hulu... damn you again

OK, I'm getting sucked into another new show. Ridiculous. Feather-light. Silly at times. But Fun.

Castle.



And it doesn't hurt that the leads are attractive and have smokin' hot chemistry.

long time no write

sorry... life has been crazy, and all the "free" writing time has gone toward the Shakespeare project... which is going well...

UCLA football not so much...

Mold... interestingly... it's the roof, but more on that later...

the issue today of which I need to rant is: GRADES

a little over a year ago, I wrote the following:

Kyle sat out the game two Thursdays ago for grades (just one game, but I think it made an impression... grades are up and he's back in the pool).

This year is worse.

Yes, I know he's taking four Honors/AP classes... I know they're harder. (thank god for the extra grade points in Euro and Bio... I could at least look at the GPA and not feel that bad... well, that is until today)

I don't know the full extent of the damage of today's grade check (as his Bio teacher doesn't post grades online... but given his percentage for the last three weeks has hovered at 80% and "she lost" an assignment of his, I'll assume it's less than 80%)...

so that would go:
European History AP: B (four percent lower over the course of the last two weeks, and only two percent away from a C: 82%)
Biology Honors/AP (only kids with A/B at the end of the quarter can qualify for AP): C (tentatively, see above)
French 2: B (the only class he's showing improvement in... over the last two weeks, an increase of 7 percent... it had been a C two weeks ago, now 82%)
Algebra 2Honors: D (holy fuck, folks... 69%... down three percent from last week... his last three assignment/grades in that class are F [missing assignment], C, and F [test])
English 2Honors: C (at 72% [down one percent from last week], it's just way too freaking close to a D)
Water Polo: A+ (woofuckinhoo)

His social life has just disappeared. Party on Saturday night... oh, think again, my son.

Water polo? I'm not sure. The coach said playing time would be jeopardized by a D... I'm wondering if he's going to look at this week's grades...

Social is a given... it's gone. I'd like to say today's water polo game (the penultimate game of league before a CIF title run, and one of the few varsity games he'll see time in this season, since it's against quite possibly the worst team in the league) will disappear as well. But Lisa and I have made an agreement that we're going to focus mainly on social restrictions. But I feel like a hypocrite on this one. He's supposed to dress out with varsity on the CIF playoff run and I know he'll see no time in games since he's the backup and our first stringer is really good... so he won't be PLAYING... but who am I kidding?... he should sit.

Last night, we had a long talk with Kyle about all this (just like the one we had two weeks ago... and last week's grades were mostly improved... does that mean we have to have this talk every fucking week?).

My take is that he drop the honors classes and take college prep, where he'll feel more success. (of course, the risk is that he will feel that he won't have to work as hard, and we'll have the same shitty grades in worse classes) The honors classes were only there (in my opinion) to get him into a good school straight after graduation. I no longer have that delusion. So why honors? I see no reason.

He doesn't want to drop the classes, though. I think partly because he'll see this as a failure. But it's my hunch that this is only a secondary reason. The REAL reason is that these classes are where his friends are... and we're back to the social life.

sigh... looks like another talk tonight...

glad Pa's out of town...