My heart felt very heavy today.

Last night my big, strapping 15 y.o. son broke down in tears as he recounted taking an Advanced Chemistry exam after a prolonged absence due to the flu mixed with two school snow-closure days and he took it on the same day as two other major exams.

There was an equation apparently, that he thought he understood (having taught himself) but upon taking the exam realized that he did not and worse, that most of the exam revolved around the equation. He shed tears as he explained that he did not want to think about it.

He’d gone back over the exam when it was returned to him and found out what he did wrong but it was obviously too late as the deed was done.

I tried to comfort him as he was explaining–I’d gotten awful grades in harder classes like chemistry–and my father was a chemist! I was totally lost most of the time. I know how it feels. I gave him the ” that’s really sucks but it’s okay now–you learn from it and go forward” pep talk but still, I worried about him all day, wondering if he was okay.

No one except a teenager really understands how terribly difficult getting through these years can be.

Tags: family, high school, me, under pressure

One of the highlights of my day is when my 15 y.o. son gets in from school and we do his “debriefing.” I know that term conjures military-think but I tend to see it in the light of when I first heard it as a child–when the first astronauts came back from the moon and it was days before they could speak to the public because of their being “debriefed.” I was very disappointed to have to wait that long to hear their tales.

Each school day, my son ventures out into his environment, one that is foreign yet at the same time familiar to me.

My dear son, an ace student, smart as a whip, lacks organizational skills. We’ve known this since his grammar school days–his grades being hit for lost or late homework. It hasn’t changed all that much now that he’s in high school so I came up with the debriefing, which would serve the stated purpose of having him review his day for his own edification, perhaps tinkling a memory chord.

The benefit goes beyond that for both of us, I think. He choses to run through his day in a logical manner from first period to last and in doing so, he not only remembers the academics but the stuff that went on that was funny or interesting. Though he’s sharing the facts with me I also get “the filler” which in my opinion is the most interesting. As they come up I pepper him with queries, mostly in an attempt to get a more vivid picture of what he’s shared. Today though, I needed to leave to pick up his older brother from work in just one hour from the time the debriefing started. It went on for 30 minutes whilst he told of his good friend, “M” who pulled a hamstring muscle while training on the track team. This didn’t’ stop “M” from moonwalking from class to class, though the dancing was punctuated by “Ouch, my hamstring.” These are “gifted” kids, btw. lol.

Another noteworthy part of his day was learning German slang words. Here in the States we “flip the bird” at people to show great contempt. In German the gesture is pointing to your head and uttering “Du hast einen Vogel,” meaning literally, you have a bird in your head or you are crazy or in the extreme, the same as what flipping someone the bird, means. I guess some things translate very oddly, lol.

Tags: debriefing, family, german, German/Germany, Hast du einen Vogel?, high school, slang, son