Monday, July 21, 2008

St. Francis v. NASA

It's the first day of the final week of summer school for Grady. For those of you just tuning in, Grady graduated eighth grade at Pasadena Waldorf School in May. In September, he starts St. Francis High School in La Canada, a small town adjacent to Pasadena. It's an all boys school, he has to wear a uniform, and they have a killer athletic program. A big bonus for me is that the school is down the block from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For some reason I think that's cool. Maybe it's cos my cousin Patrick is–and this isn't just a figure of speech–a rocket scientist.

Anyway, Grady got the nod from St. Francis, and we were over the moon about it. Inside envelope that contained the acceptance letter was a second note inviting him to attend a high school primer over the summer. He is rocking the summer program, and enjoying it. When we got the 'invitation' for the summer program, Grady was understandably bummed. Who wants to go to summer school? But the stuff he's learning is fun for him, and he will know his way around the school's many buildings and large campus on the first day of school. In a way, he will skip some of the aspects of turning up as a freshman in September. I am someone who voluntarily attended summer school to get ahead on credits (don't recall what the heck they were!), and also got into university via a summer program. So I dig whatever G is going through.

Right, so all that sounds groovy and cool. There is one single part of summer school that sucks for all of us: driving 10 miles to La Canada on mornings Pablo's sound asleep. And Jo Ann and I having to make a rigid morning schedule of who can go out and exercise on what morning. Which reminds me, I gotta go wake him up so we aren't late!

See you later.

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