The first time we ever went to the Alpine was when it first opened. It had only been open for a couple of weeks, and we went there for lunch. I don't think she had the German menu yet. I remember the only thing was filet mignon, and the problem was that I had only ever heard the word "filet" in the McDonalds commercial: "Filet of fish, a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a happy meal" so I thought "filet" meant fish. I didn't like fish, and my mom had a habit of lying to me about food to get me to eat things she knew I wouldn't like, or not telling me what something was. New foods were scary to me, because I couldn't be sure whether I would like it, and I knew my mom would force me to eat it if I ordered it, whether I liked it or not. "You ordered it, I'm not paying for food you don't eat!" So I refused to order anything, because I thought for sure it would be fish and my mom would make me eat it, and then I'd get in trouble for gagging or making faces, or whatever reaction I had. So my mom finally just said fine, I could starve, because she wasn't going to order one later once I saw it wasn't fish, either. We were the only people there, so I couldn't just look at someone else's plate. So the first time I went there, Wally (the owner) made me a frankfurter, I think....and of course then my mom and my brother get these beautiful steaks. So the first time I went there, I either didn't eat, or I ate a frankfurter. It didn't take long before word spread about the incredible deal it was, and the next time we went there, we had to wait 45 minutes for a table, where the first time we had been the only customers.
What do you mean when you say an "elevator up"? Like I said, there's the elevator that takes you down and then back up at the end of the tour, but there are a lot of stairs on the actual tour, many of them going up. I was pretty out of breath by the time we got back to the elevators.
I don't even know if Wyoming offers music as a minor. I never knew anyone who was minoring in it, but we didn't have any of the "fun" music courses like you mentioned. We had Written Theory I-IV, Aural theory I-IV, historical survey (music history), World's music, and then depending on whether you were an education major or a performance major, you might have classes about specific genres, or classes to learn how to play and teach every instrument. And we had our private lessons, and then a performance class where all you do is watch performances, but you don't get credit for that class and you have to take it every semester. And of course ensembles. World's music was the closest to a "Fun" one that a lot of non-majors took because it was a humanities, Writing level 3 or 4, global studies level 3 or 4, and I think something else too...it covered a LOT of bases. So kids could knock out a ton of requirements with one class. But that was studying different kinds of music around the world, like gamelan music from Indonesia, kabuki theater from Japan, etc. UW had their own Gamelan ensemble. No idea if they still do....if Rod Garnett is still there, they probably do. But we didn't really have anything like history of rock and roll. It was pretty much traditional music history.
Univerities here are so different. Universities are specialised to the "major", though there really isn't such a thing as a "major" so much. You just study whatever you want to do as a career, but you don't have any of the general courses like we do in the US. You do those in junior high, then you choose a general direction, like the arts, or science, social studies and you take the courses that relate to those general areas. And here, only the top level can go to university, so like, the top 10% of students. Everyone else goes to more like community colleges or trade schools, not universities, and those programs are geared to your chosen field. You don't get much outside of your field. You won't have to take math or science if you go into music. You won't have to take humanities if you go into Engineering. You only do the broad general studies in junior high/underclassmen years to decide which direction you want to take. That's why E had like 15 or 16 classes in what would be her freshman year....she had to take every subject offered so she was exposed to a little of everything and then decide what she was most interested in. Now her classes are almost all science and math related, except she DOES have a religions class, and she has English, French, and Dutch. She dropped German. But she has Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Math B (the highest level), English, Dutch, French, Design and Research Technology, Religion, and PE. She's looking at universities now, and they are all science universities. She won't have to do history or languages in college. She's already past the "Generic" classes part of her education... Starting in their sophomore year at the highest level, they concentrate on their future career subjects. In the lower levels, they only do the general subjects in junior high, because they only do 4 years of secondary education and graduate high school at 16. We have no programs here to get college credit in high school. But it's hard for kids who don't really know what they want to do. They have to focus on ONE area so young and they can't change their minds once they've chosen, because if you are doing a science profile, you don't take social studies. But if you decide that science isn't for you later and you'd prefer to study history, too bad. You can't go back.
One of E's ex-friends had always wanted to be a police officer and had planned to do the culture and social studies profile...that fit. But at the last minute, she decided to do the same profile as E and their friend Dimphy, I think probably because she was expecting to be able to piggyback off of them. She never did the homework and was always asking to copy. She couldn't do that if she was taking different classes than them. So I THINK she changed, hoping that they would do the work and she could just skate by without doing much and then have them explain everything before a test so she could do just enough to pass. But a month into their chosen profile, she was already failing so spectacularly because Dimphy and E wouldn't do the work for her or let her copy, and she had no understanding or interest in the subjects that were required, that they let her switch her profile to the easier science one. Even that, she failed and had to go down a level AND redo her sophomore year. And they had to make a major exception to let her change to that other profile. As a rule, you can't switch once you've started. They only let her because she was doing SO badly....like, she had less than 20% in every class. And even then, she couldn't change to the profile she had planned to do in the beginning. She could only change to the easier of the 2 science ones, because the rest of the classes were too different and she'd have to catch up the first part of the school year in all those subjects. So she wasn't allowed to. I HOPE that since she had to redo the whole year and go down a level and was basically restarting her profile, that she was able to change to a profile that suit her better. And I hope she had the insight to ask to do that. But that's the issue I have with the school here is that once you START, you can't change direction if you find out it's not what you want. She pretty much dropped her entire friend group after she switched profiles. I think she was mad at them for not doing the work for her, and she got into the wrong crowd and started smoking, both pot and cigarettes, and drinking, and Dimphy and E's friend group isn't into any of that, so E has no idea what she's doing now. But it's kind of sad...maybe if she hadn't had to choose a profile at such a young age, she would have had more insight and would have chosen better.
My gym has only been open for less than a year, so we already have a lot of gym newbies, but the New Year's resolution crowd is something else...
Crow and I never seem to agree on anything
at least it's healing nicely and the pain is just about gone