I Feel Like a Washcloth Someone Left on the Motorway

I'm feeling a bit wrung out and run over. Maybe there should be hyphens in those. I'm too kaput to check, that's how bad it is. Buffy the bushy-tailed rodent would be angry and I don't blame her (see? see? that should be 'wouldn't' not 'don't'!)

Oh, nevermind.

Hi Robin, and everybody else. The rest of the exchange thing went ok. It was frustrating sometimes because it was clear that Randy was bored, but the French kids seemed to have been trained (Prima heard this from other kids in class) never to say what they want so we spent a week guessing. Prima spent a week in France, with Randy's five year old sister wrapped around her leg. The little girl cried when she left. Prima had a great time with her French family and some fun with her class but...

We are changing schools again. I know there must be some nice kids in her class, and I know that Prima has developed a rather defensive, hedgehog like manner (no offense, FHH; you are the softest and cuddliest of hedgehogs except when action is called for) so the kids in her class are only partly to blame. The defensiveness puts a lot of kids off, and we are trying to fix this. Not easy to teach natural self-confidence to a thirteen year old- since I have zip myself. But I've had it with the few spoiled alpha rich kids that seem to set the tone for everyone, and from the few parents meetings we've had. Well... I would probably feel differently if I got to know them better, but at first glance, my instinct is to avoid them like the plague.

Anyway, there is a list of French to be learned for the new school (haven't looked yet to see how much they overlapped), and we need to see if she is at the same place in math, so it will be a busy summer (six weeks instead of five this year, though, which is good). Sorry, bloglodytes, I know I'm rambling awfully, but my head feels like a coconut with a bicycle pump hooked up to it. A couple more notes before I drag myself out to the garden shed to write:

1. Our cat is missing. This is really putting a damper on our summer fun. She's not fixed so we're desperately hoping she just out having a good time and will come home full of kittens, but we fear the worst. It's been more than a week.

2. My daughter got a 4.5 in English. For those of you familiar with letter grades, that's about a C. For a native English speaker, this is ludicrous. The teacher said she graded her harder and gave her different tasks because she is a native English speaker, but you don't give a kid who already knows algebra trigonometry to do and then give them a crappy algebra grade if they can't hack the trig, right? I mean, to the rest of the world, it just looks like she got a terrible grade in the first year of English as a foreign language. Won't miss the English teacher, that's for sure. For the birds, this is. Like Yoda, I sound. Donut, I need.

3. Happy Independance Day, Americanskis out there!

Now don't just sit there- go write something. (Preferably in the comment trail ;)