Kevin's Watch

So, a new turn of events regarding Beorn's college search yesterday...

When Beorn took the SAT and the ACT this last year, he was given the option of sending his scores to four schools for free.
We are basically set up to send him to Florida schools through pre-paid and (hopefully) Bright Futures, so he sent off to UF (the school Paul and I are routing for) and New College in Sarasota as an interesting option. My dreamer then also had them sent to Harvard and Yale.

We have heard from Harvard and Yale in that Harvard has sent him an application and Yale sent him a 200-page information booklet.
UF invited him to an "honors" preview weekend, but he was unable to attend due to scheduling.
We just heard from New College.

They sent him a greeting card, handwritten by an Assistant Director of Admissions, with his business card enclosed. The handwritten note says:

Hi Beorn,

Thanks for sending us your test scores. I encourage you to complete an application this fall. Let me know if I can help.
Hope to meet you when I visit Gainesville or if you come to visit campus.
Have a great summer!

Not much different than the scores of emails I have been getting since his sophomore year; but I have to admit the handwritten touch does impress.
Is this standard as the kids get closer to application time?

No, it's not standard, Menolly. That's pretty cool.

You guys do this whole thing so weird. Here, if you exceeded certain marks in your last year of school, you got a university exemption. Then you enrolled in the university that suited you. As long as you had that exemption, they took you.

(Not sure what happens if you don't...entrance exams maybe. With lowered standards at schools in recent years though, universities are are now testing all applicants though, IIRC.)

--A

OMG, my broadband connection died for 30 minutes ( rare occurence thankfully), and I felt as if I was cut off from the world - how sad that internet connection is now viewed as essential for day to day life.



A college/Uni handwriting a letter to a prospective student here in the UK is unheard of, as far as I know, so that looks like a good sign - good luck.

Finally had a Saturday off. Actually it was a paid day off. The store manager told us that if we could pull the numbers up to a certain percent she would give everyone on the management team a paid day off so we did and today was mine. Therefore I was getting paid while I was lounging on the beach with dogs and sausages and sand and sun and Bloodguard Bob. We got some red potato salad and British style bangers and some broccoli pasta salad and I mixed up a bunch of olives and pickled peppers and artichoke hearts from the olive bar at the safeway and we had triple chocolate chewy cookies and garden salsa sun chips. We lounged and sipped on what I have been calling "sparkle loungers." It's a drink we came up with a few weeks back. It's one part carbonated limeade, one part carbonated pink lemonade and a shot of vodka. Safeway has these sparkling fruit drinks that are made with natural juice and no artificial coloring or flavoring and are sweetened with raw sugar rather than corn syrup. It's delicious. There weren't a whole lot of dogs today but Moose managed to make friends with a chihuahua dachshund mix and a fox terrier. Both were rescue dogs, the fox terrier was saved from a puppy mill bust and the dachuahua was found in a shopping cart with four brother/sisters abandoned in a walmart parking lot. Nice dogs. Anyway, it was a good day. Tomorrow I have to be up at six and go to work then I am going straight to BGB's place to work with the second colony. It could be traumatic but I am working on my personal resolve. We have to disassemble both colonies and find out if the original colony has a viable new queen and if it does we have to root out the old queen from the swarmers and euthanize her in order to integrate the swarmers back into the original colony. If the new colony does not have a viable queen we can just put all the bees back with a new box on top so they have more room to expand. I have the feeling though, that we may have to euthanize my girl which will make me cry and I know, it's stupid to cry over a bee but I chose her because she felt right from the moment I put my head up to the box and listened to the sound of her group and she's been so amazingly prolific and wonderful and I know there was magic involved when we brought her home. It has to be magic because out of all the people who took bees that day, we are the ONLY ones whose bees have done even remotely this well and the only ones with more than three boxes and the only ones whose bees were doing so well that they swarmed this late in the season. I wish there was some way to keep her if worse comes to worse. Anyway, so my post tomorrow may be made while in tears.

Further to my internet connection death yesterday, I switched on the computer to skype, and NO INTERNET CONNECTION again.

After wrestling with it for a while, think I have finally got it sorted - something to do with the encryption type and a lack of communication between router and wireless card in laptop. Lots of sweary type words later they seem to be speaking to each other again.

Gonna settle down and watch the world cup final now.

Hope everyone else is feeling good.

Glad you are getting your internet ghosts under control, Phantasm.

I had a lazy day today and I got some sad news. Lucimay, Simon passed away over the weekend. Apparently it was very peaceful though, the officer said he looked like he was just sleeping and having a pleasant dream. For those of you who don't know, Simon was a fixture in the cafe that Lucimay and I frequent. Simon was 84 and always had a pleasant hello and big smile for me every time I saw him. When we would have chats he would always thank me for making his day by claiming it was always nice to have a beautiful girl make time for an old man like him. He will be missed by many people, myself included.

On other notes, we couldn't find either queen and there is no sign of an active queen in the hive since there is absolutely no new brood activity. We will have to look more when we get the new box on top. Tomorrow I have another day off but I absolutely have to do chores. Laundry at the very least. I meant to do them today so tomorrow could be lazy but I was just like, nah, lazy today works for me.

I am sorry to hear about your café friend, Jenn.

It's sad because he will be missed but he had a full life with kids, grandkids, great grandkids, friends etc. AND he went peacefully in his sleep. That's the way to do it.

I did have a great conversation with Doc today. He came in and we chatted for an hour since he's going through some stuff and so he told me what was going on in his life and I told him what I thought and he looked at me and smiled and said, "That is why I need to talk to you about these things, I have a doctorate in philosophy as well as one in history and yet I bring something to you and you always help me put it in perspective." Then he told me I am amazingly wise for a mere girl of 41. He's turning 67 in two weeks. I'm not so sure I am wise but I do sometimes have some good insights into human nature.

I lit a white candle and sent positive thoughts to all the cafe folks who will miss Simon and to his family whom I met over the last few years and wished him well on this next part of his soul's journey. I feel at peace now.

Jenn:

Magickmaker's been housesitting/catsitting for her dad since Wednesday. She was supposed to come home yesterday, but her dad and the new wife got back from their trip exhausted so they asked her to stay another night. So I have one more opportunity to run naked through the apartment and make all the noise I want this morning!

My new glasses are in!
I am really hoping these lenses take care of several ongoing issues I have had with my vision, especially at night. Yes, cataracts are forming, but I have been told they should be a non-issue for quite a while yet.

Did my laundry chores. Not so good about putting it all away yet. I'll work on that in a bit. Had a nice day hanging out at the cafe. Had a long chat with Sam. Apparently he is the one who set things in motion since Simon hadn't shown up and he was worried. Also, Sam had been letting Simon call his family in Belgium on the cafe phone so Sam had all the numbers to call Simon's relatives and let them know. Sam's pretty sad about it and he was telling me that Simon was a fixture in the cafe since Sam opened the place and it isn't going to be the same without his daily visits for his tea and social chats. I got to visit a bit with Mollison and chat about art and photography, another nice chat with Doc, Harlow and Lenore. Flirted with Jack and EJ which was fun. Lucimay, Lenore was asking about you. You need to go hang out there soon. I miss you too.

Met a cute chihuahua mix named Pooter. Apparently Pooter is not very people friendly so his owner was a bit shocked when Pooter came right up to me and let me scritch him and cutes over him and he even gave me kisses on the right side of my chin. I told his owner that it was because I smelled like other dogs and he said that Pooter is not very dog friendly either and I told him exactly, I don't have dogs with me but I smell like dogs so I am dog friendly without being a threat. He thought that made sense. Moose was jealous when I got home. I patted a pitbull puppy and a shitzu too while I was out. Silly Moo, he should know by now that he is my one true dog love.

Not doing too well today. Problems with my older boy going down the wrong path of life and I am unable to stop him or help him.

I so fear that possibility one day, caam.

May he come to the realization he is only harming himself in the long run soon.

caam:

Magickmaker came back from her dad's yesterday. And we had dinner last night with my old Girl Scout co-leader, who I hadn't seen in quite awhile. It was fun. I need to be more sociable -- it's too easy to just come home from work and sit in the apartment...

awwww. Simon!! wow...thanks for letting me know jenn.

he was such a pleasant ol' codger, bless his heart.
i am very very glad to hear he had what a nurse i used to
work with called "a good death."
seems it was an easy transition for him (or so i hope) and
thats really all we can ask for when it comes time, eh?


caam, what is the "wrong" path? has he hurt himself or others?
i hope not for all your sakes.
without knowing what's going on i can't offer much except to say that
i hope he'll be okay and you'll get it all sorted without to much grief.
/hugs

Just received a little good news which I will share to help brighten everyone's day...

w00t!!
WTG to Beorn!
Although we are still waiting for three of his four AP scores due to "scoring delays,"
getting a 5 out of a maximum of 5 on the Physics AP is awesome!!!

Congrats to Beorn. Well, today was an ok day although I was worried at first since it started off kinda annoying. I was at MacArthur Station and I lit a cigarette and this guy comes up to me and asks me for a smoke. I get asked multiple times every day and I can barely afford my own smoking habits let alone the habits of all the street people in the Bay Area so I said, "Sorry, I don't have an extra cigarette." He starts getting all offensive and telling me he saw me pull a pack out of my bag and so he knows I have one and I need to give him one. I tell him, "Look, you are the fourth person to ask me in the past two hours and I can't afford to support the world, sorry but the answer is no." He starts telling me I'm disrespectful to the needs of others and that I am selfish and rude and he's getting in my face at this point. I stood up and did the stop hand gesture and said, "Hold up, hold up, what's disrespectful is you trying to bully me into giving you something of MINE that is NOT yours. I understand you have fallen on hard times but so have I and I earned the money to buy this pack and I don't appreciate you acting like I owe you something for nothing or that I should give my stuff away to everyone just because they ask. Sorry but the answer is still NO." At this point I could see some guys walking up to check out the situation out of the corner of my eye and I was grateful for that but I ended up not needing it. Apparently what I said struck home and the guy was like, "Sorry to bother you Ma'am and I am sorry you thought I was acting like a bully." and walked away. I know I sound like a jerk but seriously I am like a frigging magnet for begging. I get it constantly and it's freaking frustrating. It's not the first time I've said no and received the in my face treatment. I guess they see a skinny white girl and think I can be bullied and maybe someday I will stand up to the wrong person but sometimes it's just ridiculous.

But enough about that, then I got into work and I get this phone call from Sorus's now ex-leader. He says, "Did you hear the news?" I say, "No, I just got in a few minutes ago." He says he knew because he asked when I was coming in when he called for me earlier. I ask him what is up. He tells me he is now the store manager of the San Rafael store. I am like, "What??? What happened???" He says, "It's a long story and not only that, some shit hit the fan about my tarts (my term for his on again off again girlfriends)" and I said, "Uh Oh, that doesn't sound good." He says, "I need to talk to you, what time are you off of work?" so I told him and then I got home and called him as planned and he was still at the store so he's supposed to call me back any moment. Dramallamadingdong.

Lucimay, I know... Simon, so old school and always dressed in his tailored suits with a smile for the ladies. He is already missed.

Caam-sorry to hear but sometimes there is only so much you can do to steer someone right. In the end they have to choose for themselves and all you can do is watch and wait and help pick up the pieces when the time comes.

People who bum cigarettes from strangers are...sometimes pathetic, we'll say One time, my roomate was smoking outside the bar and I was talking to him when some drunk college student comes up and asks if he can bum a cigarette. My roomate says sure, and hands him one. The guy expresses his gratitude and then asks if my roomate he has a lighter. My roomate says yes to which the bum asks if he could light the cigarette for him, at which point, I ask him, "What? Do you want him to smoke it for you too?" You continue to give them hell, Jenn.

I'm seriously a magnet. I was in a donut shop the other morning and there were about six other customers as well as me and the proprietor and this woman comes in and beelines for me and starts asking me for change and begging and pleading and claiming she knew I had money and please couldn't I just give her some and I was the only white person in the shop and everyone was looking distinctly uncomfortable as I repeatedly said no but nobody said shit for about five minutes of this crap when finally the proprietor told her to get out. Then she walked out and walked right back in and started in on me yet again. I ended up with just saying, "NO NO NO" every time she tried to talk. So frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I am not heartless, I have bought dinner for blondie (Lucimay knows of whom I speak) on multiple occasions, I do give out cigs once in a while and occasionally I'll have a moment in which I give change but I HATE the in my face shit with a passion. I think I seem to get it even more now that I have my fancy scooter. There is also a part of me that hates that my own assumption is that the perpetrators of begging think that because I am a white girl alone in not so nice hoods in Oakland is a pushover mark. I sometimes feel like yelling, "HELLO! LIVE IN THE TENDERLOIN, USED TO LIVE IN MISSION, NOT A DUMBASS SUCKER, HEARD IT ALL, EVERY SOB STORY, GOT NOTHING FOR YA! SO BUGGER OFF!!!!"