And yes, you should have that song in your head now. Or, I do, at least. You’re welcome. Which reminds me, here is an old song that I only recently learned about which I have been blasting while washing dishes lately: Lizzo’s Good as Hell. You’re welcome again.
I’m saying “This Is How We Do It” because after that post on Tuesday, what did I do? I did not post on Wednesday. At all! What? In my defense, I did log in 8 hours of KidsOutAndAbout work yesterday (including this poorly-formatted but useful little gem of a listing of the opening dates of all of your local seasonal favorites), drove carpool to Halfmoon for M’s soccer, found J shoes to go with her dress for her friend’s bat mitzvah, worked out, and prepared a (half-assed, admittedly) dinner, so it’s not like I was eating bonbons. But still. So, this morning I thought, “Just gotta get going on the CDF post first thing, before everything else, damn the return of my headache.” So, observe: This Is How We Do It.
First, the basics.
This Saturday J is going to a free Girls in STEM event held at the University at Albany. I am just telling you now, it’s full. Sorry. We barely got into it, by the proverbial skin of our teeth. I think maybe I heard about it from an email sent out by the school district, but it filled up really quickly, so by the time I tried to sign up, we almost didn’t make it. They had this huge variety of workshops, some of which sounded really interesting and some which sounded. . . less interesting. You were supposed to indicate which two workshops you wanted to attend at the event, and by the time I signed J up, the drop-down list was like when you do online clearance shopping and there’s everything greyed out for the item that you want except the one that’s XS in neon orange and the one that’s XXL in purple cheetah print. Except the STEM version of this was that there was a single workshop that I signed her up for, twice, because it was the only option left. Bummer for that facilitator, amIright? But luckily I sent a quick follow-up email with three possible workshops that could replace the duplicate, and someone got back to me right away with a good option. So, yay. We actually just barely squeaked ourselves in in a similar situation for the districts STEM summer camp. J went to this last year and really liked it, but this year they sent out the email announcement over February break, while we were traveling. So I wasn’t keeping up with all of our emails and I caught the next one, a few days later, announcing that registration had already closed! SO sad! But then I sent a polite email asking if we could pretty-please be put on a waiting list, and it turns out that they had miscounted and there was one more space, and I snatched it right up, thank you very much! Never a bad idea to send a polite little inquiry.
J is now a little bummed about the timing of the Girls in STEM event, because it conflicts with the Albany March for Our Lives, which she would like to attend. I am planning to go to it; not sure, yet, about M and Cute W. Personally, I’m most looking forward to the walkout event Niskayuna High School students are planning for April 20. Members of the community are welcome, so I hope a bunch of people come! I asked J if she thought that she might want to go with a group and walk or bike from school to the gazebo, so we’ll see what happens with that.
But back to this weekend: on Sunday it’s a volleyball practice and maybe a soccer game. . . in other words, a pretty dang relaxing weekend for everybody, for the first time in a long time. Which is good, because we’re going to be keeping ourselves pretty busy over April break–but you’ll hear more on that later.
Phew! Roughly four hours after I started this post, I’m finished. I’m on a roll now!
Big Sister
Girl! We are Marching for Our Lives in Savannah this weekend! Local students organized it and we are sending dozens to represent the older generation. So awesome that Miss J will be at a STEM conference. More girls in STEM will also make the world a better place, too!