Your (Kid’s) Assignment, Should You Be Coerced To Assist In It
Yesterday’s post was more than a tad rushed because The Mesomorph & I spent the early hours of Friday morning pummeling a cantankerous PowerPoint presentation into submission.
Why? So that he and his partners could present their report on the Japanese Beetle (it appears to have been Invasive Species week in class) later that same day.
And why, pray tell, was the timely completion of this task important enough to warrant devoting myself to esoteric and bizarre details of software mechanics, a frustrated adolescent male, and the larval life cycle of Popillia Japonica when an abundance of preferable options were available to me?1 Assignments such as this one, you see, carry his hopes and dreams - OK, assignments such as this one carry my hopes and dreams that my beloved younger son will graduate from high school on time so that he can gain entry into the tech school he favors so that he can eventually make a living so that he can move out of my house without DCFS giving me grief.
In any case, Friday marked only the second time this school year the Mesomorph has requested or even deigned to allow my assistance on his homework so I was glad enough to help (although his timing could be better).
The Results
And, according to his report,2 the presentation was well-received and rewarded with an appropriately high grade.
Of course, nothing gets those parental cockles hotted up faster than a child’s heartfelt appreciation and admiration for ones competent assistance rendered in an emergency.
Of course, that ain’t gonna happen in this household.
This Is Where You Come In
Consequently, I’ve decided, with a conclusiveness that belies and defies its underlying illogic, that the time, effort, and opportunity cost of teaching PowerPoint to the Mesomorph and learning about the methodologies used to control the spread of and damage done by the Japanese Beetle are to be repaid by the conversion of the presentation into my Saturday blog posting.
And you’re gonna enjoy it - if you know what’s good for you.
Book Now For The Holidays
While I have been humane enough to eliminate the animations from the slide show, the full whizz-bang presentation with narrative by the Mesomorph is now available for birthday parties, horticultural meetings, family reunions, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.
The stripped down panels from the slide show can be found at
The Japanese Beetle Presentation
And, yes, this material will be covered on the final.
Footnotes
- Admittedly, the range of “preferable options” is extensive, including, as it does, making a line by line comparison of my credit card company’s new privacy policy and the 2005 version of that policy, checking our inventory of paper products in anticipation of the next grocery run, and mentally calculating the time required to accumulate the funds to purchase that Lexus LS 460 once my progeny start paying for their own groceries↩
- It will surprise few parents of school age offspring that this after-school report was not spontaneously forthcoming but was instead begrudgingly confessed after a high intensity interrogation.↩
1 response so far ↓
1 MindSpin // Oct 14, 2006 at 7:57 am
The fellow in the photo must be a nymph. Judging from the grubs I dug up this past week while planting trees, there will be no shortage of these beasties next year. Hate ‘em.
Great report, on the other hand. And congrats on impressive parental sleuthing that lead to the discovery of the assignment in advance of the evening before it was due. Always a coup ;->.