Kaylee had a bit of a problem--she was partnered up with a boy to do a project for history, on World War II. A timeline, looking up facts, drawing some pictures, writing a sentence about each item on the timeline, etc. They were supposed to divide up the work, but the boy didn't do his end of it on Friday when he was supposed to. The two of them get the same grade for the project, and she didn't want to get a bad grade because half the project wasn't done. The boy had said he'd email her his half of it this weekend, but as of the end of Saturday he hadn't, and she couldn't wait until the end of Sunday only to maybe not get it then too and be left with no time to do it along with all the other homework she had. Anyone who has been to college has been faced with this--a "team" project where everyone gets the same grade no matter what they do, and there's always one or two people who want to get a good grade and work hard on it, and one or two people who don't care and/or want the other people to do all the work for them while they skate by on getting a good grade from others' work. Kaylee was mad about it, and Steve and I both told her, welcome to the real world. You can guess which camp both of us fell into back when we were in school. I told her she has two choices--let the project fall on its face and get an incomplete or bad grade to try to make a point to the boy, or do the entire project herself, get the good grade and know that the kid who didn't do any work will get a good grade out of it too. And that yes, life isn't fair. She huffed for awhile and then said "Fine, I'll do the whole project by myself. I didn't trust him to do a good job on his half anyway. I don't trust most of my class to do a good job. Nobody cares but me and (listed a couple names)." So today she spent 3 1/2 hours working non-stop on this project, and finally got it done to her satisfaction. I know why schools think these group projects are important, and I suppose learning the actual lessons of how to deal with uncooperative co-workers or that if you want a job done well you're likely going to have to do it yourself is important too, but really, they are very frustrating and irritating things to do to school kids of all ages. My last group project was for Purdue. I lived in Kokomo, was commuting daily to Purdue, was married and pregnant and working and 25, and my teammates were all young kids living in dorms who wanted to meet up at somebody's apartment at midnight with beer two days before the project was due and see what they could do. Literally, that was their plan. Yeah, we got along well. I still kept my 4.0 GPA, however, because I'd already learned this lesson...
This summer Kaylee is interested in doing a TILT program at her favorite summer camp. That stands for Teens In Leadership Training, for kids going into 7th - 12th grades. It's what it sounds like, a leadership training camp, and the kids can come back and help out with a regular camp week, not as counselors, just as helpers. She's wanted to do it ever since her first year there when she saw the girls in the program, and I would think a leadership training course wouldn't be a terrible thing for her to go through anyway. So we've been looking into that tonight, emailed them and asked them a few questions about it. The one problem is that she was going to go to camp with a friend of hers, but her friend is a year behind her, and there's a cut-off at camp between 6th and 7th grade, and they wouldn't be able to be together. So that's a bit of a bummer for her. We'll still see about this TILT program, what it entails and such, and that may be her plan for camp this summer.
Here's a photo from yesterday, flying along on the way to Mississippi. I enjoy the quiet, uneventful flights more these days, and this was one of those. The sun went down off to our right, the full moon was off to our left, and while here we were in between layers, most of the time it was clear above. When we left MS, it was fully dark, and the bright moon was shining on top of that cloud layer, turning everything into what looked like a special effects black and white photo. I tried to get a picture of it, but my phone couldn't pick it up properly. We cruised with a little heat on, a little music on, the occasional chit chat, but a lot of silence, just relaxing for the time it took us to get home. It's not so relaxing or peaceful getting the plane in and out and refueled and put away and such, in the dark and the cold and the wind and the snow, but for the period of time you're actually in it, the office view is quite nice.
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