<p>My D is going there too for the summer. Yes, thanks too for ensuring peace… Yes, it’s not easy on us parents. She is so excited about it.</p>
<p>Happy Dad’s Day to all the fathers on this thread; glad socaldad is still here; we seem to have lost a few over the year (where has yabeyabe, MHC, been?)…</p>
<p>Lots of Israel travels this summer!! d2 is “planning” it for next May but “best laid plans…” you know the rest…</p>
<p>It’s good to know that LOTS of kids go after college graduation and don’t have a tough time getting onto a trip…</p>
<p>For those lurkers here following Elon, D2 is in the middle of an Elon sponsored online course…has gone very smoothly; great way to get a requirement out of the way/4 credits…on her own timeline…and doesn’t interfere with summer work obligations!! All good…Thanks to Samtalya for letting us know about this; our radar was never on the summer session before this online initiative started this year!</p>
<p>ShawD and I just returned from the best Bar/Bat Mitzvah we’ve ever attended. The daughter of the cousins who introduced me to ShawWife. The mom does Jewish singing/cantorial stuff for a living and all but one of her kids sings beautifully (as does her husband who is my cousin). But this last one has the voice of an angel. And she’s performed in many musicals and attends a Hebrew Day School so she’s comfortable with prayer and reading/speaking Hebrew. Wow. She was just joyful up there and it spread through the congregation. Plus, while older siblings are cool kid types who could have been mean to the much younger sister (as they were to some other kids in their grades), but in fact they dote on her and love her. A tribute, I think, to the parents.</p>
<p>We unexpectedly have both kids home for Fathers’ Day.</p>
<p>Evergreen State College - a public college and one of the CTCLs. Rachel Corrie was a student there. There are a number of items on the internet and the Pacific NW media has covered it. Recently, the student-run cafe joined the BDS movement. For the past several years, reports about posters for pro-Israel events or organizations being torn down, simulated “IDF checkpoints” harassing people at a bus stop, Israel “Nazi” references and graffiti, a student exhibit about Hebrew as the language of abuse, speakers heckled or barred from campus, faculty contributing to the hostility, students uncomfortable, hassled and transferring out. Some of the national Israel advocacy organizations have weighed in. Their feeling, I believe, has been that the administration hasn’t protected the students or encouraged respectful debate. There is a small student-run Hillel on campus.</p>
<p>D2 was intrigued by Evergreen at the start of the last school year because of their evaluative grading and cross-discipline courses. My web search found the same kinds of things lizstserve mentions. I wouldn’t be troubled by a school where there’s a BDS movement, but I AM troubled by a school where there’s a BDS movement but no strong support for students who regard themselves as Zionists. In other words, a place like UC Irvine or Cal offers a lot of options all along the middle east political spectrum, but Evergreen seems pretty one-note.</p>
<p>jym, this is the first time I’ve come on in a long while, and I happened upon your Birthright post.</p>
<p>A few years ago, my son was scheduled to go on a Birthright trip, and ground fighting broke out the day before. The Birthright folks were very gracious–they released everyone who felt nervous going under the circumstances (including us), refunded our deposits, and told the kids not to worry–they’d not be penalized upon future application for “backing out” on a previous trip.</p>
<p>Those who chose to attend still had a good time, but the itinerary was drastically cut to keep those kids away from all areas of fighting. Our son was glad he didn’t attend–he felt it would be better to go in the future than to risk not only his safety, but also his ability to see much of the country.</p>
<p>This is not recent - but of interest on this topic:</p>
<p>[Anti-Semitism</a> at Evergreen State College · MyNorthwest.com](<a href=“http://seadev.bonnint.net/?nid=539&sid=388965&page=1]Anti-Semitism”>http://seadev.bonnint.net/?nid=539&sid=388965&page=1)</p>
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<p>Hi. Just wanted to check in with you all as I am sitting here checking DS’ grades on our HS parent portal, doing my calculations with honors/AP weighting, trying to evaluate where he is after losing some steam this year. I’m still waiting for a couple of final exams grades and final grades but I think he didn’t hurt himself too much. Of course, rank will depend on how the others did. Now, just waiting for ACT scores next week.</p>
<p>On the positive side, DS appears to have a summer job (starting later this week) and driving teacher says he’s totally ready for road test (next week). DD is off to her URJ summer camp job, happy as a clam (oops, not kosher) with her BFFs during training before the campers arrive, I think next week.</p>
<p>My neighbor is off to orientation at UD tomorrow…what a happy time…thinking about all of you with your incoming college freshman. Enjoy it. It goes so fast.</p>
<p>D2 and I leave in the AM for Delaware. We will spend the day Thursday buying a mac(tax free), dealing with transcripts from Comm. College, and having a nice day. Friday is orientation.</p>
<p>After all the time spent looking, applying, and waiting…The time has come. I am excited for her. Bittersweet for me…</p>
<p>Yup - S2 leaves for Elon in almost exactly two months. Time seems to be moving very quickly now. Ordered his laptop today, starting to buy dorm stuff. It seems like he was a hs junior only yesterday. Like you said - it is exciting yet bittersweet.</p>
<p>^^Socaldad: have a great time!!; make sure you bring clothes for insanely hot weather and lots of water!!</p>
<p>We are at TAMU right now for my S’s new student conference. He registers tomorrow Yikes, so much to do. Tomorrow we part ways he goes back to his URJ camp and we go home. It is getting to be that every second of quality time is valuable.</p>
<p>Have a great trip Socaldad, RVM we also starting on the dorm shopping, or at least i am for him.</p>
<p>Much like LINY, just waiting, wondering, worrying about DD’s grades & ACT scores. She and her younger bro have summer camp counselor jobs, so that’s a nice feeling. That younger bro just graduated from 8th last night, so 2 in HS come Fall. Time does fly by in the wink of an eye!</p>
<p>Socaldad, enjoy! And, yes, today marks the start of a weekend of extreme heat here in NE, so beware & prepare.</p>
<p>Spectrum & RVM, savor the moments…</p>
<p>To my fellow parents of '13ers… Wishing you all the SAT scores you desire tomorrow!</p>
<p>(We are just waiting for a SAT II, so not so much pressure.)</p>
<p>Finally!! The last day of 11th grade. This was a tough year. He even had homework assigned over the study break before the exams, if you can believe that.
So I finally caught up with all the posts and want to mention that we are delaying the trip to Israel until next year so that we can go for a bit longer than a week and also perhaps break up the travel so that we don’t have to spend 11 hours on the plane each way. All advice is still welcome though! 
Re Broadway shows, we just saw Newsies, and while it’s not Les Mis or anything that will become a classic Bwy show, it was great fun and spectacular dancing. Very talented cast!!
So I have been in avoidance mode for the college planning other than a few midnight panic attacks about DS leaving home. Now it’s time to give him some time off and then figure out what he needs to get done over the summer.</p>
<p>Just sneaking in to tell all whose children are traveling to Israel what my son, who has been living there for the past year, says when I call worried about things I hear on the news. “Mom, when my roommate (Israeli) and the people on the street are worried, I’ll worry.” Not that it makes me worry any less, but other than the usual issues in the south and now in the West Bank because of the settlers being moved, things have been pretty quiet. I hope that all who are traveling over there have a great time. My daughter was on Birthright the August before her senior year and had a great time, though it was excruciatingly hot. We’ll find out for ourselves in August when we go over for our son’s graduation from TAU (masters).</p>
<p>How I would love to see Elon college now with its comments and reviews for having a positive Jewish presence now. My band used to rent space from them for band camp in the mid-80s, and it was so tiny then! I guess its somewhere we should take a look at for S13…</p>
<p>It’s hard to hear you all sayg how it just seems like they were juniors. I have my S13 (15y/o in Aug), who doesn’t seem to believe college is COMING, and S14 (16.5y/o) who is ready to go! ;)</p>
<p>So glad I checked College Board when vitrac PMed me at 5:30 this morning. The site seems to be down now due to technical difficulties.</p>
<p>Anyway, I got to see DS’ subject test score (physics) and we are both very happy.</p>
<p>Yay to you and your S, Linymom. Don’t you just hate it when the site goes down when you need important information. That happened at S1’s college when info about acceptances was supposed to be posted. He was quick enough to get his but several people had a problem getting in. Like there isn’t enough stress!</p>
<p>LINYMOM-HAHA! You are outing me as an SAT “meshuganah” (lunatic).<br>
Congrats on Physics!</p>