Category Archives: Home & Family

We just got home from our third
Harker High School graduation event this week: the “Baccalaureate:
A Farewell to the Class of 2007”. We have also been to the 2007 Athletics
Awards Ceremony, and the Upper School’s Awards Ceremony. This Saturday is the
big one: the graduation ceremony itself.

Tonight’s Baccalaureate was surprisingly enjoyable. We were offered the regulation
Harker brownies and fruit plates and hard white plastic chairs, of course.
However, the music (two pieces by the Harker String Ensemble, plus two
songs by Cantilena, the women’s choir) was excellent and the speeches funny
and moving. My daughter Jessica, much to her surprise, got a few minutes’ notice
to prepare an introduction for the second Faculty Speaker. After she
and her friends hurriedly collaborated on the text, she carried it off well. Mr. Barth
likes to tell bad jokes so she repeated three of them in his introduction:

• What is a pirate’s favorite math variable? Answer: R
• How do you catch a unique rabbit? Answer: You Neek Up On It
• How do you catch a tame rabbit? Answer: Tame Way

Jessica also carried off a goodly set of school awards:

• Coaches’ Award (for 4 years’ work on a new sport: women’s wrestling, from the
  Head Coaches)
• Excellence in Choral Music (from the Performing Arts Department)
• Cum Laude Society (for high grades)
• Recognition of Service: Judicial Committee (Student Body Awards)

It is a delight to see my daughter’s hard work and passion recognized but
it will also be pleasant to be done with High School events and start getting
ready for Jessica to go to Carnegie Mellon in August.

My soon-to-be-High-School-graduate daughter Jessica went with Matt to the Harker
Senior Prom last Friday night. At midnight, after the dance, she and 14 of her
friends came over to our house for their after-prom party.

When Jessica and I first discussed this event, it was going to be just a few
teenagers coming over for a quiet evening. However, it seems our family was offering
the best alternative to some of the wilder parties being planned, so we
ended up with a crowd. The kids who asked to come to our house were those who
wanted to watch a video (and snuggle with their prom dates in the dark), play
computer games, drink sodas, eat cheetos, chips, and salsa, and hang out in the hot tub.

I talked with three worried parents who called several days in advance to find
out about this party their teen wanted to attend. By the third conversation, I knew to
answer the questions up front: adult chaperons present and taking notice, no drugs, no drinks,
boys and girls sleep on separate floors, we can provide rides to and from prom, and I
would try to get everyone into their sleeping bags by 3 a.m. (one teen to a bag, one bag
to a teen).

Our guests all arrived looking gorgeous in their formal dresses and suits. There was
much mutual assistance from the girls to get unlaced and unzipped and makeup off and
flowers unpinned. The clothes bar over our washer and dryer was full of
elegant clothes carefully hung and folded. Some of them had even brought garment
hanging bags to protect their glad rags. Many of them changed right into their
sleeping clothes.

They were well behaved and as quiet as they could manage given their high spirits and
joy in being together. I asked that they not wake up Jessica’s little brother
or he would want to join in. They enthusiastically agreed. More than a dozen
kids in our hot tub began to look like teenager soup. I sent them to bed before 4 a.m.
More than half of of our guests had forgotten to bring sleeping bags so we loaned out ours
and provided quilts for the rest.
There were some begging to be able to stay up quietly to play video games because they
were not tired and sleeping was boring but eventually everyone settled down.
The girls giggled for long enough in Jessica’s room that one of the boys came up to
tell them to be quiet!

They started to wake up again at 8 a.m. and were making cinnamon buns and pancakes when
I had to leave for a church meeting in Salinas. John got to manage the morning party
shift. When I returned home that afternoon, all
that was left was a big heap of bedding and wet towels. I am still not done washing
and drying quilts and sleeping bags. They left behind 2 swimsuits (1 girl’s, 1 boy’s),
2 sets of silver ear hoops, 1 big blue towel, and 1 Google-brand chapstick. So far,
we have found owners for everything except the towel and the chapstick. Everyone
seemed to have a very good time.

My daughter Jessica has been studying voice with Dina Mirskaya for four
years. She and Dina’s other four almost-High-School-graduates
presented their culminating Senior Recital at
Le Petit Trianon theater in
downtown San Jose last Saturday, on 5 May. Each of the performers had about
20 minutes on the program. For Jessica, this meant six songs, in two sets of
three.

• “Canción de la gitana habilidosa” – J. Castel (1761-1781) Spanish
• “Gretchen am Spinnrade” – F. Schubert (1797-1828) German
• “Lyubasha’s Aria” from The Tsar’s Bride – N. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
  Russian

• “Silver Dagger” (traditional American folk song) English
• “La mi Sola, Laureola” – F. Obradors (1807-1945) Spanish
• “Your Daddy’s Hands” from Ragtime – S. Flaherty (1960-present)
  English

As always, Simona
Snitkovskaya was the capable and charming piano accompanist. The wonderful
food for the reception was from the Russia Cafe and Deli (1712 Winchester
Blvd., Campbell, CA 95008, 408.379.6680). All in all, the music was lovely,
the event was a delight, and the friends and family in the audience were
pleased and proud.

I took the bottom photo of Jessica at the Pittsburgh, PA airport a few weeks
ago as we set out for home after she decided to accept Carnegie Mellon’s offer for
her to join their undergraduate class in September. The CMU nametag she has on
says “Accepted Student” and the poster behind her says “Carnegie Mellon,
Pittsburgh, World Class”. Dina will be helping Jessica pick a new voice teacher
this summer so that when Jessica moves to Pittsburgh at the end of August, she can
continue her private music studies.

Dina’s introduction:

Dina at the piano:

Simona at the piano:

Jessica’s opening song:

Jessica’s singing:

Jessica’s closing song:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

This morning, I mailed my daughter’s
CMU acceptance letter plus the $600 deposit. The first, I am
sure, of many college payments during the next four years. I also
mailed Jessica’s invitations to the 8 people for whom we have tickets
to attend the Harker graduation ceremony
(announcements go out later), plus the invitations to her Senior
Recital. Jessica has been studying voice with Dina Mirskaya for four
years, so she and Dina’s other four almost-High-School-graduates
get to show off their music in a Senior Recital at
Le Petit Trianon in San Jose.
We have ordered the food for the recital reception from the
Russia Cafe and Deli.

Jessica spent last weekend constructing a mailing list, designing
name insert cards, folding and stuffing invitations, putting on
labels and stamps and generally learning how to communicate formally
with her friends and relations. We had a long discussion of just
why there was both an inner and an outer envelope in a formal invitation…
I think I remember having this conversation with my own mother many years
ago.

After a difficult 100 hour college visit trip (starting just after midnight last Friday and getting back at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday), my daughter has decided she wants to attend Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) as an undergraduate in September. After 18 months, I am so happy to be done with the college application process and to have Jessica be
accepted by and decide to go to such an excellent school!

Jessica and I spent 3 days visiting the lovely town of Northampton, Massachusetts and Smith College and then went to the Hartford, Connecticut airport (BDL) to fly to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to visit CMU. We had
already spent several days at CMU last year (see my

“Warren Vache, Carnegie Mellon” blog entry). The
Delta flight was delayed in BDL
and by the time we reached JFK (New York City) at about 10 p.m., the connecting Delta flight had left (despite our being told in BDL that the connecting flight
was also delayed and we could still catch it). There were no more flights that night and Jessica had an 8:30 a.m. meeting the next morning in Pittsburgh, so that night we drove 400 miles.

I called my husband John from the Delta
gate and he reserved us a car with a GPS so it was ready by the time we took
the JFK airport train to the car rental counter. We started driving at 11 p.m.
through New York City (and every NYC borough so far as I could tell), crossed
the Allegheny Mountains (lots of tunnels with signs saying Blue Mountain, Tuskaurora Mountain, and Allegheny Mountain but nothing to see in the dark) and got to
the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Pittsburgh hotel at 5 a.m. This was the second time we have
stayed at the Wyndham near CMU; I recommend it highly. The
Garmin Where2 GPS in the rental car gave flawless
directions. Where2 lost signal in long tunnels (of which there were many)
and sometimes referred to roads by names other than what was on the signs
but the directions were perfect.

After sleeping in the car and for 1-1/2 hours at the hotel, Jessica visited classes and had meetings with CMU’s Admissions, Humanities, and Music departments. By lunchtime, she had decided that CMU was where she wanted
to go. I am very happy with her decision. My satisfaction was not even
reduced by Delta deciding suddenly to interrupt our (late again) flight home in Salt Lake City to change flight crews so we arrived back in San Francisco
3 hours late.