Gabor Szabo

I didn't really need to buy Connor a new iPhone for his graduation, but I made him the offer since that was what I gave Will when he graduated, and he took me up on it. Connor had been using the iPhone SE that I had bought as an extra family phone 4 years ago, and although it's still in good condition, it's definitely dated. He picked out a basic iPhone 16 in teal green, but only after I demonstrated that he could disable the so-called Apple Intelligence features.

I also didn't really need a new Kindle, either, but Amazon was having a sale recently, and I got an additional discount from trading in the kids' Echo Dot devices, which were at least six years old and had barely been used in all that time. In fact, when we moved house last year, I had boxed them back up in their original packaging, so they might have fetched even more on the resale market than what I got for trading them in. At any rate, my new Kindle is more responsive than the old one, has a slightly better screen, about twice as much storage space, and charges via standard USB-C. The only downside I've found so far is that Calibre on my laptop can't sync with it; I have to use Amazon's USB File Manager app. And I still can't sideload EPUBs directly.

I guess I will deregister my old Kindle and offer it to Robby to use. In the past, whenever he has wanted to read an ebook, he's used the Kindle iOS app on one of my old iPads. If he doesn't want the Kindle, maybe I'll load the Discworld books onto it for Connor, since he never did get around to reading them before they disappeared into moving boxes. (Although he has plenty of other books that aren't packed away... he's currently working his way through One Hundred Years of Solitude.)

Connor said that his AP Stats test felt like the most difficult thing he'd ever done, but that he was confident he'd get at least a 4, since he answered more of the questions than he did for the mock exam and he got a 3 on that.

We got an email this morning from his English teacher saying that he just needed to turn in one more assignment and he was clear. On the way to take his final, Connor said that he had done that assignment last night and would turn it in at school. So we should be good to go. After today he just has graduation practice next Friday and then commencement the Monday after that, and those aren't even happening at the school.

It does still bother me that all along, when I asked him if he was keeping up with his schoolwork, he would always say yes, and I have to believe that he was honestly unaware somehow of everything that he had forgotten to actually complete and turn in. Luckily his English teacher is super easygoing, but I know that won't always be the case in his future.