Introductions

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’ve been thinking that this forum could use a place for everybody to introduce themselves. With fall and the beginning of a new college season fast approaching, this seemed to be as good a time as any. </p>

<p>I hope this will reduce the number of mistaken identities (I’ve seen a few cases recently), help parents get to know each other better, aid in the ability for posters to connect with each other for specialized advice, and help people to connect posts with posters. </p>

<p>Include whatever information you feel comfortable sharing–make it as short or as detailed as you would like. I’d like it if people could use this as a reference if they need specific advice, so in addition to basic information about yourself, feel free to include topics that you’re knowledgeable about and would like to advise people on (i.e. horseback riding in college, getting merit aid, transitions and learning disabilities). </p>

<p>Anyway, I’m hoping everyone will find this useful–new posters and “senior members” alike. :)</p>

<hr>

<p>So, um, I guess I should start. I’m probably the most prolific student poster on this board. I shamelessly give my thoughts on parenting despite never having been a parent and my thoughts on college search/admissions despite having had a fairly straightforward and boring college application process. You get what you pay for. ;)</p>

<p>I am 18 years old and going into my second year at the University of Chicago. I’m a liberal arts-type major. I post a lot on the UChicago board, and I am very happy with college, so I’m definitely open to answering any questions or discussing any concerns you have about the school. I’m a fan of core curricula and education in general. </p>

<p>I love music and played semi-professionally (depending on your definition) from about ages 10-17. People have asked me questions before about sending music recordings to colleges, so I can try to help if you have any questions about that. </p>

<p>I’m the youngest of four, but the sister I most often refer to is the sibling closest in age to me. I also have an older sister and brother who are out of the house. My family is pretty close, and I get along with them all reasonably well (with some sacrifices due to my sexual orientation). I’m from the Northeast. I’m known as being laid back and generally happy, and I tend to get along well with people. I’m not involved in any specific clubs in college, but I might try to find something this year. I’m gay. I occasionally get PMs from parents or students who have questions or are looking for guidance or advice on related topics–oftentimes just for the sake of curiosity. I’m happy to try to shed some light on a question or situation if I can. I have no specific career goals, but my most recent jobs have been in development positions for non-profits. </p>

<p>I’m a pretty normal college student overall. Oh yeah, and I’m female… People always think I’m a guy for some reason.</p>

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<p>Great idea corranged! Especially for those who are fairly new to the forums who are trying to get a good footing here.</p>

<p>So here’s mine…</p>

<p>I’m a ‘mom’ as the name claims…a 48 year old Native Texan who was raised in Rio Grande Valley and who now lives in Houston. I have two children, one 19 year old daughter at UNC-Chapel Hill and one 15 year old son in high school. I have an evil 5 lb chihuahua and two Siamese cats who love it when I sit down with the laptop. (My lap is only big enough for one, so often I am in the middle of a dog/cat fight.)</p>

<p>I’ve also lived in Colorado, and Louisiana, where I graduated with a degree in Accounting. I am a licensed CPA in the states of Texas and Louisiana and worked for years in public accounting though now I am a stay-at-home mom. My husband has a degree in Petroleum Engineering and is in the oil and gas industry. HE travels overseas quite a bit, so I often pass international travel questions on to him. </p>

<p>I love h.s. football and college basketball and my hobbies are landscaping committee, reading, exercise and kid-related activities. (Just graduated from being a ‘cheer mom’ to a ‘band mom’.) My favorite CC threads on usually on the controversial stuff like religion and social issues, though they do make some queasy…lol! I also spend a lot of time in the UNC forum ‘paying it forward’. I use “…” a LOT when I post…drives my punctuation perfectionist daughter nuts. I will never be able to hide behind a new user name because everyone will figure out who I am by all the “…s”</p>

<p>I’ve had several people figure out my identity mainly through my affiliation with the wonderful ldgirl…lol! I don’t really care though…everyone who know it’s me has been very nice. :)</p>

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<p>Gee, here all along I thought corranged was a 48 year old suburban housewife with 1 kid in college and 2 more at home.
Go figure!</p>

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<p>Okay, I am 45 years old, living and working in NC. I have one son who is an 8th grader. I happened upon this site quite by accident and have been enthralled since. A wealth of information, knowledge, wit, and humor…it’s all found here. As a single Mom, I really enjoy reading the “grown up” posts. They are most times civil, and profanity is very limited. I like that a lot. I will take a look at other boards, but Parent Cafe is my favorite by far.</p>

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<p>Hah! I live in VT but grew up in MN. I’ve lived all over and travelled all over. I’m a psychologist, a registered nurse, but mostly a mom. Love my hubby and kid–they are both amazing.</p>

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<p>Another native Texan here! Grew up in Houston, but have relatives up and down the coast, including the Rio Grande Valley. I’ve spent most of my time in the musical theatre forum, but now that youngest has been in college for a whole week, I spend little time there. D1 is a senior at Syracuse (Newhouse for those who are familiar with their communications program); D2 is double majoring in theatre and vocal performance at Muhlenberg. The Muhlenberg forum doesn’t get many posters, after all, it is one of the smaller schools represented on CC, but I would love to share more about the school if anyone’s interested. </p>

<p>Husband and I met at UT-Austin; he attended UW-Madison for his Ph.D., then we spent a year in Dallas where he did a post-doc. I majored in journalism, he in chemistry. We now live in the Chicago ‘burbs. Several years ago I returned to school for my masters degree in theology - an M.A. instead of M.Div. Since my number one priority was to be a stay-at-home mom I took the extended route to earn my degree. Four years ago I had an internship at a non-for profit hospice agency as a chaplain. When it was over, they asked me to stay on - I’ve been part-time, though, allowing me the opportunity to stay involved in my girls’ extracurriculars as much as possible. I sincerely encourage anyone who has questions about hospice care to PM or e-mail me. It’s a movement fond to my heart, but sometimes the biggest part of my job is education; people are often afraid to admit they know nothing about it, but want to learn more.</p>

<p>I have a strong mix of very conservative choices, and very liberal ones. I was fairly traditional in that I never put my kids in child care and never fed them baby formula, but very liberal in my theology (no thanks to being raised in Texas and attending Catholic schools my whole life) and social issues leaning. I am guilty of my own worst pet peeve - being intolerant of people who are intolerant.</p>

<p>In my earlier years, I was a La Leche League leader, classroom volunteer, then volunteer for theatre and show choir activities my kids were involved with in high school. </p>

<p>I’ve traveled quite a bit (wanted to instill the travel bug in my children), and look forward to more now that I don’t have the responsibility of being home for my kids. I love the Fresh Produce clothing brand, and will always choose the trip to a place where there’s a Fresh Produce store since we don’t have one around here. </p>

<p>I try to work out on a regular basis, which hopefully will become more doable with an empty nest. Also have a 12-year old miniature schnauzer who many consider my third child. The TV shows I can’t do without are ER, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy.</p>

<p>I forgot the most important information you need to know about me: I am a ‘The Sound of Music’ fanatic. Some might call me obsessed.</p>

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<p>I’m 49 until November, when the big 5-0 looms. I grew up in NYC and have lived in the Philadelphia suburbs for over 20 years (I had to learn to drive at the age of 27 so I could move to suburbia and am now a typical suburban mom. My friends who never left New York are very amused by this.) I’m in the rare book business and my husband’s an attorney. Our D is a sophomore in college, and our S is a sophomore in HS. </p>

<p>I love both the wealth of information and the wonderful personalities of so many of the posters here. I’m passionately interested in good books and theology, and a great fan of Woody Allen (the earlier years), the Beatles, and Brideshead Revisited.</p>

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<p>I’m originally from NYC, met my husband in Santa Fe, NM, and we’ve lived there, Burlington, VT (his master’s degree), Durham, NC (his doctorate; my law school for a year), Ithaca, NY (his post-doc and where our kids were born), and have been in Iowa since 1992. We have a freshman son at Washington Univ in St. Louis (after taking a gap year with us in Switzerland last year) and a high school senior daughter. My husband is a college professor, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom since our daughter was born (before then I was a freelance editor for two university presses). My husband and I both traveled extensively in South America in the early-mid 1970s (as it turns out we were there at the same time) and have lived in Europe for two sabbaticals.</p>

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<p>I’m a 23-year-old neurobiology PhD student at Harvard, but I mostly hang out on the MIT board, because that’s where I went for undergrad. I’ve transitioned pretty well to living on the east coast, but I’m originally from a small town in Ohio. I met my fiance, an aerospace engineer, at MIT, and we’re getting married in two weeks. (Yay!)</p>

<p>We’re not parents, unless you count our very spoiled rabbit. (Which I do, on occasion. Hey, we have to feed her, love her, and look after her welfare.)</p>

<p>I love science more than anything else in the world, and it’s a good thing there are relatively few science-related threads in the Cafe, because I’d bore you all to tears all day if I had the opportunity. :slight_smile: In the non-academic realm, I like cooking, watching the Food Network, and going to Target with the soon-to-be hubby. I also like helping people out with college admissions questions, and if I weren’t a developmental neurobiologist, I’d be a college admissions officer. (Or a zookeeper.)</p>

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<p>I’m a middle aged Mom and architect. (I have a small practice I run out of my home doing mostly home additions and renovations, though I’ve been roped into doing some commercial work in the town where I live.) I live in the NYC suburbs. I like Math, but named myself after my older son, though really he’s a computer science geek and has been since second grade when he wrote his first program. He’s a freshman at Carnegie Mellon in the school of computer science. My kids both attend(ed) the public high school.</p>

<p>Both my husband and I were undergrads at Harvard, I check those boards occasionally, but find the kids who post there too driven for the most part. They scare me! I went to grad school at Columbia, my husband has a PhD. in biophysics from Caltech. We both grew up in foreign service families, I took a gap year in France and we both spent five years in Germany where my husband did his post doc work. My husband teaches and does research in a med school now.</p>

<p>We have a second son who is a sophomore in high school. He’s the complete opposite of his older brother. He dislikes science and math, had pretty uneven grades last year (79 to 99), his favorite subject is history and he’s dying to get an electric violin so he can play in a rock band with his friends. I’m sure we will be looking at an entirely different set of colleges for him.</p>

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<p>As it says over there <<< I’m a dad from California with two sons in college (San Diego State and UC Santa Barbara), and I’m going through the college app process for the third time with my daughter this year. My wife and I both went to UC Berkeley. I’m a lawyer and have been a community volunteer in numerous activities over the years (Little League coach and board member, municipal commissioner, homeowners board president, etc.) Contrary to a rather romanticized vision of me posted by one of our younger contributers last year, I’m afraid I don’t actually have a ponytail.</p>

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<p>Long time poster who came over from another group that shall not be named. Started there when my D was a junior is HS; the next year both D and S applied to college (S a year early) and D went to Reed and S to MIT. Forgot to stop posting even though my kids have now graduated. Thus, my advice is out of date and mostly worthless, but I don’t stop giving it. Two standard poodles, one husband, two employed college-graduate children, age 52.</p>

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<p>I’m a native Floridian, grew up on the beach. I worked for some number of years for a corporation in program management but never quite got over my love for music, so here I am now teaching music and accompanying. My sons are a year apart, both were avid baseball players, good students, band members in high school. They did very well in the college process and could have gone OOS to any number of great schools, but chose to go to our great state university. I am a big proponent of public U honor programs; that’s the way they went and it has worked out well so far. Been married for 20 years this December; one dog (sheltie); one cat. I don’t get into the political threads at all, but I’m a big fan of the state of Florida and anything Sunshine State!</p>

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<p>I am a 48-year old mom, with 19 and 16 year old sons. H is a lawyer. I spent most of my career as a municipal research analyst (rating agency in NYC for 10 years and regional sell side for another 10 years). Last year, I moved into investment banking. Regulatory changes now require a separation between research and investment banking. As a result, many firms have moved their analysts over to investment banking. I miss publishing, but otherwise the job is the same.</p>

<p>I grew up poor and joined the A.F. at 17. I served four years as an Arabic linguist (training in Monterey at the defense language institute and stationed on Crete). I used the GI Bill to go to UT Austin and earned a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and when straight through to grad school at the LBJ School.</p>

<p>I had trouble finding a job when I graduated despite a 4.0 GPA undergrad and grad school. I couldn’t even join the Peace Corps because of my background in intelligence. My grad school career placement office helped me get my first job and that created a career track that has been hard to break. Unfortunately, I have no inherent interest in finance and hate cities so a Wall St. job in NYC wasn’t a great place to start, but I was desparate. My family has not been supportive of my quitting and H is still unhappy that we left NYC. I figure once the youngest graduates from HS (1.5 years), my obligation to keep everybody else happy ends. I think the Peace Corps will take me now–I was only banned for 10 years–so that is a possible next step. H seems on board with joining the Peace Corps too. I think he is just bored with the suburbs.</p>

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<p>I too am 49 for just a little while longer (December- WHAT?? wait, I havent gotten the 20’s down yet so I cant be 50). Born and raised in New Orleans, BioMedical Engineering degree from Tulane (and much family still there) but have lived in Michigan, Illinois, Delaware and now Pennsylvania. AM NOT an engineer by profession - veered off sharply early on into Adult Education and Training and never left!</p>

<p>Have been married for 24 years - met my Danish husband in a bar- and have an 18yo D at Oklahoma City University in Music Theater (MT forum where I am usually found) and a 16 year old S, also potentially studying Acting. They both attended/attend a charter school for the Performing Arts (and I am VP of the board for said school). </p>

<p>I love theater and perform at every opportunity in community theater (am rehearsing a show called Room Service right now) I attempt to sing and I love to read (everything) and I spend way too much time on the computer I think. :)</p>

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<p>Looks like I’m one of the “younger” moms here. I’m 41, from Portland Oregon. My husband of 23 years and I have two children, our oldest is a 16 year-old boy and is a senior this year. Youngest is a 14 year-old girl and is a freshman. They both go to a public magnet school; both are great students, and they have very different personalities. :)</p>

<p>I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for most of their lives, but went back to college a few years ago and graduated last December with a BS in Medical Technology. I now work part-time in a hospital laboratory doing blood & body fluid testing. It’s interesting work and keeps me busy. I also enjoy reading books for my two book clubs, playing tennis, and hanging around on the internet.</p>

<p>We have one pet, a 4 year-old dog which is part Shih-tzu, part Maltese. He’s a cutie.</p>

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<p>Nice to meet you coarranged! </p>

<p>Let’s see. I turned 50 this spring. I have three in college. Well, the oldest one takes breaks, and is currently taking a break, but he plans to take two or three more classes (and maybe graduate!?) in the spring. He’s at Humboldt State. I also have a son at UChicago who will graduate this spring. And I have a daughter who just started at College of Wooster in Ohio. I also have a daughter starting highschool and one starting fourth grade. So, I have five kids, but only two at home now. I have been a stay at home mom for 20 years, but now I need something more. Where to start? </p>

<p>My husband and I are both UChicago graduates. And we are, needless to say, hoping to take a trip to Chicago this spring for S’s graduation. Maybe we’ll take a trip up to Northern California for a graduation there as well. </p>

<p>We also are a music loving family. The youngest two love singing and theatre, and this year they have both been involved in several musicals – school and community theatre. I have gotten hooked on Jodi Picoult books recently – have read several in the last few months.</p>

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<p>I am a mom with a job outside of the house. Our household is a multi-racial family, Chinese and WASP. We have 2 daughters, 18 and 13. They tell people they are Chinese most of the time :). After the kids were born, my husband and I took turns in staying home, but always had a nanny. I have worked on Wall Street off and on for 25 years - from investment banking to IT. It’s always interesting to me that so many kids want to get into ibanking because I never viewed it as “the job” to get into (it’s something I fell into). It is no better and no worse than other jobs - it pays more because it wants more from you, and not everyone is cut out for it (or want to).</p>

<p>I am a first generation immigrant that went to college with financial aide. I try to balance East and West, but education is still the most important thing in our family. I had to convince my husband to send our daughters to private school even though we have good public school, and then to forego a full merit scholarship to a small LAC to go to a higher ranked Ivy. If you think discussions on CC get heated, you should come to our house sometimes.</p>

<p>Our two daughters are very different. The older one loves people and excells in math/science. The younger one loves literature/writing, and likes spending time by herself. Both of them are beautiful ballet dancers, even though the younger one is a lot more serious about it. No, I will not let them major in dance.</p>

<p>I really enjoy CC because I get very different views from many people from across the US. I am very opinionated and probably not as PC as most parents on CC, for that, I do apologize.</p>

<p>My hobby is to travel and read trashy novels (Chinese and English). We take our kids on trips 2-3 times a year, but I am very picky about hotels. My kids know not to bother to bring luggages to the first room(s) they show us, because most likely will not be the room(s) or hotel we end up with. They have stories to tell their friends about me changing hotel room in Kyoto because it faced a cemetary (due to bad transalation they thought I said “dead people in my room”).</p>

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<p>I’m a student but hang around the parents’ boards for the sage advice and well-punctuated posts.</p>

<p>I’m seventeen, female, and about to start my freshman year at Dartmouth. I grew up in Stockholm (1989-1990 and 1998-2001), Moscow (1990-1994), Brussels (1994-1998), and Washington, DC (2001-2007), but my family moved to Manhattan a week ago, so that’s where I’m spending my last week before college. I have a fifteen-year-old sister and a five-year-old whippet. My screenname, camelia sinensis, means “tea plant.” I had another account here between 2004 and 2006, but since I don’t want anyone looking up my posts, I won’t tell you what it is. :stuck_out_tongue: </p>

<p>I’m mostly-vegan, atheist, liberal by American standards but conservative by Swedish ones, and the first person in my extended family to attend college in the United States. I’m fluent in Swedish, French, and English, in that order, and am trying (rather half-heartedly, I’m afraid) to teach myself Spanish. In my free time, I like writing, painting, [url="<a href="http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/cameliasinensis"]photography[/url"&gt;http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/cameliasinensis"]photography[/url</a>], reading (fiction and nonfiction alike), cooking and baking, riding, and the occasional game of tennis. This hardly seems relevant anymore, but: in high school, I was very involved in the student newspaper and Amnesty International, took photography classes at a local darkroom, volunteered at a hospital, and worked as a riding instructor, among other things. I’ve no idea what I’m going to major in but lean vaguely towards the social sciences (much to the dismay of my parents, who have degrees in economics and would prefer that I study something worthwhile, like chemistry or engineering). I love linguistics but have no idea what I’d do with a degree in it.</p>

<p>I guess that’s about it?</p>

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<p>Er, I really didn’t mean to kill this thread… :o</p>