Making Decisions

February 24, 2022

From the time our daughter was very young, we have (for the most part) let her make her own decisions.

This has led to a few different outcomes.

1. Very interesting outfits

2. A good sense of who she is

3. The occasional super stubborn streak. This may be more genetic-based than as a result of decision-making

For the most part, she chooses what we would have for her, and I think that she is more confident because of it.

Then there are the other times. The times when she is incapable of making even the simplest decision. When she can't tell me where she wants to eat or go.

Right now she is on the precipice between junior high and high school. And with that change comes some serious choices that will impact the rest of her life. We have had her enrolled in a second language program since she was in kindergarten. We thought that she would be going all the way through school in that program just like her brother did. Then another plan was made by someone, I'm not sure if it was the provincial government or in our local school board.

The second language program was being pulled from all the high schools in the city except for one. And that one school is on the other side of downtown from us. On bad weather days, or bad traffic days I can't tell you how long it would take us to drive her there, let alone how long it would take on transit.

Now she has a choice to make. Does she go to her designated school and take the options she is interested in? Or does she go to the same high school she was planning on and take AP level classes in the second language she has been studying since kindergarten?

Both have an impact on her plans for her future. The options include training in something she is considering a career in. The other is finishing a so far ten-year commitment that will set her apart in her future, and she gets a certificate from the country that has designed the language route she has taken?

It's a pretty big decision for her to make. And not one I want to make without her input. We have had many talks and made many pros and cons lists. Then there are the social ramifications. A lot of the kids she has been around since kindergarten are going to stick with the AP language courses. Does she want to stick with the kids she knows? Or take a chance on a new group?

Whatever decision she makes is one we will support. But it is a lot of pressure to be under. And I guess in some ways just the making of the decision will affect her future paths as well. Oh to be young and to have your whole world ahead of you.

The song of today is one that probably not many people are familiar with. And really isn't a song. (Everybody's Free to) Wear Sunscreen came out in 1999 as a spoken word advice essay that some music was put behind. The original text was written by advice columnist Mary Schmich in 1997. Then director Baz Luhrmann found it in the Chicago Tribune and the music piece was created.

Schmich wrote the column (that was originally titled: Advice, like youth, is probably wasted on the young) as though it were a commencement speech that she would give if asked. Somehow the internet thought that it was written by Kurt Vonnegut, and he is frequently miscredited as delivering it at an MIT graduation.

The title of the release comes from the name of the backing track, "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good) by Rozalla. Which appeared on the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet.

Shopping links!

Romeo and Juliet - No Fear edition