It is a dreary Saturday morning in Houston. We had day after day of incredibly beautiful weather up until this week, which has been dreary and rainy for days and days. My mood does not reflect the weather; I feel bright and happy inside. Yet, I do miss the sunshine.
I am sipping my first cup of coffee for the day, and I am not sick for the first time since Tuesday. I have been having fever and chills on and off for days. I am grateful to be feeling better today.
Pumpkine and Trooper are taking a lazy approach to their day. I put the chairs in the work room up on top of the table, so that iRobot could vacuum. They are each perched in a chair. Storme had his breakfast, hopped in my lap for a snuggle, and then headed outside to find a mouse. Potatoe is taking a nap on the couch. He has a faint sent of wet dog from his paws getting wet on our morning walk.
Little Chirp is with his dad this weekend. Unfortunately, basketball season has not gone as planned. In the game on Wednesday, he fractured his wrist. He is out for four weeks, which is most of the season. On top of that, he currently has a B in science. They did a unit on frogs, which included dissecting frogs and learning all of the anatomy. He got a B on the test, which pulled his overall average down to a low B. Life sciences aren’t his thing. He will now be working to bring his B back to an A before the end of the grading period.
I am going to buy some books for Little Chirp to read during his down time from basketball. An interesting factoid about Little Chirp is that his favorite genre of books is historical fiction. He particularly likes books by Alan Gratz. He has read most of them. I am going to try to find a new author for him.
Brainy Bird has had his own disappointments this week, but he is in great spirits, and today is another big day for him. He found out earlier this week that he is not a semi-finalist for the big scholarship that he applied to. He took this in stride. He understands that if he does not get rejected from some of the colleges and scholarships that he applies for that he has not aimed high enough.
It is a big day in that he finds out at 11 AM this morning if he is accepted in Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech is one of the highest ranked, if not the highest ranked public universities for technology and computer science. Truthfully, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt have long been my dream for Brainy Bird. I realize that this may or may not be his dream.
Brainy Bird keeps his cards close to his chest. He spends a great deal of time researching schools, digging through their course catalogs and mapping out his potential computer science degree program. He especially likes the degree programs that give him guided electives or honors courses to take courses outside of his core course of study. In 4 years of high school, he never had an elective. In order to prepare for a top program in computer science, every year he had a set list of courses that he needed to take. He can hardly wait to choose a course that has nothing to do with technology from the giant list of courses that universities offer. He also likes the computer science degree programs that include an extensive track in advanced mathematics as opposed to physics, chemistry or life sciences.
Over the course of the next two months, Brainy Bird’s life will be decisions that others make about him, as in decisions from colleges and scholarship applications. Then the first week of April it will be his turn to make the decisions. Brainy Bird has made a calendar of everything that is happening on the college and scholarship front, and the first week of April is highlighted in green as decision week.
He has a well thought out, compelling reason to attend all of the colleges that he applied to. Ultimately, his final decision will be largely driven by costs. He holds a strong understanding of return on investment (ROI). Other decision factors for him are the degree program, honors programs and his sense of belonging with the university.
There is a 90% probability that he is headed out of state. Okay, now I am crying. I am excited for him. He is absolutely ready to be out on his own, and I think it will significantly broaden his horizons to attend college out of state. Still, Little Chirp and I are going to miss him.
While he is busy researching degree programs and college traditions at the schools he has applied for. I am busy researching the cities the colleges are in, the nearest airport, hotels, restaurants. I am about to have a vacation destination set for the next four years. I wonder if that destination will be Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, New York or New Jersey. I can’t wait to find out!