus. Instead of traveling to places like Paris, Ecuador, or even Mexico for spring and summer breaks, more often than not I am at home or my second home, the Barnes & Noble my mother has worked at for almost my entire life, curled up in a squishy chair with a good book. My parents have never believed in the merits of television or video games, so I grew up with only books to entertain me. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet (which apparently begins with a capital I) I’ve been able to tune in to the pop culture of my generation in the past few years and no longer seem to live under a rock, but this change is only recent. When I was younger, there were three things I was absolutely certain would be in my future. I defined myself by these three things, using this skeleton to flesh out the rest of what my future would be. Looking back, these things that were then so important to me seem silly, but not too silly to share them. I was going to be Zoey Turek, a citizen of London, England who had a tattoo and owned a motorcycle. While I would still like these things to happen, I no longer define my whole future through only small details.
If any seniors remember me back in 7th grade, you’ll probably remember that I was a bit weird. When I first arrived at Country Day, the differences between my new classmates and myself seemed overwhelming. I had come from a public middle school with approximately the number of students Country Day has in total in only 3 grades. I went from being lucky if I spotted a friend amidst the rush of students to knowing every single student, not only in my grade but the grade above as well. In order to cope with my new intimate setting, I decided to completely reinvent myself into the kind of student that goes to a school like Country Day. Most of my new classmates had not experienced the awful feeling of being funneled from a relatively small elementary school to a monstrous middle school where my favorite game became “find your friends before the lunch period is over”. Grade levels at Country Day function like small towns, and being the new kid is like moving into town barely knowing where you’ve moved. My awkwardness in 7th grade can be chalked up to my misguided attempts to fit into this pre-established community. I had landed in a pond of individuals, a fish who had been used to swimming unnoticed in the ocean now forced to habituate to a personalized aquarium. Everyone at Country Day was such an individual, and I decided that the best way to fit in was to stand out as much as possible. If I demonstrated constantly that I was as much my own person as everyone else, then they were sure to welcome me, right? I can assure you through experience that this is not the best logic. All my attempts at fitting in by standing out might have had exactly the opposite effect I was looking for, but I was lucky enough to find a group of fish that were used to accepting those new fish that acted a bit weird but really meant well. Without them, I surely would have become a social piranha (get it? Pariah, piranha… hah…)
Because my transition was so rocky, I am fascinated with the even newer students that have joined the community in my 6 years at Country Day. I often wonder what kind of person I would have become if I had not found my “clique,” but it is impossible for me to picture my six years at Country Day any other way. At the beginning of each year new students are faced with a dilemma that I remember vividly: whom should I hang out with? What group do I fit best in? Who is willing to hang out with the new kid? I’ve tried to figure out some kind of mathematical equation that determines which group a new kid will join, but as of now I’m stumped. Somehow, magically, everyone seems to find the group that they fit perfectly with and which fits perfectly with them in only a week or so.
I am lucky. I can make friends wherever I go, in part because I am more comfortable being in a group than being alone. I love the power being in a group of people gives you, but I love feeling a sense of belonging the most. I’m the kind of person that will go all-out for spirit days, wearing blue and white overlapping soccer socks, blue eyeliner and mascara, and blue ribbons in my hair in addition to a Torrey shirt (my closet has WAY too much blue in it). I love the sense of belonging to something bigger than myself, and while seeing everyone wearing the same color kind of freaks me out, I love feeling part of a whole. I love joining clubs, participating in sports teams, going to sports games, and essentially everything Country Day has to offer. I’ll admit it, I even love riding the bus and knowing the name of (almost) every single high school student. I’ve become friends with people whom I normally would never have talked to by riding the bus, and trust me, there’s no way to not be friends with people you see every morning and every afternoon. Like I said earlier, Country Day really feels like a community to me, and not knowing someone’s name is like not knowing your neighbor.
Possibly the most important quality I possess is loving a group mentality but remaining a thoroughly defined entity the whole time. And now we reach the main point of my speech. I’ve brought along a visual aide to illustrate these qualities: A rainbow penguin. As you all know, penguins are black and white, a fact that has made them key specimens for demonstrating uniformity and monotony. However, this penguin is rainbow-colored, a quality that no other penguin possesses. This penguin is still obviously a penguin, but it has defining characteristics that differentiate it from every other penguin. I am a penguin because I cannot live without the support provided by a community, and more personally, my friends. Yet I am a rainbow penguin, because I have a way of standing out in a crowd.
I’m not quite sure exactly who I am, but I don’t think anyone can truly know who they are by the time they graduate from high school. Getting to know oneself takes much longer than 18 years, and I’m not going to rush the process. I enjoy the freedom not knowing exactly who I am has given me, a freedom to experiment with my image, testing out multiple different personas. Sometimes I’ll ask my mom if what I’m wearing looks good, and she’ll shrewdly reply, “Not really, but you’re a teenager so you can get away with it.” I’ve had every hair color (except blonde) and almost every haircut in the books, and I love wearing quirky clothes no one else would dare try. While it may not be completely obvious, I actually do like clothes and the infinite possibilities that await me when I open my closet door in the morning. In a way, this experimentation has helped to define my sense of self; perhaps I am the kind of person who thrills at constantly reinventing myself. But no matter what I wear, no matter what color my hair is, no matter who I am friends with, I will enjoy every minute of my journey to discover who I am, especially while speeding across a bridge over the Thames on my Ducati, the wind whipping through my multi-colored hair and a rainbow penguin tattoo on my shoulder.
Liane has had her eye on this puzzle for months and on Sunday she finally bought it. She and Aidan, and then Zoey when she got home from work, spent about 4 hours working on it (and watching Dr Who.) Griffin even added a few pieces.
Country Day has an interesting way of doing conferences once you hit middle school. The homeroom teacher collects grades and comments from the other teachers and then goes over them with the parents. I like it pretty well. I'd like to get to talk to all of the kids' teachers one-on-one, but this is pretty thorough. And, we have never had any academic or social issues with the kids so we feel satisfied with the process. And, at back-to-school night we get to meet all the teachers and place a face with a name, although there isn't time to have them talk about how brilliant our child is...
Here are a few of Aidan's report cards with comments...
I know that as a parent I am not supposed to focus on this kind of thing, but I am really thrilled and proud of how damn smart my kids are. Here are Aidan's standardized test scores from fifth grade and sixth grade. Interesting to see where he is weak and even more interesting to see where he has made some big jumps forward.
