Achievements

The year is not over, but Abbie has already managed some noteworthy achievements. First, the softball season is officially done for the year, and the B team did great against their opponents, winning 9 games and losing 2. Overall, I think that Abbie enjoyed the season and my hope is that she will sign up for softball again next year. One of the cool side benefits of the season was that she was able to reconnect with an old friend, Isabel, from her old school; a girl that she had always gotten along with really well, but had not seen in years. They were able to reconnect when Abbie's school played a game against Isabel's school this spring. Their plan is to stay in touch and they seem to have a lot in common.

Second, Abbie was involved with a contest at school called, "World Champion of the World." It was a contest among a subset of her classmates and it required that students choose countries and then they scored points based on how many articles were published about news from their chosen countries. Students could trade countries in the hopes of securing countries that resulted in more points. The student with with the highest score when the game was over (this went on over a period of months) was the winner. As luck would have it, Abbie won and now gets to have her name engraved on the World Champion of the World trophy.

Third, Abbie took the SATs in March as part of the DukeTIP program. The goal was for her to get used to the format of the test and the testing environment, so we kept the experience pretty light. Other than taking a practice test, she did not spend time preparing. It seems to have worked out because her verbal score was high enough to qualify her not only for a state-level recognition ceremony but also for a national recognition ceremony. Unfortunately, the state ceremony occurs when she is away on her class trip and the national ceremony occurs in North Carolina during her final exam week, so she will not be able to attend either, but apparently they will mail her medals to her.

Other than her academic achievements, Abbie continues to be interested in photography and is loving every minute with her new camera. A family friend of ours is a professional photographer so he spent a couple of hours with her a few weeks ago, showing her some of the "tricks of the trade." He was also kind enough to give her a tripod that he doesn't need anymore and that has been incredibly helpful. She is already looking ahead to high school - thinking about getting involved with the yearbook and with sports photography.

Abbie is also back to being vegetarian these days and has a renewed commitment to environmental issues. She wants to start an environmental club at school and has connected with one of the high school students who started that sort of club at the high school level last year. She has three main goals that she wants to accomplish at the school that she thinks will help cut down on waste and plastic usage, so we'll see how it goes.

Other than that, I think that she is looking forward to the end of the school year and our upcoming trip to France. She has been practicing her conversational French with us more and more, anticipating that she may need to interact on our behalf. Chad's rusty French will also be useful, but I am of no use. Last nigh she taught me how to say, "I am a stupid American." in French, just so that I would be ready for the trip! :)