The person who called was insistent:  "Don't be late!" she said.

It was finally time to take #2 Son in for his orientation for what they now term Adult Education.  Why they call it that, and demand that a parent be there with the so called adult, is beyond me.  But, so is most bureaucracy.

Because #2 wants to go to culinary school before he is 18, and he has to have a high school diploma to attend that schol, we had to apply for special permission for him to leave regular school and get a GED.

This has taken, as all things in the educational system do, forever.

He was approved, thankfully, or i'm not sure where we could have turned after that.  So we weren't late.

Another family was, and one lady delayed our start by deciding to go to the restroom at the last minute, after she had been sitting there for 25 minutes.  The supervisor was patient, i guess he's used to these sorts of things.

He first went over the ground rules.  You are adults here, that's why it's Adult Education.  We do not ever see your records from your former school, because we don't want to.  We don't want to pre-judge you as a person, so you can get a fresh start.

You must dress and act appropriately.  You may not play with your phone when you are here.  You must attend for 15 hours a week, or you will be considered truant.  There are no lunch breaks while you are here, and you must get yourself here and home, there are no busses.

We are open from 7am to 8pm.  Some of the satellite centers are not open those hours, but we will discuss that when we decide where you will attend, and make your appointment for your first test.

You will first take a Locator test.  This takes about a half hour and tells us approximately where you are, grade school, middle school, or high school.

Once you have taken that test, you will make an appointment to take the second test.  This Placement test will take close to two hours, and will tell us more precisely where you are in your studies.  Which version of the Placement test you take fully depends on how well you do on the first test, so don't blow the first one off as unimportant.

If you score high enough on the Placement test, you may be allowed to come in and take the practice GED.  The state requires everyone to take a practice GED before taking the real thing.  If you pass that, we will send you to the next GED test date, and you will be out of here.

If your second test shows you aren't ready for the practice GED, you will have to come here or to one of the learning centers for the requisite 15 hours a week, and you will be given classes so that you can raise your grade level high enough to pass the practice GED and the GED.

So, how long you are here is up to you.  If you do your absolute best on the Locator and the Placement tests, you might be out of the system, with a GED under your belt, in about 2-4 weeks.  If you mess around, or don't study if you do need to come here for a while, it will take you a lot longer.

When the supervisor finished going over all these things and gave us our paperwork, i let him know that #2 Son's plan is to have his GED this semester so he can start culinary school in January.  Also, i told him that his private school teacher had already given him a practice GED, and he had scored more than high enough to pass the real thing.  He seemed relieved, and smiled, and told us that if #2 Son did that well already, there should be no problem.

Finally, at that point, #2 Son smiled.  "That's what I want to hear!" he said.  This kid is ready to get to the next stage of his life.

He just needs to remember to stop for red lights.  Yes, i'm still on him about that, he has extra chores so he can earn the money to pay the fine.  If he's in Adult Education, and heading to a post-secondary institution, he can take responsibility like an adult.


Today is:

Alex Kivi Day a/k/a Kivi Day -- Finland (The Day of Finnish Literature)

Arbor Day -- Poland

Bonza Bottler Day

Chicago International Film Festival -- Chicago, IL, US (oldest competitive international film festival in North America; through the 24th)

Curacao Day -- Curacao

Double Tenth Day/National Day -- China; Taiwan (In remembrance of the revolution against the Imperial Manchu Dynasty.)

Festival for Juno Moneta -- Ancient Roman Calendar (Juno as goddess of money)

Great American Beer Festival -- Denver, CO, US (festival that holds the Guinness World Record for most beers tapped in one location; through Sunday)

Independence Day / Deed of Cession Day -- Fiji(1970)

Journee Nationale de la Femme Marocaine -- Morocco (National Women's Day)

Kruger Day -- South Africa

KWP Foundation Day -- North Korea (1945)

Maroons Day -- Suriname (celebration of indigenous peoples)

Moi Day -- Kenya

National Angel Food Cake Day

National Cake Decorating Day -- some websites say today, some say the 17th

National Depression Screening Day® 2013 -- US (don't play around with depression, get screened if you need to)

Naval Academy Day -- US

New York Comic Con -- NY, NY, US (through Sunday)

St. Francis Borgia's Day (Patron of Portugal; Rota, Marianas; against earthquakes)

St. Paulinus of York's Day (Patron of Rochester, England)

Tag der Volksabstimmung -- Austria (Referendum Day)

War of Independence Anniversary -- Cuba

World Day Against the Death Penalty -- International

World Mental Health Day -- International


Anniversaries Today:

The United States Naval Academy opened with 50 midshipmen and 7 professors, 1845


Birthdays Today:

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., 1974
Brett Favre, 1969
Tanya Tucker, 1958
Charles Dance, 1946
Ben Vereen, 1946
Harold Pinter, 1930
Richard Jaeckel, 1926
Thelonious Monk, 1917
Edward D. Wood, Jr., 1924
Helen Hayes, 1900
Giuseppe Verdi, 1813
Henry Cavendish, 1731 (discovered hydrogen)


Debuting/Premiering Today:

The Tuxedo, 1886 (introduced at The Tuxedo Club in New York)


Today in History:

The Great Hurricane of 1780 kills 20,000 to 30,000 in the Carribean, 1780
The first non-Native American settlement is founded in Oklahoma, 1802
William Lassell discovers Neptune's moon Triton, 1846
The first "Dinner Jacket" is worn to the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, NY, 1886
President Woodrow Wilson triggers the explosion of the Gamboa Dike thus ending construction on the Panama Canal, 1913
Ho Chi Minh enters Hanoi after the French pull out of the city, 1954
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant, 1957
The Windscale fire in Cumbria, U.K. is the world's first major nuclear accident, 1957
The opening ceremony at The 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, is broadcast live in the first Olympic telecast relayed by geostationary communication satellite, 1964
The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force, 1967
In Montreal, Quebec, a national crisis hits Canada when Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte becomes the second statesman kidnapped by members of the FLQ terrorist group, 1970
Sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, 1971
After having closed borders for about two hundred years, Armenia and Turkey sign protocols in Zurich, Switzerland to open their borders, 2009