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Nicole will complete 10th grade later this month. This has been a good year for her in many ways. She has gained more social confidence. She says she didn’t talk to people much at lunch last year, but she now feels more respected by others and more comfortable in social situations. She was thrilled to be invited to a Discord server where she is able to communicate with a large group of peers from school. She was one of the first to be invited to the group that has grown to 18. It has also connected her with them in a way that allows her to sometimes play online computer games with them as well.

Nicole is also enjoying more elective options at school . She has been taking a CTE class where she gets to learn and practice a variety of coding languages. She says HTML is her favorite and that she finds Python boring. She has also really enjoyed learning ASL this year. She finds it fascinating and fun to learn. Theater is still one of her favorite electives. She just finished performing as Olivia in a 90s adaptation of 12th Night. She loves to be on stage and wants to get into community theater.

Nicole describes her current musical preferences as Punk Rock, Experimental, Synth-pop, 80s, and 90s. Some of her favorite bands are Belle and Sebastian, Gorillaz, Stars, and Arcade Fire. She named “No Cars Go” as one of her current favorite songs.

Some of her favorite games to play are Roblox and Streets of Rogue. She also likes to play Lethal Company with her friends and enjoys retro gaming and JackBox Games. She has recently started watching and enjoying Trigun, a Japanese manga series that her friends introduced to her.

Other things that Nicole likes to do on computers/tablets are to draw digital art and experiment with digital audio. She likes the fun and creative sounds of the synthesizer and would love to have her own synthesizer to experiment with.  She also  likes AI chatting and Reddit. Her favorite things on Reddit are absurd and amusing things like a group named “food stapled to trees.”

Nicole is still fascinated by medicine and fashion. She likes to read books about diseases, contagion, immunology, plagues, and ancient medicine. She enjoys designing outfits on Roblox and experimenting with different looks in real life. She especially likes modern/steampunk/medieval style clothing. Nicole is jealous of some of her sister Charlotte’s medieval clothing accessories and wishes to spend more time at thrift stores looking for unique clothing items and accessories.

Nicole read through and studied the driver’s ed manual and took several online practice tests before declaring that she was ready to take the test.  She passed it on her first attempt, but hasn’t had much opportunity for driving lessons yet.  I’m perfectly happy to take our time working towards her driver’s license.

Nicole loves Asian food and Asian treats.  She loves to try news foods, particularly foods from other cultures. Ramune soda is one of her favorites, but she also really likes Pocky and Popin’ Cookin.  She loves fancy drinks like sodas or hot chocolate with flavoring and whipped cream. She likes Funions and good beef jerky as well.

Nicole loves animals and nature and still enjoys finding interesting insects.  She likes to observe animals, but she usually wants to interact with them as well. I think she dreams of Sleeping Beauty/Snow White moments where she convinces a wide variety of forest animals to trust her enough to eat out of her hand and let her pet them as she tells them about her life experiences and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if they helped her sew some new outfits. 

Nicole loves to dance and she’s got some sweet moves.  She is not a wallflower, even if she’s all by herself she will usually be out on the dance floor dancing her heart out.  Perhaps I’ve only seen her dance with timid boys, but when I’ve seen her dance with a boy, she usually takes the lead which results in lots of fancy twists and twirls.

Speaking of boys, Nicole has had an interesting year on that front. She has enjoyed a few romantic gestures from young men seeking her approval. She also had her second experience with a boy asking her to be his girlfriend which she walked back the next day. I think it’s hard to know what to do in the moment, but she’s trying to avoid an exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend situation. Luckily her current mutual crush is of the same mind. There’s a pressure to pair off, but it feels like going from 0-60 to be in an exclusive relationship before you’ve even been on an official date. We’ve had several conversations about it lately and she likes the idea of dating and developing stronger friendships with potential. Hopefully she can still have lots of exciting romantic moments without committing to exclusivity just yet.

I adore Nicole and am glad that I get to be her mother, even if I get the occasional eye roll or hug avoidance. Here is what I wrote about her last year.