A Little Bit of Bragging

As a mom, it is my right to brag a little bit, so here goes! This is the email that I received from Abbie's physics teacher earlier this semester:

"I was supposed to write this note over a week ago after I gave a lesson on Newton's Law of Gravity. Before the class I had determined that there was not time enough to discuss some of the differences between Newtonian and Einsteinian gravity. I did not anticipate Abigail! Abigail asked such intelligent and thoughtful questions during the lesson that the transition from Newton to Einstein developed organically. Abigail's questions put a lot of ideas in the minds of her classmates as well. That day the discussion was very fruitful with a lot of student engagement. Also of note on this day: Abigail, with much careful thought, essentially came up with the idea of what is known in physics as a Blackbody Radiator, which was a concept physicists in the late 1800's were grappling with. The thought experiments surrounding Blackbody radiation would help lead to the demise of Classical Physics and the advent of Modern Physics. Abigail is very thoughtful and poses great questions; she makes the class much more interesting!"

Knowing virtually nothing about physics myself, this all sounds very impressive. LOL. 

In photography, Abbie had four of her photos selected to appear in the region's 35th annual Black & White Images Contest and Exhibit. It is a juried exhibition for high school students, adjudicated by a local photography professor. There were about 585 submissions and 99 photos chosen across the categories of architecture, landscape/cityscape, experimental, portrait, still life, nature/animals, photojournalism, and photo essay. We attended the exhibit last Saturday and they announced the winners in each category. Of Abbie's four photos, she received honorable mention in the nature/animals category for this photo of Pumpkin:

The adjudicator said she always tells her students not to take pictures of cute animals, but there was something about this one that she really liked. I think it's because Pumpkin's face seems to be telling a story. 

Abbie thought it was ridiculous that I was walking around the exhibit taking photos of her photos when I could just have the originals, but I thought there was something nice about seeing the photos displayed in their mats. 

In the photojournalism category, she won 2nd place for this photo, which she titled "Up." Its potentially hard to tell, but it is a photo of Emily and Laila at the aquarium. The prize for 2nd place was a Julia Child photo book (seen above). Her other two photos appeared in the architecture and portrait categories. I am sure that you can tell which is which. You may recognize Abbie's friend Eleanor as the subject in the portrait photo.

Of course, the problem with all of this is that the head of school attended the exhibit. For some reason, he keyed in on Abbie and decided to make an example of her. We received an email earlier this week that she is to report to a meeting with him next Monday. He would like to conduct a brief interview with her for placement on the school's social media channels. He has requested that the exhibit stay up through the filming, so I suspect that he will have her walk him through her photos. Perhaps needless to say, she is dreading this. She doesn't feel like she has much of a choice, but she doesn't want to be featured on the school's social media channels. I told her to lean into it, but I understand her reservations.

Finally, we received some good news from Abbie's AP Literature teacher. Abbie is one of a handful of students that has been invited to present an essay that she wrote at the upcoming Cistercian Shakespeare Colloquium on February 17th. This is an event for high school students that celebrates Shakespeare's work. Some students are invited to present their essay or research, others discuss, and then there is a keynote speaker who is an expert in Shakespeare. Hopefully it will be a fun day!