Seven Villages, Janet Joakim

At a family dinner this weekend, a comment was made that went something like “you made the paper…Rachael.”

My 20-year-old daughter Rachael had a puzzled look on her face, and I admit my look was one of concern…

“For what?” I asked.

“You didn’t know she made the deans list at college?”  (Florida Institute of Technology, “florida tech”)

We all laughed - no, we didn’t.

How do they know this and we didn’t? Do they send a press release to the papers and not to the student?

What a pleasant surprise, and a little bit of a relief! With all the privacy laws, we are never able to access grades and such information, and she has been less than forthcoming at times.

Last summer her former coach (NCAA volleyball) apologized for not paying attention to her grades. I didn’t realize that her grades had fallen her first year and she had been in a little struggle with the balance of a heavy load of science classes, labs, a signed commitment to volleyball, and a new social life.

She managed to make major improvements and obvious did much better this year. She will have a new coach when she returns, and has learned to balance it all. She takes classes like biometry, evolutionary biology and is writing arguments against capitalism and our abuses of the balances in ecology that prove she is a blossoming intellectual.

Her sister is heading into her second year at UNH where she is studying communications and between the two of them we spend the summer in good company filled with discussions about life, society, responsibility, sustainability etc.

They aren’t perfect - (that would make life too boring) but they are doing so well and I have complete faith that they are becoming good citizens that will each make important contributions to society.

(I assume her sister is doing well, but we haven’t seen her name in the paper yet!)

see the Patriot notice here: http://www.barnstablepatriot.com/people_doc_24.html