Strangely I am not as petrified as I thought I would be. Sure, I’m anxious about my little girl going to high school, especially a class A high school. But I’m feeling pretty good overall about how she will do and how she will fit in.
The block scheduling will be a novelty for us. She will have eight classes a school year. But she will take four 90-minute classes the first half of the year, and another four the second half. The idea, they said, is to concentrate on just the four subjects, accomplish more in each area during that time, and better prepare the students for that kind of concentrated study in college. Whoa. College. Let’s not be getting ahead of ourselves here. I know high school goes fast, but baby steps, people. Baby steps.
Mandy currently gets straight As, and has done so for the past couple of years. So she is interested in the DIF classes, which are the more challenging/advanced classes. Her friend Megan takes mostly DIF classes at East and gets As. Megan says Mandy should be able to handle it too. So I guess this will be the plan. Hard classes for 90-minutes each. Yikes.
I am happy she is ecstatic about high school. Rick printed off the course offerings from the Internet so she could start picking the classes she wants to take next year. We can’t believe how many classes they offer. Thankfully we are going to make an appointment in the next month or so with a counselor. That way she can make a plan as to which classes she needs as requirements each year for college prep. Then she can pick all the fun ones after she has her core classes taken care of.
The open house was really well done. Southwest has these student ambassadors that cheerfully approached the students with green folders containing all sorts of fun info when we walked in the doors. We followed the crowd into the gym and found a ton of friends Mandy knew from volleyball, soccer, and basketball. I guess being Miss Congeniality is paying off. The girl will have plenty of friends from day one. All these girls kept running up to her in the hallways, squealing with excitement. There’s nothing like dozens of squealing 14-year-olds except, maybe, dozens of squealing 14-year-olds at 2am.
It was about at this point of the evening that I realized that my daughter might possibly be a little more developed than 95% of her classmates. Not only was she much taller, but most of the other future freshmen looked like little kids. I mean, there were a few boys that were as tall as Mandy, but I didn’t see any girls that were even close to her in height. I know those girls are out there. Every volleyball team she plays has one or two middle hitters that are as tall as she is, but they evidently weren’t there last night. And man, did we hear about her height.
After the performances from the cheerleaders and the band, the dance squad, student testimonials, and the show choir, we got to check out all the activity booths. We, of course, went to the athletics area first. We met the volleyball coach, who says, “Oooooh a tall one.”
Mandy is anxious about trying out for high school volleyball. But it sounds as if there are quite a few teams at Southwest, so there is room for quite a few girls. They have a freshman team, a reserve team, a junior varsity and a varsity team. (I think I might have missed one or two.) The varsity finished 3rd in state for 2011. I’m sure the competition is pretty fierce considering how many girls play club volleyball in Lincoln. So we will see.
Mandy, of course, has a great attitude about the whole thing. She says if she doesn’t make the high school team she will just play club ball in the winter again for Magic. It sounds as if there isn’t a lot of required strength conditioning for volleyball ahead of time. Mandy’s friend Megan had to go to the weight room a couple of times a week during the summer to get ready for volleyball and had to run a mile at tryouts. While Southwest doesn’t require it, strength conditioning in the weight room during the summer is strongly encouraged, the coach said.
Unfortunately for Rick, I believe the weight room is shared by the volleyball prospects and the football prospects. We already had a taste of this last summer at volleyball camp. On the first day of camp, I walked in the side doors of the school to go to the gym and walked directly into a mob of sweaty football players who were there for conditioning. They were lining up the hallway to the gym so they could scout out the volleyball girls as they made their way to volleyball camp. And you could read exactly what they were thinking on their faces. Mandy walked in the door behind me and hesitated at the door. She said, “Mom I don’t think this is the right door.” One of the boys quickly jumps up and says, “Oh yeah, you have to walk right down the hallway to get to the gym.” So we have to walk through a pack of leering high school boys, many who were shirtless, to get to camp. I didn’t get to talk to Mandy until I picked her up after camp that day. The first thing she said when she got in the car was, “Mom, I am SO going to that school.” Rick is in so much trouble.
So we hit the volleyball table and met the volleyball coach. Then we hit the soccer table to meet the soccer coach, a guy several inches shorter than our daughter. As Mandy walks up, he says, “And we even welcome tall players.” Yep, another tall comment. Of course he wanted to know if she liked to play goalie. I’m not sure Mandy will go for this, or if I am too keen on the goalie idea. Rick says that a lot of goalies end up getting stitches. I am not all for that. Also, Mandy wouldn’t be able to push and shove anybody out on the field. She lives for that kind of stuff when she is going after the ball. She is somewhat of a brawler.
It’s too bad we weren’t on the ball, or we could have gotten Mandy into hockey when she was younger. Hockey would be her ideal sport. She could crash other players into the side of the rink, and push and shove her way through the game. When we go to the Lincoln Stars games, she screams for the players to fight. It’s somewhat funny to see this sweet pretty girl get worked up. (However, I think there are a couple of boys who might disagree with that statement. Hell hath no fury…)
She likes to play aggressive, which is a little trying during her girls’ basketball games. Her Rec basketball team played their first games this weekend and Mandy had to sit out a good part of one of the games because she nearly fouled out. She and another tall, stocky girl were getting into it during one of the games going after the rebounds. If you know Mandy, especially if she has babysit for your kids, you would be very surprised how she can push and shove. I’m not wild about this side of her, but, as long as she leaves it all out on the court I suppose it’s OK. I just don’t want anybody getting punched in the mouth. Hell also hath no fury like a woman getting out rebounded.
But it’s not something we are going to have to worry about in high school. Mandy made sure to steer her dad clear of the girls’ basketball table. She says “absolutely not.” And when she makes up her mind -- that is that.
And that’s not the only sports table she skipped. Southwest has all kinds of sports Rick and I never had in high school. They have swim team, baseball, softball, tennis and even Trap. We thought about this one. But we will have to wait and see how Mandy’s shooting is this spring and summer. I guess Southwest has a really strong Trap program and has won a lot of trophies. The coach really works with the kids in the area middle schools to get them shooting early and it seems to be paying off.
Next we went into the huge entry way and were overwhelmed by the number of activities and clubs at Southwest. There were soooooo many tables. There were the ones that I remembered from school. There was the Student Council, FBLA, DECA, yearbook, debate, band, cheerleading, dance team, and chorus. But there was also Asian Caucus, newspaper, science Olympiad, recycling club, bowling, student ambassadors, service learning club, FCA, French club, Japanese club, orchestra, math club, theater/drama, and all sorts of other specialized stuff. If a kid wants to get involved in something, there are all kinds of clubs where they can find kids just like them to make friends.
Mandy hit the drama club table. She loves the school plays. She and her brother love to play villains, go figure. It’s funny to me how she so hates drama in her life (why she has sworn off boys for the time being), but she loves drama on stage and can really ham it up. I never attempted this in high school. The kids must get this from their dad. Rick played Captain Von Trap in his high school’s production of the “Sound of Music.” He had a whistle and sung the solo “Edelweiss” all by himself. What a dreamboat. Sigh.
When we first walked into this area, we found ourselves at the math club table. We had been so distracted by all the tables and people, that when we finally got our bearings, there were two math boys looking up at Mandy with big smiles on their faces. Rick says, “Man, they really wanted to show you their math trophies.” Who knew you could get trophies for math? And Rick, he’s always trying to see the bright side. He says, “Well, if nobody asks you to homecoming, there’s always the math club.”
It seems inconceivable that Mandy will soon be old enough to go to high school. It seems inconceivable that there are about 2,000 students at Southwest. I saw one of my old classmates, Julie, last night at the open house. She was taking her twin boys to the football table. She remarked how she also felt overwhelmed by how many students go to the school and the amount of things available to the kids. We came from a class of 54. We can’t imagine our kids in a class of 500.
But I think it will be OK. The high school kids there seemed to be having a great time. Everyone was incredibly friendly. When we were walking around -- dazed and confused -- a nice student ambassador boy walked right up to Mandy. He asked her if he could show her anything or if she had any questions. He was a very nice boy who had his last name on the back of his shirt. (Rick commented later that if they would ever get married, they should hyphenate their last name. Pewalski-Krushenisky would really be great on the back of a jersey.)
The people at the high school genuinely are interested in the kids. We saw the assistant principal, who we know from sports and way back at Kindermusik. We said hello and he started asking questions, but instead of directing his questions to me and Rick, he spoke directly to Mandy. I guess we are going to have to get used to her turning into a young adult and being out there on her own.
She is so ready. It will be OK. I feel good about it. She will make friends in sports, or find people with similar interests in the activities. And she already knows a bunch of girls who are squealing to have her at their school. I know she won’t get lost in the crowd. And if she does, she can always look over the top of it. Height has its advantages.
Go Silverhawks!
P.S. I had to add this little snip it, which I also put on my facebook wall, because this is so Mandy. On the way to volleyball practice from the Southwest open house last night, Mandy had to change into her practice uniform in the car. As she is sitting in just her bra, we pull up to the stoplight next to a police car. Mandy looks over and shrieks, then puts on her seat belt. Why did she put on her seat belt rather than her shirt? She explains, “I just didn’t want you to get a ticket.” She’s so thoughtful.
I have a feeling it's going to be a great four years! Julie
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