Dd enrolled in Latin classes through AP Latin (but didn't take the test) and Spanish through Spanish 4 and then switched to conversation practice at Homeschool Spanish Academy. I listed both languages on her transcript with grades because they were both full courses. Dd did the NLE for three years and will list those awards on college apps. She'll need to take the Spanish CLEP or a placement test to fulfill the language requirement if she attends a school that requires a foreign language to finish a BS.

If you want crawfish, the season is in the spring (April and May in Houston, you'll have to check to make sure it's the same in NOLA). We stayed at this Courtyard and I'd recommend it.: https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/msycn-courtyard-new-orleans-downtown-convention-center/overview/ It's an easy walk to the French Quarter. It's also near the Convention Center, so it may be full.

As part of my Stoic practice, I try to envisage a worse situation to be able to be grateful for where I am. You all have helped immensely with that.

Ahh, but I don't use the kiddie carts. They're really cool now, with steering wheels and racing stripes.

Today is the second time in about 6 weeks that I've seen someone walking into the supermarket with a non-service dog. They're not even bothering to put on an emotional support vest, just walking in with their dog on a leash and plopping it down in a shopping cart. Then they walk their dog through the produce and bakery sections and next to the open olive bar. 🤢 I do not want dog slobber in my grocery cart. I do not want dog hair floating around unpackaged food. Your dog may be the love of your life, but I don't want to get up close to its personal hygiene habits. The store employees don't want to confront them so the rest of us shoppers have to put up with this nonsense. Luckily I was with Geezle who is okay with dogs and not with GW who is very afraid of them (because of crappy owners who allow their unleashed dogs to charge people on bicycles on the greenbelt.) Luckily neither of us is allergic to dog dander. But other shoppers might not be so lucky.

In that same vein, but more slapstick, give The Netanyahus a try. It just won the Pulitzer for fiction and it is laugh out loud funny with a similar voice to Our Country Friends.

We're all on the mend for the most part. I woke up with pink eye and googled. Yup, it's a rarer Covid thing, about 1/10 people get some eye issue. It's just standard viral pink eye and there's nothing you can do for it except eye drops so I'll see how it goes today. The nasal congestion and coughing has subsided for everyone. We still can't smell but we do have a bit of taste so food's not totally gross. Covid is like the worst cold plus weird symptoms we've ever had, but we made it through so far.

I've been doing Pimsleur Russian for about 6 weeks, I'm finishing up Part 1 of 5 in the Gold CD collection. I had started Duolingo's lessons first and that made jumping into Pimsleur less intimidating. I personally find it hard to figure out the declensions from just using Pimsleur. I need to do written exercises in Duolingo too. Pimsleur includes reading lessons on their CDs and on their app, but they're nowhere near as useful as Duolingo IMHO. I really need to force myself to read the Cyrillic word to be sure that I'm saying the right sounds and not something similar (b/p/b can be really hard to distinguish if you can't see the word).

We've all got Covid. This is our first time being infected. We were all boosted in December but stopped masking when everyone else around us did. It's been like a bad cold for the first 5 days but yesterday Geezle and I (and maybe GW? he can't tell us and I can't observe) lost our sense of smell. GW brought it home from his day program where they have a mini-outbreak. We've all had sore throats that segued into stuffy noses and coughs that are half-dry, half-productive and get better with Robotussin. Dayquil/Nyquil makes the symptoms manageable and none of us have been very miserable. We noticed the loss of smell yesterday evening, so day 5.

The worst press conference was given by a DPS Spokesman. The Department of Public Safety is the agency that oversees the Texas Rangers and the Highway Patrol (and a bunch of other stuff that's not relevant to the Uvalde shooting.)

A NYT reporter has posted the log of 911 calls. It's horrifying. 12:47!!!!!

Actually, that's happened (at my old high school). A kid couldn't get a gun so he brought 2 butcher knives to school and stabbed 20 people. Everyone survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Regional_High_School_stabbing

That's not true. The store security guard engaged the shooter and was killed. Aaron Salter. Say his name!

If you think that's bad, google Maria Butina.

The illegal weapons flow from the US to Mexico, not the other way. Here's a concise overview of the Mexican gun situation. It's Wikipedia, but it's a great place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_firearms_into_Mexico Mexicans have a right to own firearms,[1] but legal purchase from the single Mexican gun shop in Mexico City, controlled by the Army, is extremely difficult.[2] Guns smuggled into Mexico are sometimes obtained at gunshops in the United States and carried across the US-Mexico border.[3][4] In other cases the guns are obtained through Guatemalan borders[5] or stolen from the police or military.[6] Consequently, black market firearms are widely available. Many firearms are acquired in the U.S. by women with no criminal history, who transfer their purchases to smugglers through relatives, boyfriends and acquaintances who then smuggle them to Mexico a few at a time.[7]

Wow, I'm glad you're alright. Men like that are often like that because they are mentally ill. In the US, people are rightly afraid that they may be armed, but even in Australia, I'd be leery of drawing attention to myself like that. He might very well have a knife and be looking for the slightest provocation to use it. We're probably more used to living in constant low grade dread of violence than you all are, but that's where my mind went instantly. I'd have been one of the people sitting there filming the encounter, just in case.

You'll have to google for yourself because anything anyone posts is going to cross the politics line.

It might be asymptomatic Covid and seasonal allergies. I'd ask my doctor if I could take allergy meds to feel better while you're stuck at home.

Based on what you've liked, I'd try The Sentence by Louise Erdrich and Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart.

For your high school transcript, I wouldn't list any courses, not even DE, by semester. I made ours by subject which I thought was the easiest way, but you could do it by year too. If you have any high school half year classes, you just list them as a 1/2 credit. I would list the American history class they plan to take as IP (and make the description broad enough that if the CC class falls through you can substitute a Great Courses or online MOOC and CLEP the credit).

I bought Pimsleur CDs on eBay to learn Russian along with Duolingo. If you have a CD player in your car and commute, it's a handy way to really boost your listening skills. There are a lot more resources available for Spanish than for Russian, though, so there may be something better. The complete CD set for Russian cost me $130. My dd did Italian using the Pimsleur CDs and those were about $150. The Pimsleur app is very expensive imho, but many libraries have the first level for free to try it out.

What do their potential colleges require? In TX, all state universities require two semesters of US history to graduate with a bachelor's so it would be worth taking both semesters during high school to check that box. But this is a fairly weird TX thing, I don't think most states have this requirement.

Most 9th graders are not going to be ready to jump into a full CC curriculum. But, it's very possible to slowly accumulate the classes needed for a AA or AS over the 4 years of high school especially if they take CC classes during the summer. For example my dd took Eng Comp 101 and Film Appreciation the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. Neither of these classes was very difficult if your student has strong writing skills so it was feasible to take them early in high school. @Farraris right that you probably do not want to graduate a kid early because it will be very difficult for them to have the ECs to shine for selective admissions. They also have to know what they want to major in immediately if they already have all their gen eds done. But, having 60+ credits in the bank means that a degree is closer to finishing. It gives your student breathing room if they want to do a gap year or try out a different career that doesn't require a degree. It feels less risky to put off college if you're already 1/2 way done than if you don't have any credits.

Is he taking the third semester ASL class or is he starting over? If it's the third and fourth semester, it should count as four credits of ASL. If he's starting over, it will be 2 credits because they overlap. One semester of English comp or lit will count as a full high school credit.

Yes 4 semesters of college language classes equal 4 years of high school classes. That's why you get so many college credits for language APs. Science is a bit trickier since the class that would equate to high school chemistry is probably a one semester non-major survey. The first semester of a two semester sequence will cover only half the topics in greater depth.