Act VI - End of Summer Blues

 Due to our somewhat subdued social schedule here, I have found myself checking Facebook with increasing frequency in order to feel socially connected. But unfortunately all the adorable pictures of kids going back to school in the US this week has just gotten me homesick. To make the infection worse we just received Leif and Klaus's school assignments and the diagnosis is grim.
  The school system in the UK seems to vary somewhat in different regions. Our friends in Scotland for instance were able to directly contact the individual schools they were considering and even changed their admission the day before their kids were supposed to start. Here in Cambridge there is a central admissions board to which you have to apply and it doles out students to all the schools in the area. This means that kids do not necessarily go to the school that is closest to them but to where their parents apply (but ultimately where there is space available). This is in some ways a nice idea for I am sure it helps gives those kids in economically depressed areas more of a chance to go to a better school. But for us, being late to the game, it has meant that our kids have been offered admission into, from what I can tell online, is the worst school in the area as it is the only one with space available. The school is called Abbey Meadows and from its website looks perfectly pleasant but its Ofsted rating (Ofsted be the Office for Standards in Education) is "inadequate".   So now I am on a hourly roller coaster which vacillates between statements like "We need to appeal this decision and fight for a better school" or "What does it really matter? We are only here for a few months" to " I bet they gave us this school in revenge for the Revolutionary War" to "We are not citizens so we should be grateful we got in anywhere" and then again "What if this sets them back in their education? This is not what I had envisioned for their overseas school experience" to "'Inadequate' British schools are probably better that US good ones".... it just goes on and on. Luckily the school year does not start until September 4th so I still have two more weeks of self torture over the issue. Kurt of course is much calmer about it all- he claims he went to one of the worst schools in Pennsylvania and, I have to admit, he did turn out great. Though last night after discussing the issue with our friend Naomi I had finally resigned to Abbey Meadows and was about the write to them accepting the assignment when Kurt piped up and said he still wanted to call the admissions council. Argh! Will keep you updated on how that goes.
  In other news, life after our amazing Scotland trip has settled nicely back into our schedule of

museum craft events and local tourism. Before we left for our trip, the boys, of course, noticed that a small carnival with rides and bounce houses was being set up on Parker's Piece, one of the large downtown green spaces. Figuring that it would be gone by the time we got home I tried to dampen their hopes for a visit. Amazingly (and not amazingly) the carnival seems to be a school holiday tradition and will be up from now until September. Last Friday we took advantage of its flat-rate all-you-can-ride fee and the boys spent a few glorious hours perfecting their avoidance of friction burns from the inflatable slides and how to use the various seemingly unnecessary buckling systems on all the tame rides.
 

Over the weekend we visited two very different Cambridge landmarks: The Center for Computing History and the Botanic Gardens. The Center for Computing History, tucked away in what seems like a small industrial park, is a shrine to all things electronic and has hit upon a nice balance of informative displays about the history of computing and a decades-spanning arcade. There is whole room set up as a 1980's computer classroom, complete with working green-screen computers made by a small Cambridge-based computer company called Acorn. Right next to that is a wall of working arcade console games which of course included PacMan and Space Invaders. In the main room, various home gaming systems are set up sequentially around the room starting from the 1970's to about 2010. The whole family spent the entire afternoon hopping from console to console to check out each system's offerings. My favorite was actually a text-based game from the 80s where a description of your situation pops up and the screen and you type in various things to try to figure out what is going on and where to go. This particular one followed the story-line of "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy". Not knowing the book all that well I kept getting killed when the bulldozer rolled over the house and, even when I was able to find a way out of the house, a brick would fly off and kill me. We are planning to buy a membership not only to keep the boys occupied on weekends but also so I can conquer the snarky narrator of that game.
  The Botanic Gardens, being set in Cambridge, were of course gorgeous though not spared by the

current drought just as the rest of the city. We particularly enjoyed the Scent Garden and the greenhouses. Every time we visit one of these early 20th century display greenhouses, I try to plot out a plan for how to get funding to turn the Gettysburg College Greenhouses into just such a tour-able space. In my experience they are a pleasant way to experience the variety of natural phenomena in the world- like a zoo without the guilt. If anyone has advice and what I need to do to make it happen I would love to hear it. A girl can dream.
  Oh, also there is a lovely cafe on the garden grounds that serves an amazing Victoria Sponge Cake as Kurt and I can::burp::attest.
 

As far as museums trips this week: Monday the kids and I headed back to the Museum of Classical Archaeology, this time to an event focused on the Greeks. The boys were able to build block temples, fashion their own weapons and armor, collaborate on some large black red figure amphora, and replicate some common Greek toys using clay. Luckily the museum was not quite so hot as it was the last time so it was a little easier to get the kids interested in completing all the offered activities.

 Yesterday I may have pushed this all a little too far by suggesting we try two separate museum crafts. Both the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Museum of Zoology (which we had not yet been too) were holding fun activities and I couldn't pass them up. First at the MAA, the boys made antler headdresses meant to teach them about those found at Star Carr, a nearby prehistoric site. Those, of course, were made from actual deer as a graphic video in the exhibit hall will demonstrate for you but, for a bit of a softer reality, the organizers sensibly had the kids make theirs from paper. Despite the boy's expression in the picture they were still having fun at this point.
   After a quick lunch (I let them select the restaurant- they chose a 1950s American-Style diner in the mall- I could feel the waitstaff's silent laughter) I cycled them to the Museum of Zoology (which is coincidentally right next to the MAA). The crafts this time were a paper book in which the kids were suppose to write and draw their observations of nature and some small animal habitat/lifecycle shadowboxes. Klaus was ok with the first one but started breaking down with the second one continually saying "No, thanks." when the craft helpers suggested different materials or methods to him. In the end it was only the colored gel paper that saw him through the activity to the end. Our crafts completed, I was ready to concede defeat and take them home but Leif wanted to fill the book he made with observations from the museums extensive collection of preserved animals. Never one to stifle them when they show serious academic interest I compromised by carrying Klaus all through the gallery so that Leif could look around at all the pale creepy crawlies encased in clear resin and rarely labelled. I'm going to have great arms if this keeps up.