So, my night-owl-ness is officially up and running. For the past two days I have been glued to the computer despite beautiful summer weather--yesterday was the annual College Board crashfest while I sat most of the day hitting the refresh button trying to get my kids' AP scores. This happened last year too. You'd think that they would have used the past year to improve the system, but noooo. I finally got my scores around 2am, and I was pretty happy with my lot. 34 out of 50 kids passed with a 3, 4 or 5, and 22 of them were 4s and 5s. I could have predicted most of the 2s and 1s, but there were a couple of surprises in there--either they didn't read things closely enough to complete the tasks, or they psyched themselves out and panicked. And then there were a few who still didn't "get it" by May, but I did what I could...at some point, it falls back on the student too to do the work and learn the material. I can lead them to water, but I can't force them to drink no matter how long I hold their heads under....
While I was waiting, I decided to pull out the family history binders and see what needed to be updated. It's been a couple of years since I've looked at the stuff, and now I can't remember what threads I was chasing down on all the little scraps of papers stuffed inside the inner binder pocket! The Sullivan line is still driving me crazy after all these years--I've managed to link different branches, but still not enough to get me back to a defininitive area in Ireland. I did some more work on the Kelleys, and got a ton of new info. The Mormons have a website, familysearch.org, that used to have the US, Canadian and British census records for 1880, and not much else. I haven't checked in a few years, but went back to it and wow--sooooo much stuff! All the US census records, MA state census records, MA births, deaths and marriages....score! Some of the records have the original documents that you can see and print, and they did a great job cross-indexing names with spouses and parents. Makes it much easier to hunt down names like Sullivan, Murphy and Kelley. And I was looking for combinations of all three. Why oh why couldn't they have easier names to trace?
Apparently my great great grandfather Jeremiah Sullivan did come from County Limerick. Now I just have to figure out a way to trace him back there.
As I'm typing now, Mookie is lying on the desk in front of the keyboard.
The 4th was fun and low key--we had food and fireworks at our place since we have a great view from the balcony. This year the wind moved in the right direction so we could see it all, and the show was fantastic. Sis-in-law and mom-in-law came along with a childhood friend and his wife. He's taking over command of the USS Constitution in a couple of weeks, and they were in town for the turnaround. We are going to the change of command--it will be so cool to watch him take over on the ship that I used to play on when I was younger, and just because I've known him as a NH summer friend my whole life.
What else? I'm still in wind-down mode from the end of the school year. Now that the AP scores are in, I can zone out until the end of August.
And try to get my act together because I can't remember for the life of me to take my damn fish oil supplements and multivitamins and calcium supplements. Grrr.
On a happy note (at least it sounds happy), one of my best friends from high school emailed to say that she has officially finished 16 rounds of chemo!! Woo hoo! She's battling what sounds like a really nasty aggressive breast cancer, and it's been a long haul for her as she's had to do two different rounds of chemo. Surgery is up next, then radiation. We've had lots of lengthy chats on the phone, laughing and railing about cancer. Her sense of humor and overall attitude is astounding, and I keep telling her she should write. We've all been telling her that for years. Frustrating thing for me is that she lives in California, and I wish I could just drop by to see her. Maybe in the fall? I'll keep sending positive vibes westward and talking to St. Peregrine. Makes my bout with thyroid cancer look like a walk in the park. She's amazing, and I'm in awe.
So that's all from here at the moment. Not feeling too crappy, still forgetting stuff and dropping stuff all the time. Just wishing that I felt a little bit more normal so I would have the motivation to get out and do more stuff....I have polished off a couple of novels in the past week, so that's a huge improvement over last summer. I couldn't concentrate to save my life last summer and basically stuck to magazines and newspapers, which was depressing because there's nothing like curling up or lying out in the sun with a book you can't put down. Just finished "The Namesake". Not sure what's on tap next.
Closing in on midnight, so I might actually go to bed instead of staying up longer. Besides, my back and arms are sore from sitting in the same position all day, and Mookie wants to go sleep on a soft bed. Hasta luego...
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