16 posts tagged “teenagers”

After I,

Woke, brewed coffee, let the dog out/let her back in, looked through the e-mail,

Updated my blog,

Washed 2 loads of clothing,

Made wife's lunch for the day,

Showered, dressed and made the bed,

Drove wife to work,

Took a shovel, broke up and cleared way the 2 inch thick sheet of ice remaining in front of our cleared driveway and shoveled away the accumulated snow so we can get to our trash can

Ate the leftover, leftovers for my lunch,

Sat down on the sofa to relax,

Son, sitting at the computer, working on his English assignment, tosses me "Grendel', by John Gardner, and tells me, "If you don't have anything better to do, read this."

"Isn't this part of YOUR assignment?"

"Yeah, but is a good book, and I don't want to mess up this homework assignment."

"If its such a good book, tell me something about it"

"Ah"

With stuff like this, why on earth do I need to watch Comedy Central?

PS. I did read the book in about 2 hours. Think the author was a smug,  profoundly unhappy, very unfulfilled man.

While son was transfixed with the morning news/weather broadcast, his mind must have wandered off on to yesterday and his Japanese class, for he said;

"Dad, for informal Japanese, you don't put the fairy stuff on the end of a sentence, right?'

"The what??!!"

"The fairy stuff, you know, polite Japanese."

"Ah, no, you don't. Why?"

"Oh, we had a PALS test in Japanese yesterday on informal Japanese.  I wanted to make sure."

"Well I am sure you did well since informal Japanese is pretty much all you speak."

"Yeah, the rest of the class was complaining how hard it was to use informal Japanese."  [That's a surprise for me as intuitively you'd think a test on more formal, honorific Japanese would be more challenging]

With stuff like this, I don't need to watch the Comedy Channel for entertainment.

Son has gotten 90% of his college applications out of the way and we're hoping the test scores will be good this time.

Of the colleges he's applied for, 2 are out of state (Ohio) and the rest in-state, but a distance from home.  I think in his heart of hearts he's hoping to get a letter of acceptance from one or both of the Ohio colleges and I am too. 

Both have Japanese language programs and the one because of its size, has links to and study abroad opportunities with some pretty decent Japanese universities (Hokkudai, Tsukuba & Nanzan are the ones I can remember) and also a deeper Japanese studies program.

However, son last night stated that he's not going to take Japanese in college, wherever he goes to. I'm sure that's part of his still teenage immaturity, and family stubbornness kicking in, but he's got to understand that the more diverse or versatile one comes out from college, the more attractive one is to an employer (the final goal, right?) and more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  This I see is particularly crucial if one wants to have a decent career in the field he wants to pursue, engineering.  It is truly a world-wide profession now.

With his Japanese language skills he could probably work out a TA position for intro Japanese course too, saving him/us $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. And study abroad would allow him to plug himself back into to the other side of his heritage and forge connections that could serve him well later on.  But right now he's focused on getting a paintball gun, so I guess he can see the forest for the trees.

A while back, son sold his latest and greatest paintball gun, pocketed the money (actually put in his bank account) and from there I thought he had plans to find a job and use what he has now as his own money to put down for a vehicle.

Well, that's not the case.  He's been looking on-line now for another paintball gun, being driven I believe that a friend from jr. high, who is now in Japan, plans to come back over the holidays to visit with his family here (its a long story so....)  and that they want to go out to a paintball field while he is there.  So rather than be embarrassed by renting a paintball gun for the day (they are crappy), he's looking.

He's shown me a couple of paintball guns for sale on Craigslist & EBay which if he bought, would pretty much clean out his bank account.  His money or not, I've said, 'No!'  But it dawned on me that....

There is a kid in his high school, the same year, who son went to school with in elementary school.  This kid was the butt of much meanness son told me, including being the recipient of a swirly while in elementary school, but lo and behold, like the ugly duckling, this kid has overcome adversity, is now a pro, sponsored paintball player, goes all over the country and sometimes aboard, for meets son tells me.  I'm guessing the kid now has more girlfriends than he can deal with too.

But anyway, it struck me that son should contact this kid since they were in class together back in the day, to see if there might be something that could be worked out to provide him with a paintball gun at a good deal.

Oh, no!  I can't do that, says son.  I don't 'know' him anymore; he's probably too busy, not allowed to do this, in short every possible excuse for not at least asking.  Hell, the worst this kid could tell son is, 'Hey, dude, I can't help you.'

Was going through the speed dial list of the cell phone son uses (note, the cell phone he uses, not owns) looking for the phone number of an aunt I needed to contact and as I scrolled through, and I see names of 2 girls, a Veronica and whoever, on the speed dial.

Ooookay, think I now understand why he's up in the morning, earlier than he has been, and anxious to get onto Facebook.

Picked up son yesterday from his other high school after his Japanese class was over. He's got the same teacher as he had last year which I thought unusual since for as long as he's been going to that school, the upper level Japanese courses have been taught by another instructor, a Japanese woman.

Get an answer during the back to school night and thought as we drove back to his home school, son might be interested in knowing why.

"Mr. L told us why he's teaching Japanese IV this year instead of Ms. T"

"Because he's getting more money for teaching Japanese IV?"

(As compared to teaching the lower levels)

"No! He told us he made a special request to the school to continue to teach your class because he enjoys being your instructor."

I guess there's a certain, odd charm in observing how simply he still views the world.

An artifact of son's last year in  public school is that besides him eventually assuming the responsibility for getting himself between schools for his Japanese language classes, is that the timing for this falls in what would otherwise be his lunch break. So, right now at least, a lunch is packed here and he munches on it while I do the driving chores.

Usually its peanut butter and something sandwich, but got bored with that and since son  also likes bacon- a lot (made  himself his version of the Wendy's Baconator the other day) cooked a couple of strips, overlay them with mozzarella cheese and melted it,  added lettuce and our home-grown Japanese cucumbers into a sandwich.

He starts munching on it but doesn't finish the sandwich as he usually does.  Ask why, and am told "The meat to vegetable ratio is wrong" and that "I am not a veggie".  Told him it is supposed to be a BLT sandwich, but out of respect for his pronounced dislike for tomatoes, the 'T' was omitted. Perhaps for the next sandwich, I should slather the bacon drippings on the sandwich?  (Uck!  That even makes me sick!)

On the up side, he's said he wants to be an engineer, and perhaps he's starting to think like one?

Mentioned in a couple of posts down how son's high school has for the 4th straight year, messed his schedule up.  Today was the day it was supposed to be straightened out, but when son called this morning, he was told wait until school opens on Tuesday!!!!!!!

I swing by the school on the way home from picking up wife, talk  to staff and we get the schedule more or less set, except for the room numbers.  So I am told to have son come to the cafeteria first thing on Tuesday morning to get that information.

Convey this to son and suggest that I drive him to school about 20 minutes or so ahead of the bus so he can get to the cafeteria early, get business taken care of quickly and be on his way.

"Daad, I'll get to school way too early."

"Do you think you will be the only kid there who hasn't got a screwed up school schedule. Its going to be crowded and you should get in as early as you can."

"Dad, I don't have to get there early"

"And suppose you get in when you think you should get there, find long lines and wind up late for classes?"

"No big deal, lotsa kids are late for class on the first day"

At this point I freakin' give up.

With no job prospects on the horizon, I've defaulted to the option of sending son away to a small college in Ohio, which is offering 2-week Japan language, cultural program/camp. 

Think I may have voiced some reservations earlier that the camp also invites Japanese high-schoolers to participate and that it all could turn out to be a 2-week babysitting/hand-holding exercise for the American kids. Still a son hasn't even thought about college visits, and this will give him a taste of a small college/small town environment and whether it suits him or whether a mega-school is more his speed. It'll also be a chance for him, if he's ambitious, to explore his roots as unbeknownst to me, this was the school my maternal grandparents graduated from.

The program is coed of course and though there are strict rules about allowing someone of the opposite sex in the dorm room. He's also going to be on his own for the very first time and while he has very good sense of what to and what not to do, but when it comes to hormones, anything could happen. So I am debating whether to slip into his things,  some 'protection' and a note telling  him I don't expect him to take this as lisence to go forth to soweth his wild oats, but at the same time he's also waay to young to be a father, and I don't look forward to being grandfather yet.  And STD's are one of the very last things he needs to deal with too.

Its finally gotten through his teenage head that if he wants more adult play toys, like a car, he's going to need a job, even if its only part-time.

 He's not had much luck yet. He's applied to a couple of places, Blockbuster and Caribou Coffee and perhaps he'll get a nibble.   He applied to the store where his mother works, but they turned him down. He asked me about Dick's Sporting Goods, i.e., 'Dad, is Dicks' a good place to work?'

 Good question.  Told him that when viewing things broadly, yes there are companies which are thought of as good employers, like his mother's employer, large international automobile manufacturer #1, and others.  But, I told him, what really makes the difference is one's direct supervisor.  One could be working for angels, but if your supervisor is a shit, just an empty suit, or outright hostile, your job will not be fun.  So its not really  a question of whether Dick's is good/bad, but pretty much a crap shoot as to who will supervise him and hold well/poorly the person does it.