April Highlights:
- Luke celebrates another birthday
- Lilah and I take a tour of UCSB
- One last trip to Mammoth
- Luke builds his own practice board
- Lilah joins science march with her friend Sabrina
- Luke takes up volleyball
Begin Dipping Our Toe into University Campus Visits
Lilah continues to be the family all start when it comes to academic achievement. We just received notice that she will be honored at another awards ceremony for her academic performance. Interestingly enough, despite all her accolades and the fact that she also swims and has now taken on a more active role in her Kiwins club by becoming a “Co-secretary,” she’s still not quite sure about this whole college thing. Not whether she wants to go or not, but what she wants to study, where she wants to go, etc..
So during the spring break I asked her if she wanted to visit UCSB and I got the answer I expected, “Why, I’m not going to go there, it’s too expensive.” I reassured her that it would be fun just to visit because an intern from my work, Cannon, who happens to be wrapping up his last semester there, agreed to give us an “unofficial” tour. “Okay, that’s fine,” she said or something to that effect.
As we approached the campus, Lilah began to comment on how many young people were out in the street walking, biking or skateboarding. Not like where we live, eh Lilah? Once we met up with Cannon and he began sharing his stories of campus life, Lilah began to perk up. He bonded with Lilah by telling her about how some professors make attendance part of your grade and others don’t. He likes that because then it’s up to him whether he goes to class or not. He said he sometimes prefers to skip class and just study the material on his own, especially when he has classes that have “annoying” students that ask way too many questions. That’s something Lilah could definitely relate to and she shared her own high school experience of having “those type” of students who ask questions not to learn, but to show off what they know or just to be “annoying.”
An interesting story Cannon told us was how the campus has an app that tracks whether you attend class or not — this is how professors keep track of who shows up or not. Another example of how technology weaves its way into our lives. Cannon showed us the main buildings on campus, eating areas, libraries and told us about the best places for student housing. We then capped off the visit with lunch at this great sandwich place called South Coast Deli.
When it was all done, Lilah had a newfound appreciation of UCSB and could actually envision attending the campus. Mission accomplished. We’ll probably try to visit a few other nearby schools as well, just so that Lilah can get the image into her head and get inspired to choose a place and apply. Cannon and I also reassured her that she doesn’t have to declare a major right away.
Luke Continues His DIY Ways and Takes Up Volleyball
Not sure how many trips we made to the mountains this year as I lost count, but we did manage to get one last visit in to Mammoth during a storm that dropped roughly 4-5 feet of snow. My enthusiasm for these trips had started to wane just a tad since a lot of the boarding I did with Luke this year was on my own while he boarded with his Big Bear teammates. At Mammoth, Luke connected with one of his Big Bear cohorts, but luckily I was not left on my own as Jill was there with her kids making it a lot more enjoyable. While Luke traversed the runs with his buddy Kevin, I did the same with Jill on much safer terrain ;-). The awesome powder conditions on this visit also helped rekindle my stoke for the sport.
Luke was back at building things after our trip. This time, he took the wheels off an old skateboard deck, and then strapped two of my old inner tubes to the board which he used as bindings for his feet. With this contraption, he practices 360s, and jumps and balances himself on different objects. It’s how he plans to retain some of his newfound skills sharp during the off season.
In addition to hopping around the backyard, he’s now jumping and blocking shots for his 8th grade volleyball team, a sport he took up when one of his teachers encouraged him to play. He wasn’t sure that it was something he wanted to do, but he ended up liking it and now he practices 2-3 times a week after school and also participates in games. I didn’t know how into he was, but apparently, he likes the sport enough to sign up for the high school team next year. So there you go, all on his own, he tried a new sport, liked it, and has decided to stick with it for now. I haven’t been able to make it out to any of his games yet this year, but one of the parents did post some shots of Luke that I was able to download for this month’s blog — here he is, really elevating over the net (just notice how high over the net his outstretched arms are). Maybe this will be the start of a new healthy obsession.
That’s all for now. More next month!