March 18, 2026
After everything, I’ve decided to go back to my earlier weeknotes format because I need some structure and accountability right now. However, I will still continue to think about breaks and the ways that I rest and reset because as was clear from my weeks of writing anti-weeknotes, I need to continue to work on this.
Something I thought about:
- It’s been a while since I’ve been so close to US college admissions, and the past weekend made me think about how US admissions have changed over the past decade or so and the aspects that have stayed consistent. The digital SAT and ACT, of course, mean shorter exams with different strategies. Subject Tests are gone, which changes much of high school planning (in good ways, I think). Post-lockdown, schools have been flipping between optional and required testing, which is confusing for families. And families are still trying to sift through many myths and so much misinformation while admissions offices have too much volume and hard-to-predict enrollment. I was also thinking about the Swiss system and how students are tracked towards university or vocational paths beginning in 7th grade. My child is in 7th grade, and I can imagine how current classmates would be tracked in that system, and it feels far too early for such consequential decisions. The costs and the general inaccessibility of US university education frustrate me, but I still believe in the flexibility and the possibility that students have here.
Something I did:
- The Sudbury Education Resource Fund (SERF) College Fair was on Saturday, so we set up the space at the high school on Friday and finished on Saturday. The event was Saturday afternoon, and then we had takedown afterwards. It went well! I hosted the Admissions Panel with reps from four different colleges/universities, and there were so many good questions. Attendees seemed to get a lot out of the seminars, panel, and the fair itself. This was my first fair, and now I understand how the various pieces come together, and I have a few ideas for next year.
- Some neighbors came over on Sunday to watch a Premier League game with us. We support rival teams that were playing against each other. The game was awful, but watching together was fun. I like that we have several neighbors who are also our friends.
- I’ve been working through a pretty hefty backlog of tasks — the week before the College Fair, every time I received a request for something, I’d push it to “after the College Fair,” and, well, that’s this week.
Something I read:
- I set up my own “slow reads” schedule for two books earlier this year. Right now I’m partway through One Man’s Meat by E.B. White and Roots by Alex Haley.
- I’ll finish the E.B. White soon. I can’t read 15 essays by a single author in one sitting, so I’ve been spreading them out. I am amused by White’s occasional references to his wife and the things she says or does because I know Katharine White’s work better than I do his — she was Elizabeth Bishop’s editor.
- I’m approaching Roots much like I did War and Peace — about a chapter per night. I’ve heard plenty about Roots, of course, and knew the general arc going in, but I’ve never seen the television series, so this is really my first encounter with the text, and it is a good book to read slowly.
