Unlike highly recruited athletes, kids who are highly recruited academically don’t get to go on TV and turn over hats so everyone knows what college they’re going to. Northwood doesn’t have highly recruited athletes, so there’s a Facebook site where they can check in and state their college choice. Also unlike athletes, who are evaluated on a 5-star scale, Northwood students are evaluated on a 3-star scale, according to the commencement program that I have right here in front of me: *** = Highest honors (4.3 GPA or above) ** = High honors (4.0 or above, but below 4.3) * = Honors (Not sure; close to a 4.0 but not quite there) It looks like Cal got the best recruiting class this year with three 3-star prospects and no one lower than 2 stars. USC and Stanford each got one 3-star recruit, as did Harvard and Yale. To the kids… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: High School
Graduation Still Life
Time passes. Listen. Time passes. . . . — Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood Unlike Paul Cézanne, I didn’t spend hours setting this up. I captured it just the way it looked when I came downstairs this morning. As one chapter ends, another begins. For the kids — most of them — the next chapter is college; for the parents, old age and death. Happy Thursday, everybody! Read more →
Lasts
Last day of high school. Can’t believe it’s all over. No more “what’s due tomorrow?” The boy has a clock radio but he never sets it because he likes to sleep with the radio on. Yes, we probably should have made him get an alarm clock to encourage responsibility and self-reliance, but we didn’t. His mom and I have been waking him up for school for 13 years and this morning was the last time we’ll do that. Read more →
Education Dollars at Work
My son, a high school senior, says, “Guess what I’m doing in school tomorrow?” I venture a guess: “Learning things.” “No. It’s actually a trick question. I’ve got a free period, then another free period, then a movie.” “I hope I’m getting a tax refund for this nonsense.” Read more →
Prom Night
The Irvine high schools — Northwood and University — have prom tonight. Our boy goes to Northwood but he’s attending the Uni prom with a girl from that fine institution. I met her. She seems nice. She’s going to Stanford in the fall. Our boy is going to Cal. Opposites attract. Today is also the girl’s birthday, so the boy is paying for dinner. “Did you see a birth certificate or a drivers license verifying that today is really her birthday?” I ask him. “Not to suggest that women are looking to take advantage of a man if he lets his guard down, but did you see the birth certificate or drivers license?” Woodbridge and Irvine High — the weak links in the Irvine chain of education — may have prom tonight too, I don’t know. Nobody cares about those schools. Read more →
Lasts
My kid played his last high school concert last night. The last piece was a mambo number that showcased the percussion section. People got a chance to see their musicianship, that they’re not just kids who hit things because they can’t play a real instrument. There were four Northwood groups performing, followed by an orchestra from Mt. SAC. It was a long program and we decided to leave after the last high school group. In the parking lot, a bus driver standing next to his vehicle asked us in an Eastern European accent, “Is the concert over?” “No,” I said. “There’s one more group.” “The college!” he said. “Right.” “I brought them!” he said proudly. “You not going to listen to them? They good!” He was almost beside himself with disbelief. “Yeah, no,” I said, “but thanks for making us feel bad about ourselves.” Read more →
Lasts
My kid plays his last high school hockey game(s) tonight — semis at 7, finals (maybe) around 9. Read more →
Motherf-ing Cats
My son comes back from watching African Cats for “field hours” . . . “How was the movie?” I ask. “Pretty good. Samuel L. Jackson was narrating it.” “He was? Did he say ‘Get these motherf-ing cats off this motherf-ing plain’?” “No.” “‘Plain’ — get it? A flat expanse of land?” Read more →
Field Hours
It has come to my attention that Northwood High kids can get “field hours” for Environmental Science by visiting zoos and watching movies at the Spectrum. How lame is that? Shouldn’t they have to rescue a seagull or something? Read more →
Quick Thinking
My kid is in San Francisco with a Northwood High musical group. Among the chaperones is the school principal. We don’t like her. More on that later. “Avoid the temptation to push her in front of a cable car,” I advised the boy. “Why?” he asked. “Well . . .” Now I had to think of something. “Because her fat ass would derail the thing, costing innocent people their lives.” Read more →
Baggage Buddies: How to Save $3,500 on a Flight from OC to SF
A large group of kids from the music program at Northwood High School are traveling to San Francisco next week. Half are flying up on United and half are flying on Southwest. As you probably know, Southwest doesn’t charge for checked luggage. United does. Each kid on the United flight will give his or her suitcase to a “baggage buddy” on the Southwest flight. Each Southwest kid will check two bags while each United kid will check none. Using this arrangement on both legs of the trip cuts the travel cost by $3,500. Read more →
I Won’t Be Living Here Anymore
Somewhere in America, a boy — a high school senior, college bound — says to his mom, “You don’t need to renew my magazine subscriptions because I won’t be living here anymore.” His mom, who already knows this but is momentarily stunned by the clarity of it, starts to say, “When you have a three-day weekend, come and visit us” but can’t get through it without crying . . . Read more →
Northwood Basketball Awards
Here are the awards from last night’s basketball banquet at the Tustin Ranch Golf Club. Read more →
Hamlet Backwards
This semester’s AP English final is on Beloved, a depressing novel enjoyed by no one. “I need an 87 on the final to get an A in the class,” my boy says. “That sounds manageable,” I say. “Not really. I knew Hamlet backward and forward and on that test I got an 86.” “What is Hamlet backward? It’s Telmah, right?” Read more →
The Elevated Scrub
For most of the season, my boy’s been one of the kids who only plays in the last few minutes of blowouts. He’d like to play more but he’s never been on a basketball team before. To me, the fact that he tried out at all is a win, making the team is icing on the cake, and whatever happens after that is up to him and the coach. He told me he’s had some of his best practices lately, and in last night’s game, he got in for a few minutes in the third quarter and then played the whole fourth quarter. “I’ve elevated myself from scrub to super scrub,” he said. Read more →
Trying Out for Basketball
My boy tried out for varsity basketball at Northwood this year. He likes basketball, but he’s never played on a team before. He plays roller hockey at a pretty high level, and if you break it down to fundamentals, basketball and hockey are pretty similar: you score goals at one end, defend the goal at the other end, and play together as a team. He practiced a lot and worked out a lot and he made the squad. I’m proud of him for trying out. When I was a high schooler, I could easily talk myself out of trying anything where I had a good chance of embarrassing myself in front of my peers. Read more →
My Family’s Guide to Failure
At a recent family gathering, someone whom I won’t name here recommended to my son, a high school senior, that he start looking for a community college to attend for a couple of years before transferring to a four-year school. “That’s a good idea,” I said. “Do you have any more good ideas? Maybe he should punch himself in the face really hard.” One of the things I love about my boy is that when he does something, he puts his heart into it. He takes on the risk of failure. The safe approach — and historically the preferred method in my family — is to do things indifferently, fail, then announce that you weren’t really trying and that you could have succeeded if you’d wanted to.” We have family members who — despite, to my knowledge, having never done or said an intelligent thing in their lives — never… Read more →
High School Confidential
I ask my boy how school’s going this year, his senior year in high school. “It’s okay,” he says. “I don’t enjoy it that much but I do it anyway.” When we get to the subject of his English teacher, he says, “He’s fine, other than he’s got a Napoleon complex and spends the entire class talking about himself. I know everything about him and I’ve learned nothing about poetry. “He has a two-year-old daughter and another daughter six months old. He coaches a cross-country team. He considers himself the greatest runner of all time. We don’t know what pain is because he has a messed-up knee and he runs on it anyway. “He thinks Mr. Plette [the AP History teacher] is soft because Mr. Plette give higher grades than he does but don’t tell Plette he said that because Plette’s his boy. “He’s a San Francisco Giants fan. He’s… Read more →
High School Seniors Do Not Appreciate 17th Century Metaphysical Poetry
“Have you read ‘Break of Day’ by John Donne?” my son asks. “I haven’t,” I reply, “but that’s more of a failing on my part than a reflection on the greatness of John Donne.” “John Donne sucks.” “You can’t talk about metaphysical poetry without giving it up for John Donne.” “I don’t want to talk about metaphysical poetry. How is that ever going to help me?” “Someday you’ll quote a snippet of Andrew Marvell in a status meeting and people will be very impressed. Verrry impressed.” Read more →
High School Senior
My son, dismissing the need for parental advice in his senior year of high school: “You only know what people tell you. I know what’s going on.” Read more →