Delaware Area Career Center

Did you miss me today? I was out sick and, at the moment, still feel pretty lousy. No matter what I will not be back at school tomorrow because I am scheduled to be at an all-day meeting at central office. Hopefully I will be back at school on Thursday!

For those students and parents who are interested in learning more about the wide range of opportunities available at the Delaware Area Career Center there is an open house on December 2nd from 5:00 - 8:00pm. This is a great opportunity for students and parents to meet with the instructors and learn about all of the different options available. As a reminder, don't forget that even if attending the career center, WKHS students are always WKHS students. With most programs you will have the option of attending the career center for full days (where you would take your lab coursework which counts as elective credits and your academic courses all at the career center) or for half days (where you only take the lab coursework at the career center and then return to WKHS for the other half of the day for your academic classes). You will graduate from Worthington Kilbourne and continue to participate on our athletic teams - even if you decide that you want to attend the career center for the full day. I strongly encourage you to check out the programs as the hands on opportunities to learn something new while also gaining your required elective credits can be a very appealing option!

Free Practice ACT Opportunity

This Saturday, December 4th, Thomas Worthington High School will be offering a free ACT practice test through Kaplan, a test prep company. The test will run from 8am - 1pm. If you are interested, you must sign up for the test in advance. You can register online at kaptest.com/practicetest or by calling 1-800-KAP-TEST. According to the information Kaplan has provided, they will provide you with a complete analysis of your results. This can be a great opportunity if you want to get the feel for what a real testing environment will feel like by waking up early on a Saturday morning. Remember it is also a marketing tool for Kaplan though, so you are likely to receive increased mailings and contacts from them encouraging you to register for one of their test prep classes.

Weekend Wrap Up

Well, did you have a nice Thanksgiving weekend? I sincerely hope so! Mine was fun, but definitely busy. On Thanksgiving we started at my grandmother's house with my mom and step-dad and then later in the day went to my dad's house where his wife and her family were gathered to celebrate. Needless to say there was lots of eating! :-) On Friday my sister convinced me that I needed to go shopping with her and mom. For those of you who know me at all or from reading this blog - I HATE TO SHOP! Everything about shopping bothers me. There is just no enjoyment from it for me at all. My sister and my mom enjoy it which is definitely a good thing for me as they do pretty much all of my shopping for me. This is the one day a year that they want/ need me to go with them. I am sure it is not my positive attitude or enthusiasm for the day since those are both lacking, but I suspect it has a lot to do with my willingness to drive the car, drop them at the door, stand out of the way with the cart or holding their bags. So, we ventured off together at 6am and I am not sure what time we came home - it felt like it had been an eternity, but I don't think it was really that long. My sister left me at home and went back out shopping again until late in the evening - she is definitely a shopping champ! I am thankful for her dedication though as I think she helped get me pretty close to done with all of my Christmas shopping. :-) Hooray! Life will be great if I don't have to step foot in another store for the remainder of the holiday season. On Saturday we spent some more time with my grandmother and mom while watching the OSU game and then went to see Tangled - a cute Disney movie about Rapunzel. My sister, her husband and my niece and nephew headed home today so it was back to the grind with writing recommendation letters. I am thrilled and relieved to share that I am caught up on all of my letters! I'd love to think that I have written my last one of this college application season, but somehow I suspect that is too good to be true. Now that I have brought you up to date on all of my long-weekend festivities, I hope you will stop by my office and update me on how your holiday weekend played out.

Looking ahead I would like to warn you that I am out of the office all day on Wednesday, December 1st, for a meeting at central office on Credit Flexibility and am out for the last few hours of Friday afternoon for another meeting. And, since I am giving you "warnings" I'm not sure if this counts or not, but my voice is pretty much gone. That may be a good thing for you, but it really isn't for me. :-) I'm not sure if I am trying to fight something off or what the deal is, but my throat is bothering me a little and my voice has been going down the drain... and that is without talking to anyone in an effort to help save it as much as possible. We'll see what tomorrow brings and hope for the best.

A "Black Weekend"

The day after Thanksgiving is known as “Black Friday” for all of the people who plan out their day and shop til they drop, but for high school seniors across the country the entire weekend has been called a “Black Weekend.” NOT because of shopping, but because the push to finish applications is down to the wire so parents are forcing their senior students to spend all weekend working on college applications in an effort to try to get them completed. I keep wondering how many of you are really spending the weekend locked away in your rooms stressed out about trying to finish your college applications. Hopefully with December 1st being Wednesday and the fact that all of your application materials that needed mailed for the December 1st deadline were due several weeks ago, many of you were ahead of the game and didn't end up procrastinating to try to get everything done over the holiday weekend. If a significant part of your holiday weekend has been "black" due to non-stop college application work, I hope you finish soon so you can enjoy the last day of the break.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to take a moment and wish each of you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you have a wonderful day and that you are surrounded by family or friends who mean the most to you. And, of course, Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without food - so I hope you are also able to enjoy some of your favorite foods.

My family is all in town so we will be celebrating several times and definitely enjoying a lot of great food. It should be a great day with people I love and I hope you enjoy the same.

As I pause and think about all of the things that I am grateful for this year I wanted to share with you how thankful I am that *you* are in my life and that I have the honor of working with you. I am very blessed to have a job that I love and to be able to work with people such as you on a daily basis.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Career Fair Photo Finale

This is the final set of pictures from the Career Fair. The Worthington SNP Newspaper is supposed to run a story today about the career fair. I don't live in Worthington, but would love to see a copy if the article runs and any of you are able to save one. (Here is a link to the story.)
Clayton Bushey talks with Scott Williams, an Air Traffic Controller for the FAA.

Sue Bobson, a Social Worker and parent of Mark Bobson, talks with students about her job.

Students talk with Dr. Skura, an Orthopedic Surgeon.

Patrick Archambeau talks with representatives from the Columbus Police Department.

Part of the Commons during the career fair - the donuts brought by Tony Cason, Director of Music Ministry (and parent of Andrew Cason) were definitely a hit with students!

More Career Fair Photos

More Career Fair Photo Fun... Ryan Zinn, an Engineer and one of my friends, talks with students. Bonus fact, Ryan is a heart transplant recipient! He received his heart transplant when he was just 15 years old.

Lyn Tolan-Barbin, News Director (and parent of Jimmy Barbin) speaks with students at the career fair.

Josh Cook and a few other students look on as Rob Brown explains his job and experiences working as a Disney Imagineer.

Chad Ellwood attempts to use the machine as explained by Rhonda Lawrence, a Court Reporter.

Stephen Boyles, Beef Extension Specialist (and parent of CW and Addie) talks with students at the career fair.