Okay. dilemma:

I have a nice enough kid asking for a recommendation for the magnet. It's a highly gifted magnet. she's not gifted, let alone highly gifted. I know the requirements they have. She wants me to write a letter saying she can do those things.

I wrote a letter saying she was a good kid and a good student. but damning with faint praise.

She wants me to rewrite the letter ASAP because the magnet office told her that I didn't say she met the requirements.

What to do?

Love the shoes, Consuela.

'suela those shoes ROCK!

Timelies,

Weekend was, as expected, busy. There was no poker learning, though. GF and I crashed on the counch Friday night and finished up my Justice League season 2 DVDs, then started on my ahemed copies of JLU season 1 (after checking the release date of the DVDs, which is October 24th and therefor too long to wait.)

Did the LARP on Saturday. The game itself went well, but GF and I spent a lot of time arguing with a couple of the other organizers because they had relocated a building without asking anyone else first and then stored the loaner weapons in a way that damaged the padding on a good number of them. So we were both pretty cranky by the time we got home.

Sunday we went to the local Ren Faire. Walked around a lot, got dusty, saw a few shows and I spent some time handling and oggling sharp, shiny things. GF convinced me not to spend over $600 on a sword because I have nowhere to put it in current apartment and already spent too much money on my XBox 360. But it was very sharp and shiny and pretty and nicely balanced.

Also spent some time in the Faire's military encampment and handled some of their weapons and armor as well. The people there were confused by my minimal questioning, because I knew enough that there was no point in asking the basic questions, but not enough to ask more advanced stuff. Plus, I kept couching things in modern terms, which of course "confused" them since they were all in-character. So I mostly just looked and prodded. But maces and warhammers? Lighter than expected, but still feel heavier than a sword due to the whole smashy versus the finely-balanced cutting implement thing.

Does the magnet school have some sort of objective criteria, like test scores? Can you explain to her that your mad letter-writing skills can't overcome that?

"If we include Pluto, it'll be anarchy! There will be millions of planets! We'll have to memorize all of them!" Is a bullshit answer.

No it's not. We've discovered that Pluto really isn't the same thing as the other planets, and would never be classified as a planet if discovered today. It's sort of like saying blue whales are fish because when they were first seen we thought they were fish, but we don't call humpbacked whales fish because when we discovered them we knew whales weren't fish.

Ouch, Kat. I think maybe the only option is to be as gently frank as you can - "I'm not sure I can say what they're asking me to say. Maybe I'm not the best person to write this letter."

She wants me to rewrite the letter ASAP because the magnet office told her that I didn't say she met the requirements.

Well if she doesn't meet them, then all you can say is, "I'm sorry; I wrote the best letter I could." What's your other option, lie? Or I mean you could tell her to pull her head out of her hindparts and find a place where she'll excel, not someplace over her head, but I expect that's more diplomacy than a whole row of Kofi Annans could pull off.

Damning with faint praise has a long and powerful tradition in recommendation letters; I suggest you let the letter you wrote stand.

They're so cute, and they match a new outfit I got there perfectly (brown A-line skirt and plum t-shirt), and I ended up wearing it to officiate at my brother's wedding omg.

China was exciting and beautiful and stressful in turns. I can't really recommend traveling to a developing nation--particularly a fairly unWesternized province of a developing nation--with your late-70s parents (one of whom is diabetic and not in the best of health) and without anyone in your immediate party who speaks the language. Travel was difficult and food was also. What Americans think is Chinese food doesn't bear much resemblance to most of what I saw there (although the steamed dumplings on the street vendors' carts were generally good).

The wedding itself was entertaining as hell, complete with "negotiations" at her parents house, delivery of two live fish, and her not-much-bigger brother carrying her downstairs on her back.

I'm glad I went, but I'm not sure my parents should have. My nieces were troopers, though--enthusiastic and fairly brave, despite being unsettled at the way we were stared at wherever we went.

But maces and warhammers? Lighter than expected, but still feel heavier than a sword due to the whole smashy versus the finely-balanced cutting implement thing.

Is there a difference between a mace and a flail? Is one term older than the other?