Bird nest on porch

A pair of robins decided to build their nest this year under the roof of our front porch. It's a lot of fun watching the parents taking care of their fledglings.

Thunderstorms without end

We had terrible weather this week. Almost every day severe thunderstorms and downpours. Lightening struck a tree in the front yard of our next door neighbor. The falling tree then took down power- and telephone lines. The fire department and electricity company worked until 2 in the morning to clean up the damage and repair the most important lines.



Luckily, there was only minor damage to the rain gutters at our neighbor's house.

Boston: Street performer

This weekend we made a trip to downtown Boston. The Quincy market/Fauneuil Hall area was just brimming with locals, tourists and street performers and everyone seemed to enjoy the bustling athmosphere:

Graduation

Again a big step: Middle School is finished, and in fall my youngest son will start High School.

It was a moving graduation ceremony. About 250 students finished 8th grade this year. After the award ceremony,the attending parents and sibling went home, while the graduates continued celebrating with pizza and dance.




Only four more years, and then my youngest will leave the house. Being in the parent role now for 17 years, this thought is almost scary and sad at the same time...

Tips needed for Texas vacation

Hello, all Texas lovers out there: We are traveling this summer to Texas - simply because we haven't been there, yet. I heard, Texas has lovely beaches. I also heard San Antonio and Austin are a "must stop". I do have travel books, but I would like to hear from people, who have been there what they liked most. We are a family of four with two teenage sons. They love sports and adventures. My husband and I like sightseeing, nature, history and good food. Tips concerning activities, lodging and food,nature and so forth are greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Soccer champions

No, that's not about the EM (though we are all very excited about today's big game Austria vs. Germany).

Sascha was playing yesterday with his team for the championship in the U16 of the Bay State league.

Both teams have been undefeated in their previous games, and they truly were equally strong. They tied 0:0. After overtime and penalty kicks,

our Arlington team emerged as winners and qualified for the play off. Tomorrow evening is their first game in the Massachusetts Tournament of Champions.

Marital satisfaction higher without children?

Children bring much joy to your life. Are you sure? Think again! According to Daniel Gilbert, Harvard university psychology professor, having children has a negative effect on marital satisfaction. It’s an illusion that children increase people’s happiness.More on http://blog.coach4u.net

Back to normal

Big relief - we are back to normal. The past couple of days have been brutal. With outside temperatures close to 100 degrees, there were not many places to escape the heat. One of them, the beautiful Crane beach, north of Boston. Something we never experienced before: Parking lot full on a Sunday in early June, and even the water looked tempting despite 53 degrees ocean temperature.



Unfortunately, on Monday and Tuesday the kids had to go to school. No AC there. The superintendent of our schools told parents they could keep their kids home. It would count as excused absence. The college, where I'm teaching, also has no AC and it felt even at night like being in a baking oven. A few students left early because of the heat - to be honest, I envied them....

Weather extremes: heat wave after days of rain

After days of rain,

we in New England will probably experience the first heat wave of summer in the coming days. The weather is way more extreme here than we were used from Austria, and I can only brace myself for having to sit through my son's soccer game tomorrow in more than 90 degrees.

First SAT exam

Our son Sascha will take his first SAT exam tomorrow. He took biology in his sophomore year, and will take chemistry and physics in junior and senior year. Since he is now finishing biology at school and is studying for the final exam, he figured, he would take the SAT subject test in biology right away so that he won't have to study the material again. It definitely has not been one of his favorite subjects.

His friends told him all kind of horror stories about the exam, and now he is a little nervous about getting a low score and messing up his college prospects. He studied from a prep book for the test and says that some of the topics they never did in class.

From what I read on various websites, this seems to be one of the main hurdles for many students. The content of high school biology courses varies, and therefore many students encounter material on the test that they didn't learn before.

For us this is a new situation. In Europe, each country has a relatively uniform curriculum and all students of the particular country have the same level of education at the end of their school career. In Austria and Germany, students must pass to graduate one big final exam called Matura (Austria) or Abitur (Germany). If you pass, you can go to any university. The test is supervised by the federal department of education of the country and basically the same for all students. Therefore, it's not necessary to do additional testing to compare the ability of students.

In the next two years, my son will encounter many more tests before he graduates. Aside from the SATs, he must also take four AP tests in his senior year if he wants to study in Austria (which we would of course prefer because a semester there would cost only 500 Euro = $770). Without AP exams in math, sciences and one foreign language, Austria will not recognize his high school education as equivalent to an Austrian one. At the moment, Sascha tries to keep the doors open to both possibilities: College here in the States or university in Vienna. We will see....

Websites about SAT:

History of SAT: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/history.html

Official Collegeboard website with information about mean scores: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/scores/understanding/average.html