Wrapping Things Up

We have some end-of-school-year stuff to take care of. I'm re-registering my youngest daughter with Brownies and I'm doing it differently this year. They have an "optional" section at the bottom for ethnicity, and in the case of adult registrants (leaders and such) highest education received as well. I left it blank last year, since it says it is optional and I object to ethnic "quotas." Well, being the leader of my other daughter's troop, I was very irked when I got copies of our registration forms back for troop records and found that the area registrar had filled that section out for us! Hmmm. Not very optional then, is it? So this year I'm writing across the whole box in big letters "I Choose Not to Fill Out This Section." I can't see how checking a box stops discrimination, which I presume is the reasoning behind this. And I would like to know how someone who doesn't know me from Adam can ascertain my ethnic background and education level.

As far as my older daughter's troop, of which I am the leader, I have no idea how that is going to go. It was a difficult year for me. I became a leader by default, in mid-September or so, because what was supposed to happen troop-wise fell through and if my daughter was going to be in a troop, I was going to have to lead it. This year we had few girls and little money. I also had to deal at times with some modern girl attitude, which basically seems to be "It's all about me." I'm sure a lot of you have seen these shirts in stores with slogans like "It's funny how you think I'm listening." Uh-huh, that makes me real enthusiastic to share and teach things. Not that I didn't honestly try my best. It just made it discouraging at times, wondering if it made a difference.

My youngest daughter is also in gymnastics, and this year for the first time, she's learned simple "routines" and will participate in end-of-year "competitions" with other girls her level. No judging yet, just award certificates. She's only seven. I'll post some pictures after the events. She enjoys gymnastics, and I'm glad she's getting the opportunity to take classes. She's very active and she'd rather be climbing and jumping and moving around than anything else. I'd like to try to get her into ballet also, if not this summer than next fall.

Ironically, whilst I was complaining above about people filling things out for me that I don't want filled out, my husband IM'd me a personality test: Machiavelli personality test. I scored as a high Machiavelli, not surprising for an Evil Genius, although I was not overwhelmingly high. It was interesting how a Christian worldview slants the test both ways. On the one hand, we know we are not to lie and cut corners to get ahead. On the other hand, we know that people are not naturally good and kind!