Today, Jeffrey finished elementary school (at the end of 5th grade). I don’t remember there having been any kind of ceremony when I finished elementary school, though I did decorate my school dictionary with all sorts of notes saying how many minutes were left in school (starting at about 5 hours and counting down), but that’s not the way it is today.

They started with a school-wide awards ceremony recognizing all the children who were in Glee Club, Student Council, and several other activities; then they sent the primary students back to their classrooms and recognized the fourth and fifth grade honor students. Then the fourth-graders left, and the serious business of the morning began.

Each child’s name was called, and while he or she zipped across the room to pick up a certificate from the principal, the teacher read a paragraph telling a little bit about the student — their favorite subject, favorite moment, and a word or two about what they were looking forward to in middle school.

The whole thing took about 20 seconds, which only gave me time to take two pictures, the other of which was blurry. I hope Diane’s picture came out better.

Then the students went back to their classroom for their last two hours of elementary school, which were taken up by a recess (of course!) and yearbook signings. He’ll see most of the same students next year in middle school, but not one of his best friends.

They’ve been friends since kindergarden — his parents had wangled some sort of intra-district transfer to get him to Alta Vista rather than the elementary school nearest his house, but next year, he’ll go to the middle school near him instead of continuing to commute. I’m sure they’ll stay friends, but it won’t be the same as being friends and classmates.

Every year, the 5th grade class makes tiles

and assembles them into a plaque which is placed on an outside wall as a permanent memento of the class.

I’m not sure how permanent the placement of this particular plaque is, though — this summer, they’re doing major renovations to the school, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they’ve moved things around before September.

School let out at 12:30; we walked over, said good-bye to his teachers, picked him up, walked home, and went out to lunch. Later, as we were driving home, we passed the school, and I said, “Hey, Jeffrey — there’s your old school!” He smiled and said, “Yeah, it is!”

Shabbat Shalom!

Under normal circumstances, I’d be on an airplane right about now, travelling to the East Coast for our department’s regularly scheduled planning meeting. But since Jeffrey’s graduating from elementary school on Friday, I decided to save the company some money and stay home — which was definitely not the hardest decision I’ve had to make this week.

In a different set of normal circumstances, I’d be typing this entry on my desktop computer, either at home or at work, but we just had an announcement on the PA system saying that Almaden has been asked by PG&E to immediately reduce our electrical usage by 15%, so I turned off the desktop and am using the laptop on battery power. Since the PGE status page says there are no constraints and it’s only 84 degrees outside, I suspect this is a test.

Aha…as I was typing this, Diane called — the SVL lab is also under curtailment until 6pm, but they admitted it was a test on the PA system (maybe they said it here, too, but I sure didn’t hear them if they did). And she has an inside office, so she has no lighting (she was supposed to get a desk lamp but it hasn’t been delivered yet), so she’ll be leaving very soon!

And further aha…I talked with one of the Facilities guys here, and this is a PG&E-mandated system-wide test for companies who’ve signed up for load shedding. They decided not to say that it was a test on the PA here on the grounds that people would ignore it — probably true. At SVL, they turn off the lights centrally, so people can’t ignore it!