They Aren’t Even My Options!
Sometimes I think I have some kind of ailment – something that no one else has, which is maybe why people think I’m a little weird.
I have a real problem with this whole “choosing classes” thing.
I’m not in school. Yet I spend hours and hours and hours looking at course catalogs for both high school (for Shane) and college (for Dylan).
I go through them with great fervor, thinking about each course. Would this be good for my son? Would this fit his schedule at this particular time? What might it entail, and how would my son benefit from learning this subject?
I’d like to say that I stop there, but I don’t. Not only do I create Bible-sized booklets of lists, outlining the options that are clearly already available on the web, but I revamp them and create new formats to make them easily readable for whichever son might be registering for classes.
What’s especially interesting is that these registration time frames only happen twice a year. But I spend weeks, sometimes months, considering the options.
And they aren’t even my options! I am not taking the classes, nor would I want to take the classes. I have no desire to go and sit in a classroom again. I don’t really even want my children to go through this, except that they kinda have to.
So I try to make it as pain-free as possible for them. And I try to make the process fun and interesting and easy, by paring down the courses to fit the path each person has chosen – while still making sure that graduation will come on time and in good stead.
It’s not that I have nothing to do; I have plenty of other things to do. But when registration is over and I have to wait another several months before starting the process again, I do the unthinkable.
I stare at the finished schedule. I read it, and re-read it, and imagine my son in those classes, and just wallow in it, like it’s an ice cream sundae that I’ve created rather than a list.
Then I write blogs about those choices, in case anyone else cares what my kids are planning to take. I’m not even sure my own kids care.
But wow, I really care. I love this process. I have no idea why, or what it means, or how on earth I could be so utterly obsessed.
As I said, I think I have a problem.