It took me a while to actually read this advertisement (pasted on the TUBE wall) carefully enough to see that, you know, this kind of ad is not likely to work in the United States:
This is England, is it not? Where Victorian was invented? Strange. They use a lot of naughty words on television as well. I think it probably explains why all the kids have gone to hell in this country…
Valentine's Day
But they are not so advanced here that we don't still suffer under the oppression of Hallmark and flowers this time of year. However, I did OK I like to think on my end of the bargain, and Sue achieved a new level of success with the following:
Of course a man would like a great beer and a glass to go along with it!
Our Amazing Children
Really this blog entry is about our amazing children, but I was just trying to show some restraint.
Jason continues to impress
Jason has turned the whole school thing up a notch this year, doing really well in everything. He's also turned the whole chess thing up a notch as well, and we've started going to chess tournaments with the rest of the chess team. There's a really big one coming up on March 2nd which should be a lot of fun. Anyway, I have taken Jason to two all day chess tournaments lately. At his first one he won 3, tied 1, lost 1 and at his second one, which was much harder, he won three and lost three.
His team won first place in his first tournament and here he is with his teammates:
In fact their school won first, second and third place!
He is about to start his 6th game in this photo below. That's the head mistress of our school wishing him a good luck hand shake:
I didn't think boys this age could concentrate long enough to play one match, let alone six! But the nice thing is, between matches they go out side and run around playing football.
Anyway, Jason has blown us away with his chess and the rest of his academic successes this year, which we will not bore you with.
Madeline secondary school adventure
This is Maddie holding five secondary school acceptance letters in her hot little hands. She got all the schools she wanted to. We are astonished and mind-bogglingly proud of her accomplishment. Almost a year younger than she is supposed to be, first five years of her education were bilingual with 50% of her time spent in Chinese, she came to this country where they start earlier, and played catch up her first year here, and in just 1 and 1/2 short years has managed to get accepted to two of the top 10 secondary school in the UK, and all of her top three choices.
Madeline called home from school today to ask us if the mail came and when we told her she got in to her number one choice, she burst into tears. Her friends gathered around her were asking her why she was crying since she got in!
These past months have been intense.
Maddie can look forward to
- latin
- another one or possibly two foreign languages
- religious studies
- three years of chemistry, physics, biology in her first three years
- the rest of the humanities of course
Luckily she seems to … frankly just love school. She is a sponge for learning everything. If I had been like her I could have been so much smarter. When I was her age, I was majoring in sulking, and I think I brought it to a new art form.
Cheap Red Wine
Whenever I visit my younger sister she breaks out the $6 magnum red and we just drink it up. I learned to love it, cherish it, respect it, consume it. So I have been on a mission to find cheap wine here in the UK. Of course, the UK is 2x so it's a bit of a challenge.
I mentioned it to one of my friends who happened to be taking a road trip under the tunnel to France for a weekend. He thinks I am crazy but while he was there, he bought me a €0.95 bottle of French wine as a joke. I was determined to drink it and love it, however:
10 seconds later ….
Space - the Final Frontier
Well, the other thing I have pictures of is related to space. When we went to Disney World during Christmas, we decided to go to the Kennedy Space Center. That's the vehicle assembly building behind the kids below. It is one HUGE building!
To be honest I was feeling lazy like I usually do, and wasn't sure I wanted to get the car and head on over there (not that I liked being in Disney World, as I mentioned before). But I am so infinitely glad that we did, because (1) it's very cool and (2) I think Jason has a new obsession.
We paid extra and got to drive on a bus close to the Space Shuttle which was supposed to take off, I think, the day before but didn't for some reason. I am not remembering too well, actually. The tour was worth it.
And wandering around the building which contained the life size version of the Saturn V rocket was completely worth it. Truly amazing. At the other end of the rocket we were trying to sort out exactly what was what, and I think by the end we figured it out.
Later we went to New Jersey and bought the Apollo 13 movie and From the Earth to the Moon, from HBO. When we showed Jason Apollo 13 he was completely blown away, and now he cannot get enough of space. Last night we started on the HBO series that was truly awesome the first time I watched in years ago. It's time to reread The Right Stuff and decide whether it's suitable for Jason. He's very young but has become an avid reader and is so very interested in this stuff right now.
It's fun relearning or learning in the first place a lot about the solar system, galaxy and universe with Jason. Or reliving the space program that got us to the moon, a truly astonishing feat, with our without the hype. Jason loves to name the astronauts, the missions they flew, the dates, their age, when they died, how they died. I can relate to a boy who has obsessions, as my life has been one or two obsessions at a time since as long as I can remember.
The kids are growing up and I am in awe of both of them.
That's All Very Deep, but …
I saved the most earth-shattering news for last: I am going bald in the back of my head.
Gray nose hairs, not a problem. Connecting eye-brows, I can live with that. Gray chest hairs, hair on the wrong side of my forearms, bad back (it's better now): no problem. I can handle a lot of this aging crap, but this came as a shock to me. I have been drinking heavily ever since Sue confirmed what she was too nice to come out and say for the past year or so.