(no subject)

[mrissa]

Once, lo these many moons ago, I wrote an article about factors to consider if your child is considering skipping a grade. It got published on the internet, and there it has stayed, and as a result, I get e-mail every month or so asking how someone can skip a grade. Most of these e-mails are painful in one direction or the other. The one I got yesterday -- most of what I get, in fact -- was from a kid who either couldn't spell, gram, and punctuate, or who decided that e-mail was no place for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It managed to meander in two short paragraphs. It convinced me that the writer did not need to skip the 10th grade and in fact might be better off with some of the 6th grade over again. (I am a snobbish and horrible person.) I wish I could just have an automatic bounce to any e-mail whose message was "I am flunking all of my classes and I just don't get this; how can I skip a grade to get out of school faster?"

I sympathize with the urge to get out of there. Realio trulio, nobody sympathizes with it more than I do. And I think that vocational education is highly undervalued in our culture, and that people are being sent to college as a one-way ticket to the middle class rather than out of either love of learning or intent to use that learning. But. If someone wants to get out of high school without being able to read for comprehension or write a coherent letter to ask for help in a matter of some personal importance, I don't see why I should help them do it with a diploma. There are too many people helping in that process already. I look at these e-mails from kids and just get so sad, because they're already so far behind I have doubts that they'll ever catch up, and so many people have let them down so far that I hate not being able to help. But I can't, not these specific kids, not as a voice over an e-mail.

The ones who break my heart the other way are worse, though, and they're the ones who remind me of myself at that age. They're the ones who really deserve to get out and need to get out. You can get broken flinging yourself against the bars of a cage that hard. I was a combination of lucky and skillful to emerge as close to unscathed as I did. For those kids, I write long e-mails suggesting things they can do if they can't manage to escape, ways to keep their sanity through the whole process. It tears at me not to be able to do more, but I know I can't. I wish them luck. I wish them the best. I assure them that it will get better, because, oh, did it ever, and sometimes people really need to hear it.

I have a series of time travel dreams. In them, I'm with various people in my life in their past. (Most recently it was dd_b and pameladean. It's been all kinds of friends and family members in the past. It's been a long series of dreams.) I'm not supposed to tell them what happens to them in the future in any kind of detail, and I'm always stuck for what to say in those circumstances. Towards the end of the most recent one, I pulled away from hugging Pamela-in-her-late-20s goodbye and held onto her shoulders and said, "It won't always be great, and it won't always be what you want, but there's good stuff in it like you wouldn't believe." And I think that's what I believe about life in general, deep down. I just know how hard it is to convince myself some days, and I despair of making any headway with anyone else, much less kids I don't know who e-mail me looking for hope.

In other news, I got several books at Uncle Hugo's with Grandpa Lyzenga's Calvinist Hanukkah gelt and still have some leftover for hair jewelry or earrings or something else. timprov and I went a-wandering. It was good. Oh, and I had ordered a fountain pen because truepenny and matociquala are wretched beastly people and linked here. And because Karalee had just sent me a bunch of ink when my old Waterman went missing. So I got a new Waterman on sale, and it came today, along with a calendar of fountain pen pr0n. Seriously, these are like the pin-up girls of the fountain pen world. The one for my birth month is gorgeous, just glorious, and it could be mine for a mere $995. (There is no decimal point missing in that price.) This is wholly unreasonable, but oh, so pretty. Also I discovered that the Rotring ink cartridges Karalee thought would fit in my Waterman will not fit in my Waterman. I think the clear solution here is for me to get a Rotring or some other equivalently sized pen. Does anyone know which cartridges go in which pens?

My Gritter Christmas pictures should be up here and here. The latter link is pictures from the Como Park Conservatory, so fans of War for the Oaks might want to see what it's like there this time of year even if you aren't Gritter fans. I will gladly take all and sundry to the Conservatory, possibly not all at once, but in small groups. Love the Conservatory. So lovely. Mine. I turned in the disposable digital camera today and should have the CD Friday or Saturday, so Lingen family Christmas pictures will follow, in case you care.

I'm going to read another of porphyrin's books now, so that I can be frustratingly close to done with it when I see her next but can't actually give it back. Isn't that how this works? It has the last three or four times, anyway....

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

"It won't always be great, and it won't always be what you want, but there's good stuff in it like you wouldn't believe."

Oh. Yes. Lovely. Thank you.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I'm having some trouble coming to grips with the concept of a $1600 fountain pen.

Pens and Dreams

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I had a series of dreams involving Buffy characters, with recurring roles. Sometimes I was a character, sometimes I was myself. They were almost always relationship dreams. I do admit perhaps I was watching too many episodes at that particular time.

I have a fountain pen myself, a Pelikan that was a law school graduation gift to me and cost about $250. I wrote your Christmas card on it (yours is still up on my mantle, by the way). I adore this pen, the first fountain pen I've ever had, and it refills with an inkwell. It's made me rediscover physical correspondence all over again; now I want to get a set of stationary to use with it. I'd also like to see if there's a carrying case for these pens, other than my shirt pocket...

Just wanted to share the love.

Mack

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Up until I was 12, we lived in a very small town in Florida. I was reading from a very early age (my mother claims age 2 and it sounds about right) and was extremely bored in kindergarten. I was even more bored at the beginning of the first grade, and after a barrage of tests, they skipped me up to the second. Add this to the fact that I started kindergarten at age 4-going-on-5 and many kids started at 5-going-on-6 (because lots of school systems have weird cutoff rules for kindergarten starts based on when your birthday is), so I was two years behind about half the population.

Looking back, it wasn't so much of an issue until I hit my teens (though it might explain part of why I felt so socially isolated--not that there aren't a million other reasons for that...), at which point we moved back to Brooklyn and I got to start my social life over (yay!) but was still The Last to have my bat mitzvah, get a work permit, a Sweet 16 party...

I remember once I complained to my mother about being behind my peers in all the age-based social landmarks and she looked dumbfounded and said, "No, you're ahead of your peers because you're a grade ahead." I think she'd never considered that it might work the other way 'round.

Now, I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out in the very long run, so I'm not wishing for any magical do-overs, but the fact remains that even after the grade-skip, I still spent a lot of time feeling bored in grade school because the school system in that town in Florida was abysmal. I wonder, whether they would have skipped me ahead if I'd started school in Brooklyn, or whether better options would have been available.

I think if my daughter turns out to be bright enough that anyone talks about skipping grades, I think for her sake we should look for a more challenging class with kids her own age.

Pen neepery!

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I love those fountain pen pron calendars.

The Rotring cartridges are so-called "standard international cartridges", which will also fit most Pelikans that take cartridges (though most Pelikans are bottle-fill only), and a lot of pens made by smaller manufacturers. Sheaffer, Parker, Cross, Waterman, and Lamy each make cartridges that are compatible only with their own pens, as far as I can tell.

I have a Rotring "Core" fountain pen, which was the first fountain pen that I bought that didn't come from the drug store. It's a great pen.

Are you having trouble finding Waterman cartridges?

[mkille.livejournal.com]

My son is nearly 3, and my wife and I have been talking school since before he was born, since both of us had different kinds of not-great experiences. We've decided two main things. First, that we'll do what we can to have him grow up with kids (and, indeed, adults) of a variety of ages, in or out of school. Second, we will do what we can to make sure he doesn't stay miserable *the same way* for more than a year. There are no guarantees that a different grade or a different school or homeschooling would be a magic fix--life isn't so full of magic fixes anyway--but at least we won't leave him in a place we *know* isn't working.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

WHICH WATERMAN?

Hello, I'm dyin' here -- what pen did you get?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My pen-pals kept me going through late junior high and three years of high school. They wouldn't have been enough for four.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't rule out skipping under the right circumstances, but if I had skipped early, I would have been bored all over again, too. Skipping late actually solved a problem: I had run out of high school classes to take, basically, and leaving high school meant that I didn't have to care any more.

But I was socially and physically mature, and I had a lot of friends older than me from the get-go. I felt perfectly comfortable with my friends ferrying me around in their cars (as at least two people on the friendslist can attest). Other kids would have been humiliated. Kids vary and situations vary.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a very good policy, no identical suckage twice.

Re: Pen neepery!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was. Now I have a stack of boxes of them from Karalee. After that we'll see if I have trouble.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Phileas, green. It was on sale. I'm now coveting severalmany others, but the sale price on this one allowed me to still get elisem jewelry and sartorias and msagara books with the same chunk of money set aside for treats.

It's so smooooooth.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

My school system in Philadelphia didn't skip grades, period. I don't know anyone who skipped. I wish I could have; I was reading at thre or so, and Mom got me math workbooks, so I was in 3rd or 4th grade before I ever learned anything in school I didn't know. Also while I wouldn't say I had good social skills, the people I hung out with most were a grade above me, so I do think I'd have been better served by skipping an early grade.

On the other hand, my high school had enough variety and good enough gifted-program English and Math teachers that I had no need at all to skip a later grade. The only pure waste of time was the set design class I took because I needed to fill a period and I'd been on the school play's set construction crew for the last two years. One class in three years (my high school started in 10th grade) isn't too bad.

Re: Pen neepery!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Odd. I had a Core (from Levenger) that was so horribly scratchy I eventually threw it out. Maybe I just got a bum pen.

Re: Pen neepery!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, sometimes even a scratchy pen can get broken in. I'm still mourning the loss of my $4 Schaeffer, because I'd had it since I was 8, and by the time I'd written four novels with it (two of them the sucky, destroyed adolescent novels), it knew how it was supposed to go. And I tried buying another $4 Schaeffer, and it just wasn't the same, and I wasn't willing to spend another 14 years breaking it in.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't even have that good a time-wasted ratio for college. (Stupid distribution requirements....)

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Never mind skipping ahead a grade, I would have been perfectly happy to have attended a school system that would have offered classes to keep me from getting bored to tears. All the little rural schools I attended could barely afford to teach basic stuff, no honors programs or anything interesting for me. I almost failed High School because I stopped going to classes after the first six weeks every year. I'd read the textbooks cover to cover and then became terribly frustrated with the fact we seemed cover the same things over and over. For a few weeks I'd show up on Mondays and Fridays to pick up homework and take tests, but in time I stopped doing that during my sophomore year. I actually forgot what my locker number was. I was always in trouble, and it was one of the worst times of my life.

[sraun]

IIRC, I saw an ad for a $10,000+ fountain pen once. Let's see - I think it was a commemorative for Lindbergh's crossing the Atlantic, and included a small piece of his hair? Something like that.

Re: Pen neepery!

[sraun]

You can probably get the right cartridges in a wide variety of colors at Colorado Pen Company at the Megamall. Middle of the south side, second floor, just above the Lego store.

[sraun]

What, me, a fountain pen fan? ;-)

I've got a blue Phileas somewhere. Currently in my pocket I've got a Pelikan Go fountain pen, a black Platinum sample, and a copper Schaeffer Targa.

I've got a bunch more at home - I should get them into the display box my wife gave me for Christmas. Tell you what - I'm hosting the Minn-StF Meeting on Saturday, 15 January - if you'd like to compare fountain pens and inks, I'll promise to have things arranged?

In jars, I've got two or three colors of blue, something called "Copper Burst", a red, and at least one purple. My cartridge supply is more limited - but I never use them. If there are any you'd like, I'd be willing to gift you with them.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

On that same website I found one that listed for $4200.

I still can't really grasp that. I can only assume that such pens are not actually made for writing with, but just for collecting.

[sraun]

It is a collector's mentality. It shows up in all sorts of strange places. Personally, I can't see spending $100k+ for an antique car - but there are people who do it! Or $1000+ for a comic book.

Personally, I can't see going quite that overboard for a pen. There are some other things I'd get tempted by if I won the lottery - Easton Press first-editions, for example.

Re: Pen neepery!

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I have a Rotring Freeway that's never written smoothly. I chalked it up to the difference in nib design between it and the Core, but maybe it's just a quality control problem. It's really irritating how easy it is to get a bad pen.

So far, in my modest-sized pen collection, Lamy is the manufacturer with the best record - I own three Lamys, and they've all written like a dream right out of the box.

Re: Pen neepery!

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have two well broken-in $4 Sheaffers, and they are much much better pens than my more expensive Sheaffer. I think I'm never going to buy a Sheaffer that costs more than $25 ever again.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is why the concept of more money than I could spend is not one that makes much sense to me: sure, I'd get the Easton Press stuff first, but then the fountain pens and the clothing designed and tailored for me and all that.

And before that, even, I'd invest in several kinds of small business and/or charity, so yeah. I don't think I'll be bewailing my excessive funds any time soon.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My first and second Watermans (Watermen?) were blue Phileases (Phile...oh, never mind).

I'm not in Minn-StF, but it's a very kind offer.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

People often do not understand that not teaching bright kids anything will hurt them. This is part of why.

Stupid system.

[sraun]

Ah, the dreams of winning the lottery. Easton Press, more techie toys, a paid off house, a lifetime annuity - the things I'd spend money on. I know just what you mean!

Re: Pen neepery!

[sraun]

There are services that will do seriously wonderful (by report) things to your fountain pen nibs. I'd have to do some research, but I know I have pointers.

[sraun]

From what I've seen of you, I believe you would fit in. You're welcome to stop in and check us out! Sign in if you want to become a member, skip it if you don't - no membership dues, we'd be happy to have you!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think I'm getting your dreams. Or at least dreams of your history :-) I never have dreams that I'm just cutting to play hooky for its own sake - it's usually that I've missed school because I'm in some college credit program or something and now I have to show up for finals and don't remember where anything is.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

[This is the third time I've tried to post this. It keeps messing up in novel ways. Please forgive me if it shows up in three separate places after all...]

I was lucky to have a responsive school system in this respect--they were very concerned to challenge kids who need challenging in the way they wished to be challenged, and I got out before psycho achievement-fever set in. (There is a tipping point when it comes to involved parents with high expectations...)

For example, my senior year in high school was AP Calculus, AP English, German III (I think--they let me skip a year of German! yay!), independent-study Latin (my best friend was my tutor), study hall, and Norwegian at the local university. I sometimes forget this is Not Normal.