After the launch

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
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<p>My D got so heavy impacted from my Chinese culture. Her best friend is a Chinese girl and lived just one block away from my house. Her sleepover mainly is just her house or my house. That girl is a nerd, she is only one year older than my daughter and will complete her B.S. in two years, next Fall she will start her med school. D’s sleepover will be two or three girls thing …
I need to learn more about American culture, in case she may date a person not originally Chinese or Asian …</p>

<p>You are right I am very thankful for D’s adapting to her new life …
But:
Need to encourage her to have more communication with her teachers in case she can get opportunities to find a internship. Want her to be more interested to the events happening in her school. She is not active to build up connections. She didn’t have patient to take pictures of her projects as her own record. This Thanksgiving break she asked me to take pictures of what she painted in China Academy of Art. She graduated half year early from HS and spend one semester to learn Chinese painting in China. It is tedious to take pictures. I will do that for her. feel I may not do the right thing… But D don’t have patient to do that I know.</p>

<p>In my heart I am a little push on the above things but I didn’t speak out …</p>

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<p>loveblue, i didnt understand your last sentence. what do you mean a little push?</p>

<p>about curfew and sleepovers. Boys do have sleepovers around us. Mostly because they dont drive so much. So in HS my S would always have a bunch of kids in our basement. We have room for 6 or more to sleep down there. In the summers my S would spent a lot of time with me at my parents in this small really safe town, where everyone knew everyone else and then the main problem with curfew was that my S wanted to stay out late, and it wasnt a safety thing, it was a keeping the old people up too late thing. Also I am a light sleeper and cant sleep until I know he is home.</p>

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<p>switters: I mean I am anxious in my heart but didn’t talk to her about it.</p>

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<p>Fammom - couldn’t you let your D have sleepovers at your house? She might not prefer it that way but she shouldn’t be able to hold it over your head as much. </p>

<p>We had the curfew issue come up too. The first night D1 (not Mica) is home she tells me she’s going out (with her on-again, off-again boyfriend). I ask her when she’s coming home (thinking it would be around midnight, our old curfew). She, laughing, as she runs out the door, “oh, tomorrow!”. Idiots that we were, H & I didn’t see this coming! </p>

<p>She came home the next evening, and we had a “talk” with her about it. She agrees to a curfew, loosely, and we agree that it doesn’t have to be midnight. I think we need to impress on her again the idea that we need to know in ADVANCE and be kept INFORMED in general, about everything. It wasn’t a problem for the rest of the week because she had a research project to work on, and we had her friends over here.</p>

<p>D2 (mica) also expressed the idea that the old curfew was obsolete, ridiculous, and never going to happen. Then she did nothing but sleep for two days anyway, so it wasn’t an issue. Oh, next summer is going to be tough with these kids! We all need to sharpen our negotiating skills. </p>

<p>D1 is looking forward to moving out of the dorms next year. She and her friends have plans, have already spoken to a realtor about renting a house, and she’s starting to collect things in her room that she’s picked up from various rummage sales. That’s the motivation that crappy dorm food and an invasion of stink bugs will do to you!</p>

<p>D2 (mica) isn’t sure yet. MICA has better options (with singles, suites and kitchens) so she’s going to wait and see. H likes the fact that the Mica freshman dorm is very safe with their little gatehouse and all. True, but she can’t stay there next year anyway. It’s easy to walk around Bolton Hill and imagine getting a great apartment. I have no idea how expensive it is though. Pretty neighborhoods are never cheap! </p>

<p>Right now she’s more focused on trying to move into a different suite where her roomies won’t be smoking pot everyday. It’s a long shot that a room will open up, and also offer her a better situation. I’ve visited her room, and even though she has a single, it’s very tight since she needs to work on most of her projects in there. I’m not surprised she’s not happy in there.</p>

<p>Fammom - about trust… D2 has sometimes come clean with us about tricky issues, and then expected not to have serious repercussions. “But I’m telling the truth”, she would say, as if that excused it all. I’m glad she’s telling the truth and I would like to encourage her to continue to do so, but that doesn’t give her a free pass. Oh, I feel like a tightrope walker sometimes! It’s like when they were little and would ask a really tricky question, and you would have to think really fast, and really cleverly - “what does virgin mean?” “er, er, maiden, it’s just another word for maiden”</p>

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<p>here is the latest. (anyone cares?)
some guy who can say yay or nay said yay and Cathie Black is going to be given waiver.
It is supposedly “classic Bloomberg case”, meaning he gets his way after all.
the news was kind of background Monday to the wikileaks scandal, one of them dubbed Russian duo as Batman and Robin.
say, our superwoman is now Batman? or Robin?
Opponent of mayor might bringing it to the court saying,
“we need one boss, not two, not one with sidekick doing her job”
“you don’t wanna go to doctors didn’t go to med school and let them cut you open, will you? the woman is not qualified”
what’s next?</p>

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<p>Ahh…we suffer we light sleepers. I literally feel the kids if they walk around the house silently…the vibrations? There is no way to come into the house without waking me. They think it is uncanny and creepy…I call it insomnia. </p>

<p>We have told our D that she may, eventually, have a friend over when there is a late night or friends’parents are out of town but a big group sleepover/party is a thing of the past. Last weekend she went to a quincenera that ended at 1am. I took the girls and another mom did pickup and so D stayed with the friend. </p>

<p>Actually, I am pretty confident that D would not be so stupid to pull a stunt at our house because her father already started looking into boarding schools after the party-that-got-out-of-hand-incident. If he could put her in a convent he would so she should consider it lucky that he is looking at quaker schools in Pennsylvania. One serious misstep this year could put her on the road to Philly and she knows it.</p>

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<p>Bears, I thought of you when I heard that bit on the news about Cathy getting the waiver… heard it in between traffic reports on the radio when I was driving home after work. Bloomberg is looking at education as a business model, maybe Cathy is a good business woman… who knows. They need to cut the fat (do nothing administrators and those rooms full of teachers on probation or whatever) and focus on actually educating kids. I wonder though, how that will get accomplished when everyone is so concerned with political correctness that they won’t actually discuss the reasons kids are not getting the education that the taxpayers are paying for. I hear a lot about the illegal immigrant/hispanic community/students from my sister who teaches a combo 1st/2nd grade to ESL kids in Southern California. The parental mindset can be so different in other cultures, and ultimately that influences how kids are going to do in conventional school. Trying to force everyone into a one-size-fits-all box in the end does a disservice for everyone. People need to realize that there’s more than one road to a given end-point – and teachers should be given the flexibility to choose the road that most fits their students. Instead the state micromanages most every aspect of the process and there’s really very little room for innovation or employing creative solutions when it comes to the whole educational process.</p>

<p>Personally, I think the entire system is broken and should be completely scrapped. A robust education system would take into account individual differences, so there should be choice, and a mandated requirement for a certain level of parental involvement. Do away with grade levels defined by chronological age and focus on skill mastery. Let kids move through curriculum at their speed, not the state’s speed. Why do we insist that all kids must be ready to learn to read at five or six? Why does a kid who learns to read at three and can read ‘Charlotte’s Web’ at five have to sit through learning A-B-C’s with a bunch of age mates? Society itself isn’t arbitrarily broken into one year span age groups, why should a classroom.</p>

<p>Ah, well… let me get off my soap box. Nothing is going to happen to make things any better.</p>

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<p>Gmom
that’s what should happen but not gonna happen with more than 1 million kids, Batwoman or not
I am obsessed with this because it is all politics and bureaucracy, and so different from how I went thru in Japan.
If parents are well aware and pushy enuff, you could still get lots out of it. I did everything possible, entering lottery, interview, getting apartment in the zone so I get conED bill to prove residency, made him try every transfer ops out of dumps.
He made it in the end, goes to fabulous school, but more likely fail. I have no regret, I still think it was better than graduate without learning something important in his life ( something other than art) I wanted him to read books, do science stuff in the classroom once without noone fist fighting in the background.
Did I do the right thing? who knows. He loves all the classes. skip or bike to school without me never bugging anymore. I want to believe.
but have to remember that he took one spot could have been others.
Have you read “Push” or watch film “Precious” based after that book?
I knew kids like that, they were in the same class with my kid in the progressive grade school intentionally took different group of kids, and where we used to live. Just that, individual family situation is nothing we could do about, even teachers were allowed to hug them or visit in person or buy stuff for them (happened often to me as a kid -no hug, they do pat head or something- but not allowed here, it is social worker’s job, or maybe they can’t touch them either)
In the “Waiting for Superman” featured families had nice clean place to live, often with religious icon in it. I am lost when comes to such differences. I’d wonder, like; hey, you know what, move to district 2, instead of having two bedroom apartment. mom, your clothes and shoes would pay for pile of books for the kid!
I 've learned that while doing playdates, birthday parties, field trip chaperones, I am the weird one. To kids and parents, I am this China lady have no idea what she is doing. (no offense loveblue or others out there, that’s what I been told and I understand that better now)
Michelle Rhree had guts to do what she did, I don’t.
just hoping, hoping.
enuff of that, let’s hear good news!!</p>

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<p>well…my S just added a little more drama to his first semester at college…first there was the harry potter scar from “dodging an almond”. Then the double ankle sprain from some vaguely explained high jinks on a slippery hill late at night. Now…he dislocated his knee. He says he was just talking and demo-ed a kick and his supporting leg just popped out of alignment. Agony, disfigured leg, ambulance, serious drugs, anesthesia, dislocation relocated, more serious drugs and a leg brace. Luckily he still has his crutches from the last accident. He called me almost 24 hours later–because his phone is broken–to tell me about the restorative properties of Vicodin. “Isn’t that the drug that House is addicted to on TV?” I wonder. Yup…he says he is walking like House too and has a similar outlook on life after so many accidents. I wonder how much that ambulance is going to cost us!!! my attitude may be very “house-like” soon? The first person to post on his webpage after he posted gruesome photo of dislocation was ex-GF. Husband and I really wish she was part of his life right now…is it coincidence that he is accident prone without her? She would at least monitor the vicodin intake. sigh and more sighs…how is he supposed to finish his finals and get packed and to the airport next week? I just hope there are no more “accidents” since he is dealing with snow, crutches and many, many slippery steps.</p>

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<p>Now that the offspring are all back to school for a week since their Turkey Day break, they must be feeling the pressure of looming finals.</p>

<p>So how is your fledgling doing?</p>

<p>Mine is as impossible as ever. After a LOT of nagging she claims she got her bus ticket home for the 17th. When she was home over turkey day she was running out of concerta and we couldn’t get it refilled up here, so she was supposed to refill it as soon as she got back to Baltimore. Of course she didn’t do it, she’s been using her emergency supply that I had made her put aside in August for this exact situation. Of course she lied about it ( she told me she’d refilled it last Monday – I talked to her on Saturday). I only know that because I hadn’t seen a bank statement from her account for quite some time, so I thought I’d better check (went on line,and then called the bank to find out what had happened to the paper statements that were supposed to be coming). When I got MICA girl on the phone, I asked her how much money she thought she had in her account… she said ‘a little less than XX dollars’… I about fell off my chair. “Haven’t you been balancing your account like we discussed, dear?” I asked her…“balance???” she replied… She really is very, very smart. Officially brilliant, even. But has so little common sense. So maybe she really isn’t so smart after all? What good is an astronomical IQ if you can’t keep your check book balanced? She started of with XX dollars in her banking account, and she’s been spending money since September… and she thinks there’s still almost XX dollars there? She actually has only X dollars, not XX dollars, lol. What a kid. She has been very frugal and I can’t complain about ‘how’ she’s been spending money. I just think she should be a little more cognizant of how much she actually has.<br>
Our conversation moved to other topics. I really had to work really hard at not criticizing her and sticking to the facts. I did get an earful about how she doesn’t have a life because she is so slow that all she does is work… and yes, she is having a bit of an organization problem… and she’s very stressed out… so stressed out that she didn’t call me at 5:45 as we’d planned because she was asleep…lol. So it goes. When we talked a little bit about food, she told me that it was all well and good that I had given her some portions of taco meat… but, she didn’t really ‘know what to do with it’. I suggested she make tacos. sigh. I had also frozen some very rare and hard to come by gluten free breaded fried shrimp-- that she apparently didn’t remember how to fix… so she mixed it in with some pasta… sigh. Oh well, I have to keep telling myself it’s her problem… it’s her problem…</p>

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<p>Triple ouch, FAMMoM! Maybe third time’s the, er, charm? Oy vey. I sure hope he recovers soon. Was he always this accident prone?<br>
I have a niece that seems to have all sorts of things happen to her. We don’t even bat an eye anymore. Alyssa broke her back playing soccer? Alyssa has gout? Alyssa needed emergency appendectomy last night? It goes on and on with that kid. Poor thing. She really can’t help it either. We’ve had to take her to the emergency room more than once when she’s been out here to NY visiting us… bicycling accident one time, and another time she came around a corner too fast and bashed into a piece of furniture and had to get stitches.<br>
Of course my brother in-law smirks and says he’d rather deal with Alyssa’s problems than with the assorted issues my kids have…
Hang in there!</p>

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<p>Oh, fammom, hugs to ((((((you)))))) and your (((((son)))). Some day, maybe next summer, you can all look back on his crazy first semester and laugh about it. Maybe we can ALL do that with our lovely children. I honestly thought this fall would be so quiet, so peaceful, without D1 and D2 around… well, it’s been busier than I thought but at least that keeps away “empty nest syndrome”. </p>

<p>He’s young, he heals well, and hopefully he’s getting good with those crutches. His friends will help him carry stuff around, and he won’t have to shovel any snow or cook anything while living in the dorms. Best of all, he’ll be home SOON and you can stuff him with food and make sure he’s safe!</p>

<p>My H has a day off tomorrow and D2 begged him to come up to MICA and help her haul stuff around to one of her finals. It’s not really a public crit though so she doesn’t want him to stay for that part. I’ll make him bring a camera and come home with a full report (or as full as he can). Gmom- she also had some financial troubles with using her new debit card and not checking her balance. Luckily, it’s with a credit union so she didn’t get totally slammed with charges.</p>

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<p>fammom
I wrote about Peter Cooper’s injury prone childhood in Cooper thread and someone asked if that helped him to the greatness
I can not be sure but Peter was accidents prone beyond childhood thru his young adult life.

  1. swimming in the Hudson and missed platform, sank to the bottom
  2. fell off ferryboat to Brooklyn overboard
  3. sled across frozen riverbank fell into melted ice horse and all
  4. fell from the ladder and bloke few ribs
  5. hit by the huge log slipped off the rope that was weight for the well.
  6. his glue factory blew down by storm right after he’d left ( or he’d be crashed and dead)
    I want to say, it (accidents)must have helped. He was watched by divine power. world needed him. so is famkid.</p>
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<p>S really wasn’t particularly accident/illness prone but our family (my husband’s side) was diagnosed a few years ago with a genetic problem with weak connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, sometimes blood vessels, heart valve,)–we were breathing easy because it appears that what he and H and D have is apparently a mild version so they are pretty healthy with some back and foot issues, minor heart issues, but the negatives are offset by some pretty nice positives (tall, lean, angular, long fingers, …basically, they all look a bit like they came out of el greco paintings. I suspect, now, that since S lost weight and grew taller over the semester he doesn’t have enough muscle to keep all his leg joints stable with the weak ligaments so this may explain the last two accidents. I will get his orthopedist here to insist on some weight therapy and get him into some type of fitness routine, even if pretty mild. If that is the outcome of this accident prone semester it will be overall a good thing. D plays a million sports and wears knee braces in soccer since her knees hyperextend but has never had a more than the mildest sprain…she is, however, in great shape so perhaps the good muscle compensates for the weaker connective pieces. What is amazing is how he just barely communicates what is happening with him?! I am great about not asking about his grades or even his finances other than…“everything OK?” and so I wonder how things really are going, but I told him that his physical well being is still too important to me to back off and …ok if he messes up his grades or his checking account…that can be fixed , more or less, but it is hard for a mother to let a kid make mistakes with his health. Can’t wait to get him back home so I can hover and fuss a little…</p>

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<p>for those bit in downer and near TJ’s
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Stars
16oz for wooping $3.99!! I haven’t counted them but about hundred or so yummy shortbread stars covered with dark chocolate with sprinkles.
If you like Snocaps, you’ll love this cookies. (this means NOT you, drae. how you doin? long time no hear)</p>

<p>serving size 4cookies calories 140
palm oil and all sort of chemicals that make things yummy and pretty but hey! It’s holiday
you deserve it.
NOOOO wheat flour. sorry Gmom, you are out, too.</p>

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<p>About a year ago, the NY Times had an article about ankle sprains, linking them to poor balance. While it’s not Famson’s issue, the exercises they show help strengthen all those micro-muscles that give us good balance, and therefore, stronger and more well-supported joints and ligaments. Here’s the link (with the video):</p>

<p>[How</a> to Fix Bad Ankles - NYTimes.com](<a href=“How to Fix Bad Ankles - The New York Times”>How to Fix Bad Ankles - The New York Times)</p>

<p>Maybe he could work on balance along with weights, or do yoga (if he doesn’t shriek in protest) to build up all those little muscles. Girls love yoga, and he might meet somebody interesting in class…</p>

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<p>I have been away from the forum since before Thanksgiving. I just read through and caught up on everyone’s doings and book clubbing. I am trying to read in the middle of my chaos but it is hard. I did watch an interesting movie though…“I Am Love” with Tilda Swinton. She plays a former Russian turned Italian woman of the manor. Very stylized, at first subtle and restrained, ending in operatic melodrama. </p>

<p>This is what has been going on. My stepfather who had been in the hospital for 9 months due to post heart transplant infections is now back at home with my mom. It was a rocky transition with her taking on most of the burden and working at the same time. He can not walk nor do much for himself. Trache, feeding tube in stomach, lower legs as skinny as my wrist. My mom started melting down and going low. My stepfather was very low too with no will to do his physical and occupational therapy. He was losing faith in himself but not ready to die either. I begged her to try an energetic healer and homeopath to get a different type of care from the hospital world. It is truly helping. Last week on a trip down to the hospital for check ups they decided to take out his trache and let him start eating real food again! The feeding tube is still there for meds and supplemental feeding, but spirits are up and he will sit with us in his wheelchair at Christmas.</p>

<p>S came home for Thanksgiving. I picked him up from the train and he strolled over all cool and sophisticated. He reports that yes, it is a lot of work but he’s handling it. He has a new interest in starting a blog about pop-up shops so we spent Saturday running around NYC checking out some shops and also looking at some very fine men’s clothing stores in Soho. Seems he is developing a real interest in fashion. He wants a wool blazer from Engineered Garments. It’s a Japanese designer who is obsessed with American men’s work wear from the 1800’s. Things are just so…fabric a little wrinkled, pockets a bit large. Very wabi sabi.</p>

<p>Having him around was the best. I could hear him singing in his room while he worked on stuff. It was harder to let him go this time than it was back in September.</p>

<p>In the meantime the buyers of our house, after having failed to get a mortgage back in September, got a cosigner and started over. We have been living in a half packed house since then, hanging out in the unknown. We are finally going to close tomorrow and move on the 17th. Just in time for our younger son to come back on the 18th from his German exchange. We haven’t seen him since August. Too wild. His exchange, a girl, will be here on January 2nd. My plan had been to move into our new house…a little cape from the 1930’s and fix it up before they all arrived. But of course no. We will all be living in chaos together. Ripping out bathrooms, carpets and painting, laying floors, etc. Maybe it’s all for the best. I’ll put that exchange student to work :slight_smile: As long as she has a bed and good food right?</p>

<p>So I may be away again for a while as we complete this move and celebrate the holidays but you are all in my heart. Love</p>

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<p>dear mama bear
for all that, you’ll need TJ’s chocolate stars.
or their JOJO (fake OREO)cookies’ holiday special, candy cane frosting sandwich.
or new this year, JOJO fudge covered assortment.</p>

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<p>drae: You are having a busy and hard time, best wishes. You still can have a lot of fun no matter what since your S is with you.
my D miss home so much and she want me to check if I can change her flight from 23th to 22th evening so that she can be home a little early. Girl is more emotional and easy to miss mom. It is amazing she can keep go to YMCA for a whole semester almost everyday. Last night she told me there is only 7 days class time left and I am not understand what the rest of week will be for her. She told me there is no final exam … I am very confused and she told me Cooper don’t have grading which mean pass or no pass. She said she is bored recently and how can that be?!
I wish she tell me more but …</p>

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<p>bears: do you know more about Cooper’s grading system?</p>