<p>loveblue, that hometest is the exam worth for entire lifetime.
all she have to do now on is to believe in Cooper and herself, do whatever she wants to do.
didn’t she met with her teacher to discuss her works and gotten good review?
I don’t see anything to worry.</p>
<p>Thanks bears:
She should be just fine. Glad the first semester is almost over. It will be nice to have her at home for about three weeks!</p>
<p>MICA girl sent me an email two days ago. She needed to talk to us. She needed to talk to us to explain what was going on with her. It seems that she has missed too many classes and has not turned in assignments… and now she is in trouble. She wanted us to know this, and also what steps she was taking to fix her problem. Actually I was surprised at how grown-up sounding her email to us was. So I called her therapist to try to find out, in advance of talking to MICA girl herself, what was going on. When I had last talked to the therapist, she had said that MICA girl was in a ‘little’ bit of trouble… a bit disorganized, playing catch-up. But now therapist reports that she’s shutting down… the hole is too big and she thinks she can’t get out of it. So I don’t know what this means in terms of her grades for the semester. She had gone to the learning resource center; but they have not been very helpful as far as her particular issues go. Her therapist had even written them a letter at the beginning of the term outlining the weaknesses in MICA girl’s executive functioning and organization skills. She is supposed to see some sort of an advisor. I honestly don’t know what will happen. I really wish she had taken the gap year – we had tried so hard to convince her that she wasn’t really ready to be on her own. But life is what it is. There’s not too much I can do to be supportive from here. It’s hard to not be judgemental. It’s hard to get an answer from her about why she missed classes, though the therapist led me to believe it was along the lines of she missed a class and then was too embarrassed to go back to class or something (stupid to me) like that. So I guess we’ll see what happens next. I feel bad for her. I know she really wanted to go to MICA. I’m hoping that maybe there’s a little bit of exaggeration going on and that maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem… I don’t know. I really don’t know what to think. I guess I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that somehow she gets through this.</p>
<p>GM- oh dear. Can you step in and intervene? Im guessing there is a way with incompletes, some kind of medical blah blah blah…salvage the semester.</p>
<p>Maybe if she faces up to it, she can offer to do some work over the break. They do have almost a month off, and I’m sure MICA doesn’t want to lose a freshman that they can retain with a little bit of flexibility. If they’re clear about what they need, and she’s committed to providing it in that time period, maybe it will work out. Plus, she’ll be near you so you can keep her on track.</p>
<p>My D has told me how much work it is and how frustrated she gets at always doing what is immediately due the next day, and not having time for earlier preparations. I can see how easily anyone could slip behind since they’re always on that edge. Another reason why I like a pass/fail system. They would still have all that work, but with less of that insane pressure which can often seem insurmountable. </p>
<p>Good luck to you both, I’m sending happy thoughts that you’ll work it out!</p>
<p>Glutenmom: Your daughter sounds exactly like me in high school/ first year of college. I’m not really sure what advice I can give you except that I didn’t figure things out until I came home for a year to go to community college.</p>
<p>GM I think it is good that she says she is trying to resolve/fix things on her own but you may want to talk to her about requesting incompletes and finishing up work over break. She may think this is only an option for very exceptional cases. The kids often get the talk in September about how college is different from HS, no slack, no flexibility, etc. but the reality is that teachers have seen this before and they may have ways to help students survive the first semester and avoid the issues the next. My S, even with his leg in a big brace, didn’t think he had a chance after failing to finish a project…the deadline seemed so final and part of his problem was, like Mica girl, due to poor organization and attendance issues. He admitted to the teacher that he probably wouldn’t have finished even if he had been in perfect health. I think the honest assessment of his failure to meet the deadline was probably helpful. He has been given one incomplete in one class and he is trying to finish it up before he leaves school although he can turn it in in January too. </p>
<p>I also hope that things are not as bad as Mica girl thinks. My fingers are crossed and I hope to hear that she is working things out.</p>
<p>second gabby-chan
I was like that until I got another mouth to feed.
scary thing is, once you get in, Japanese artschool was no fail, just pass pass.
because you already killed yourself once, you don’t know what’s happening until you are made to live again for real. ( i.e. pay rent, support yourself, get paying job, have a child)
It is good that she came clean from herself. means she trusts you. don’t say I told you so. she is the one must be feeling bad the most.
I used to dream it was not me who is in the mess, someone happened to acting my part and real me is sitting in sideline recording events, so I could use it for manga or artwork whatnot. I’d sleep. get up, the sun rose, coffee was hot, rice steamed pearly white. The world never came to end no matter what.
I am not saying don’t take everything no big-o-deal. But in long tapemeasure of life span, I wish I worried less and had fun working more.</p>
<p>From what my D tells me, the work load is incredible and very stressful with one thing due right after another. MCAD has a policy where if you miss more than 3 days or are tardy more than 3 days your grade drops one letter. I think they may make make an exception for sickness, but I’m not sure. In her media foundation class, she had a film due, and she said she really didn’t get to finish it the way she would have liked because she was cranking out her foundation drawing final, but still got a good critique. I’ve learned not to say “You should have planned your time better”, or “What were you doing instead?”. That doesn’t do any good and only makes the situation worse. It’s good that MICA girl was upfront about the issue and didn’t wait until you saw her grades. Famm and greenwitch have a good idea about taking an incomplete and finishing up the work over break. Obviously she is talented or she wouldn’t have gotten into MICA in the first place, so she can do the work - sounds like the workload was more than she could handle. Also, is there a possibility of her taking less classes next semester? Might give her the breathing room she needs.</p>
<p>I have to admit I was a little nervous about having the kid that wasn’t all shiny and bright, lol. But you have all been great – I wish MICA girl got as much support as I do from all of you! I, for one, am proud of myself for being able to let this go and be her problem. If this had been closer to the beginning of the semester I would have been beside myself with worry. But I can see that she seems to be taking some steps to correct the situation – so we’ve passed the first test – she recognizes that there IS a problem. Like MCAD, the parent’s handbook from MICA says that kids that miss more than three classes are in danger of failing. I still don’t know any specifics. So I hope she will be able to work something out with whatever powers that be. </p>
<p>I do have a problem with the Learning Resource Center not giving her the support she needs. I think I will have to contact them again. She didn’t really need anything in the way of specific accommodations - -what she needs is support. Her therapist specifically told them not to have the professors give her extra time for assignments because that will only exacerbate her organizational/executive function problems. I am suggesting that she explore the idea of getting an Incomplete (I don’t even know how many classes she’s in trouble with) and doing the work over the break and also taking one less class next semester.</p>
<p>She did say that the illustration instructors both think illustration is the wrong major for her (oh noes) and that there are some people in the painting department that really want to work with her. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I personally think her strong suit is in drawing – especially very observationally oriented drawing - but some of the stuff she did was quite imaginative. Her two sided RISD drawing had a mouse hole, on one side was a cat and on the other side was a mouse toting an automatic pistol. She also did some things like a painting of the witches from Macbeth that I thought were good. But she does great painting too… even if she leans towards too many portraits of Johnny Depp. Which brings me back to the point of does she want to be one of the street artists that has the celebrity portraits for sale… (gag – sorry if any of you have celebrity portraits on your walls).</p>
<p>That’s interesting about illustration. This is why foundation year is so important - so often kids get jazzed by something that they hadn’t considered before and also realize that their declared major is maybe not the best for them. My D isn’t having the best time in painting and has been surprised by her enjoyment of sculpture and mixed media. Who knows how it will all turn out?</p>
<p>Bears, I just love your last post!!! Yes, step outside of the bad-drama when you have to, and enjoy your coffee and rice. Hopefully not at the same time…</p>
<p>G-mom, let me say again that your Mica girl belongs there but just needs to get through this rough patch. Mica wanted her once, and they will want her to stay on now!</p>
<p>G
whatya mean?
that’s what I had for brunch.
two cups of black coffee, raw egg with soysauce over bowl of rice, seaweed, last hunk of cinnamon raisin swirl bread.
go ahead, gag!</p>
<p>We all need to know more about the real situation of our kids, so that we can help them better. This is hard in American. Too many privacy after they turn eighteen. I have a friend she encourage me to have daily contact with my D to get to know her as many as I can. my D didn’t share with me a lot of thing, but from her tone, I can tell her mood. </p>
<p>It is very hard to know ALL that happening around them.
It is very hard to judge how hard to push them or how much space to give them. </p>
<p>Last Oct, when I visited her, I told her, mommy and dad still get fund ready to pay her art school education any place other than Cooper, if she didn’t fit there. I want to make sure she know no matter what, as parent, our love is there unconditional. </p>
<p>Another thing help me is: to be positive, find bright side of anything and let her know. for example, my D is shy, don’t have social skills, but I will say something like:
glad you have a new friend…
she are so kind and I am sure in a long run, you will get along with …</p>
<p>Gmom: Hope you get to know the real situation and let your D know no matter what mistake it is, she have a whole life to live, and it is not a big deal … She need your support.</p>
<p>Ok Bears… I was good with the raw egg and soy sauce over rice (!!), certainly with the black coffee… but you lost me at the seaweed and hunk of cinnamon-raisin swirl bread!</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with the profs saying they don’t think illustration is the way for her to go, no oh-no’s there, and that’s its awesome that the painting profs want to work with her - remember these profs have seen many kids come and go, and they know (or at least they should) where their strong points (the kids) are. It’s not unlike the kids who change majors 3 or 4 times (like my nephew) throughout their 4 years of college. She’s not changing majors (altho that’s OK too), just her focus. After D did her film, she was all excited about film again (he did some in HS), and is now anxious to take another film class. The best you can hope for is that they find their niche and are happy productive people no matter what direction they take.</p>
<p>B&D - I’ll pass on the raw egg, but the rest sounds great!!</p>
<p>Gmom
here, I’m sure it’s loaded with gluten.</p>
<p>[cinnamon</a> raisin swirl bread - Google Search](<a href=“http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=FqD&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=cinnamon+raisin+swirl+bread&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1416&bih=838]cinnamon”>http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=FqD&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=cinnamon+raisin+swirl+bread&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1416&bih=838)</p>
<p>parlsky said how useful internet is. sure thing.
no, I didn’t eat seaweed on or around the bread.
well, it’s all in my tummy in 5-10 min interval anyways.</p>
<p>So BandD have you ever tried grits with a raw egg on top? Top breakfast option for hard core southerners. with a side of ham…and cinnamon bread would be fine too…the seaweed is, however, a deal breaker for the southerner but I would be willing to try. </p>
<p>I decided to go pick up S this weekend instead of having him fly back early next week. He finished sooner than expected but can’t bend his knee and was appalled when I said he should get help witha wheelchair, etc. at the airport. Also, his incomplete is in 3-d so he has to bring his materials home–difficult for a guy on crutches on an airplane. Another good reason to go pick him up. Luckily the instructor says if he documents and sends photos of the project, he doesn’t have to bring the project back to CMU. His roomate finished exams also so it makes sense to pick up both boys and make sure they have cleaned out the fridge so as to avoid disgusting, smelly return in January. H is abroad so I will do it on my own with the stipulation that we go down to the wholesale market and have a meal of italian sausages and I can pick up lots of cheese/wine/pasta/olive oil. I am actually quite happy to go to Pittsburgh again.</p>
<p>So I prodded MICA girl with hourly texts, trying to figure out what was going on. She finally sent me a long email with her explanations. She sounds like she at least recognizes what her issues are. She said she was so stressed out because she would get the assignment and then literally spend days worrying about what she should do for the assignment… would it be creative enough? was it what the professor wanted? what would the other kids think? then she would end up not leaving herself enough time to execute whatever her plan was, resulting in work she was not happy with. She said in HS when there was a piece she wasn’t happy with, she only had to show it to her teacher privately, get her grade (always an ‘A’ – you’d be surprised at what this kid thinks ‘isn’t good enough’) and be done with it. At MICA, all the kids have to put their homework ‘up’ and have it critiqued. She said it wasn’t so much that she was afraid of a bad critique – indeed, she explicitly said that in her email and that she welcomed constructive criticism – but internally she compared her work to everyone else’s and felt her’s was inferior (I think this is a common phenomenon in foundation year art students). She said the worst thing was when in class the professor got to her work and asked the class for comments and there was ‘dead silence’ and nobody said a word. She is taking that as the ultimate rejection. I feel bad for her. She is very sensitive and she needs to realize that not everyone will like every piece of her work – and also that no comments isn’t necessarily something bad. I know towards the beginning of the semester she had said that one of the illustration professors had held up some of her work as an example (a good example) and she was proud of that. When we were at MICA at the end of September she showed us her work and I thought there was a huge volume and that it was pretty good – so I don’t t think she’s had this problem for the whole term – but I don’t have any point of reference. I didn’t see a whole lot of her roomies’ work laying about – but both of them were on the opposite track from MICA girl (they both had sculptural forms and electronic media or something like that). Her exact comment was " I feel like none of them have any respect for me because the
little work that I do hand in is crappy and looks like I didn’t put any
effort into it. And I feel terrible, because all my classmates are so
talented and they work really hard, and sometimes it makes me feel like I
don’t deserve to be here." sigh.
To make things even more complicated her celiac roomie has told her she is moving out and will be going to Meyerhoff with another kid. She said her roommate told her that she was in a ‘bit of a funk’, though MICA girl isn’t sure how that is a reason for this girl to want to move out. I had hoped that more positive things would come out of having this girl as a roomie --she seemed outgoing and very nice – this will mean that MICA girl’s very limited social circle will be even more limited. She claims this doesn’t bother her too much because she’s been so preoccupied with her own issues.
I told her that I was proud of her for being able to identify what her problems really were and to work/focus on correcting them instead of shutting down (though her therapist told me she was really shutting down). I also told her that if she needs to see a therapist there in Baltimore that we will arrange for that. As far as the classes go, she said she met with the person she needed to talk to (some sort of advisor) who is going to talk to her professors about the situation. I have a feeling that MICA has been there/done that before with sensitive art kids. I don’t think they are going to throw her out. Now will she be able to overcome this set back remains to be seen. She will have to work it out herself. In the meantime I’ll keep praying for her – and nagging her a lot.</p>
<p>I totally get the way she is feeling. I think these kids have to be really brave to make art. Also, I think that high school teachers should give a crash course in college crits. Im guessing they can be brutal. Also, frankly, for the more conceptual stuff I get the feeling that it is almost as much what you say about your piece as what your piece is. My S has a funny story about a 3 d crit he went through. I got the feeling that he actually really liked his work, it was one he actually talked to me about, I think the end result may have been overworked. Anyway, after he had been talking about it for a while, one of his peers said “There is nothing you can say that will make the piece more interesting”. And then folks laughed. He has a thick skin, so overall he laughed when he told me about it. And actually later it turned out that was an inside joke that he wasnt inside of, since it was a quote from a previous class.</p>
<p>Anyway, not to be an armchair whatever, but I have a friend with a brilliant kid, really fine mind, who cant get anything done because it all has to be perfect. It can cripple him. So if you sit and talk to him about something he knows everything about many things, one of my favorite people to talk to, but he doesnt do so well in school. His mom told me it was “executive function” sort of thing. </p>
<p>I think your sweet girl is doing the best she can. I applaud your support.</p>