Reading Time: 4 minutes No I don’t drive the Rivian but I drive the Toyota Sienna next to it: owned it for 9 years now (since summer 2013). It was the main car (minivan) I drove in last 9 years, with the exception of sometimes I drove my wife’s Camry for the purpose of saving gasoline, or taking care… Continue reading My cars over the years
My Zhenhai Middle School Days我在镇海中学的日子
Reading Time: 6 minutes Our old daughter Serenity is entering 7th grade this school year, as I said somewhere else, in 6 years she will very likely attend college. Use her word, “I want to a quality college such as Columbia U”. I know she wanted to be a wildlife biologist and last I checked she has no intention… Continue reading My Zhenhai Middle School Days我在镇海中学的日子
Best way to track my kids on school buses
Reading Time: < 1 minute We live in a relatively safe area, and both our school districts and our bus drivers are solid (knock on woods on this one though, as nobody can really avoid accidents or incidents). In the past few years, we (at least I) mostly rely on the mobile app SafeStopApp that tracks the school bus for… Continue reading Best way to track my kids on school buses
Restarting Math Fact Scholars
Reading Time: 3 minutes The ordering form is here: the main difference from earlier is now we offer packages only. At least from the Membership Toolkit (MTK) website at this time. Note you will need to register at this MTK website in order to see the form. For some parents I think they may already have the workbooks, or… Continue reading Restarting Math Fact Scholars
A run group for LMS 7th grader kids (or 6th, 8th grade kids, or kids, siblings in similar age range)
Reading Time: 4 minutes Any questions please let me know || Mobile: 314 540 2721 || Email: minjie.xu@gmail.com (Update 11-18-2022) We ended the daylight saving time for the year. The sunset is usually at about 5 pm, thus 4:30 pm starting time will give about 30 minutes time. More importantly, the weather is becoming a bit cold as the… Continue reading A run group for LMS 7th grader kids (or 6th, 8th grade kids, or kids, siblings in similar age range)
Middle school after school activities
Reading Time: 4 minutes A.k.a., the enrichment opportunities, as they usually call it in the elementary schools. For middle school, though, they usually have more choices than elementary school. This is the Ladue Middle School current offerings. Note the Science Olympiad itself has 20+ subjects / events, and it’s mind boggling to say the least. Also note I was… Continue reading Middle school after school activities
Meet the Teachers
Reading Time: 2 minutes Community night, open house, curriculum night,… the bottomline is, they are all “meet the teachers” night. It’s not as hard as “meet the parents” (I recall there was a movie with that name). Because of pandemic, last few years, meet the teachers have mostly virtual or drive through, to avoid large crowd etc. And I… Continue reading Meet the Teachers
Separation anxiety – parents version
Reading Time: 2 minutes Background: I went to a boarding school when I was 13. I saw my parents once a month. Society was much simpler then but the change was in the air and in the ground, Ningbo was opened up in 1984, and I saw a lot of earth moving around me. Although foreigner was still rare… Continue reading Separation anxiety – parents version
Alcohol
Reading Time: 2 minutes I started a Twitter thread on Alcohol recently. I have not finished it yet, and I am in a bit relapse now. But I will attempt to rewrite it as a blog. Or reflection. I think the most important thing of all, is we need to make sure we don’t get drunk often, or have… Continue reading Alcohol
Rough day and week, student loan forgiveness and math is brutal too
Reading Time: 2 minutes First: I am happy to say the kids to back to school. In the last 2 weeks before school starts, some days Sophia really got bored, and she let me know that. She asked me to to buy the humming bird feeder, among other things. I recall the days I shopped at Sears (hint, a… Continue reading Rough day and week, student loan forgiveness and math is brutal too