Hope you survived the clock change

Daylight Savings Time is a contentious issue in our household. I love it and Andrew thinks its the stupidest idea ever. So twice a year he lectures about the problems with the changing of the clocks, although I only had to manually change 2 clocks in the entire apartment (oven and clock radio),and everything else adjusted automatically.

Last Sunday we went to see Battle of the Blades Live at Maple Leaf Gardens. It was great fun and we saw the behind the scenes commotion that goes on during a live broadcast. The Gardens were a little weird because I expected the place to be empty and actually a large percentage of the seat were still there and pictures and signage were all still on the walls in the hallways. We had fun an I may stand in line for a free rush seat for the finale, but we shall see how my schedule shakes out.

Yesterday was the deadline for early admission for most U.S. universities, and so I was inundated with last minute requests to read over essays. Mostly from students who scoffed at the idea of coming to a class 3 times to learn how to write an application essay. Guess what, they wrote exactly what you should not write. Don't tell me a list of your accomplishments- that's already in the application, don't tell me that your parents worked really hard so you deserve to go to Yale and don't tell me that you learned all about teamwork by working on school council, yearbook, sports team. There are 27,000 high schools in the United States alone which means there are 27,000 Valedictorians who all want to go to the same prestigious schools. Never mind the 27,000 Class Presidents and Yearbook editors and the 27,000 kids who came in second in their class. The essay is to make you stand out from the crowd as an individual and show how you are special and that is why the school should accept you and not Ned Nobody with his 96% average and 2300 on the SAT. The scores from October's SAT came out and my advanced class did very well. One parent has refused to tell us her son's score which usually indicates that he did well and she doesn't want us to know because then we will use his name in the advertising. I sometimes wonder about these parents. They put their kid in my classes for anywhere from 6 months to 2 years and expect me to be emotionally involved and give all kinds of special treatment but the second they kid has achieved his/her goal then all contact is broken off. I will never see him/her again. I really think they believe the teachers are robots that can be used and shoved back into the closet when they are finished with us. If I'm invested in your child's success to the point where they have my email address and I will check over essays at 6 am when it is due at 9 am don't you think I might want to know how they did on the SAT? Don't they think that I would like to congratulate their son or daughter and show how proud I am of them too?
I gotta find a new job, this one is making me sad.
M