Parental Pride/Parental Frustration

A bit late posting today, for all 2 or so of you reading.

I could have put this up yesterday but the Carroll County Commissioners were just to rich a target to forgo.

Parental pride kicked in on Saturday when my daughter received notice (by good old fashioned USPS) that she has been admitted to Carver HS for its dance program. This is the premier dance program for Baltimore County public high schools and accepts a maximum of 25 dancers each class year. The program accepts fewer than that, though, if not enough applicants meet the minimum scoring requirements of 80%.

Katya has said for a few years now that she wants to be a professional dancer. She's learned a lot at Tami Gee's Studio of Dance in Finksburg, MD, but my wife and I both believe that if she wants to be a professional, she needs more training by more people. Tami agrees and provided a recommendation for Katya. With the news on Saturday, all of us were excited and happy. Well, all of us but Katya.

She doesn't want to leave her circle of friends to go to a new school. Now, some of her friends would be going someplace other than Franklin HS anyway, and her friend, Erin, is also going to Carver for the dance program. That's the way of transitions from middle school to high school, especially in a place like Baltimore County where there are a lot of options for students. It's not like being in Middleburg, PA like I was. Everyone went to the same school. That's all there was unless you went to a small, private Christian school or, later in HS, to the Vo-Tech.

I'm convinced she'll be happy with Carver and learn a lot. She'll be concentrating in ballet and modern there so she'll continue at Tami's in hip hop and the other styles she likes, as well as being on the competition team there. She'll have Erin going with her and she'll make a lot of new friends. Hell, most of her friends at Franklin MS are not people she went to ES with. She's made new friends throughout her MS stay.

Pride in the girl's accomplishment. Frustration with the girl's attitude. Life with a 13 year old. Good thing I love the girl.