<p>Good idea!</p>
<p>It’s nice to be in a place where so many of us are going through the same experiences. D’s laptop arrived today, she’s at work and can’t play with it yet. </p>
<p>I’m feeling like it is time to go through those lists of what to do and what to bring to college and make one up for our household. The realities of paying for tuition have hit and soon we’ll be withdrawing from the 529 rather than adding to it.</p>
<p>And I’m still in Dellhell waiting waiting…They say it’s ready but won’t ship for a day or two. I reply, if its ready it should ship and that’s just more of the same. At least all of this is in one nice big long email.</p>
<p>Whatever you do about antivirus, do NOT add a different manufacturers as a temporary solution. Antivirus programs leave little goodies all over the computer and uninstalling does not remove them. They tend to conflict with each other so you can have lots of leftover pain. Buy one and stick with it. We don’t use Norton but Richmond does. D’s computer will include the first year free and she’ll download Richmond’s after that.</p>
<p>AP Scores arrived yesterday. D is very pleased (was nice to get while enduring wisdom teeth removal afterpain). She received another 6 scores of 5 (on top of the prior 6). She won’t use any of the science or math ones at Richmond because there is a brand new class which covers first year biology, chemistry, physics, math and computer science which she will be taking. But she’s very happy with the credits for all her history and english classes.</p>
<p>I’m certainly impressed with the 12 AP 5s. My son’s career 11 scores were a bit of everything. Of course, he got credit for what he’s good at - English and History - so that means he won’t be taking those courses, which makes him sad. I told him that he should consider an English minor if he likes it so much and he is considering that.</p>
<p>Can’t even get 6 AP classes in one year at our local HS!!! Would have to do self study and NO ONE around here does that, not even the the top 10 vals!!! Our AP classes run for the entire year. A neighboring school district has AP classes by semesters. We are making a big deal out of D2’s AP scholar with Distinction Award to balance out the celebration of the athletic scholarship. She will enter as a sophomore but will still stay all four years. Will probably get her a tv to take to school. 
She needs to to just relax some times.</p>
<p>D2’s Dell arrived and is running great. THANK GOD as D2 doesn’t need another bump in the road at this time. Sorry you’re having problems sharonohio!</p>
<p>S2’s dell arrived today as well and seems to be great. S2 is playing with it now, loading everything he wants.</p>
<p>Son attends a really good independent school and while he didn’t take AP Euro or Chem exam (long story). He will top out at 7 APs max I think. Havent seen a full transcript since beginning of senior year. I think it does make a difference of you can take AP’s in a semester, but at the same time, that’s some serious studying to have the info stick from first semester to the end of the year. I honestly cant imagine even the best student in his school getting as many as 12! Still… have a call into H though to see if the envelope came. Is there no way to check those online even now?</p>
<p>Havent bought the computer yet. Just prolonging the pain. Im still working on swallowing the tuition bill!!</p>
<p>All D’s AP’s were a year long. She took Statistics as a junior then 5 Sophomore year plus french and 6 last year with nothing else.</p>
<p>Rumor on the Dell site is that computer is going out today and will be here tomorrow. They still haven’t told me how to return the non-working one even though I have asked several times. They’re not getting paid for two so don’t understand that process at all.</p>
<p>D still recovering from wisdom teeth surgery. Some pain but doesn’t like the pain meds.</p>
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<p>Poor thing. I have the same issue - I love the pain meds for a day, but after that they bother my stomach so I have to decide which is worse. I actually had a wisdom tooth removed about 4 years ago…the recovery was extremely painful…the oral surgeon didn’t have much sympathy, pointing to my age as the reason I was healing so slowly: “You aren’t sixteen, you know.” Way to make a middle aged woman feel better!</p>
<p>missypie, I hope you bit him.</p>
<p>D (college 2010) just scheduled her own extraction for the first day of the single whole week she’ll be home this summer. Guess this reduces the opportunities for shopping trips - but on the other hand it ups the chances that we’ll watch movies together.</p>
<p>sharonohio, hope your D feels better quickly.</p>
<p>Re APs: At S1’s independent school, 6 is the supposed maximum for APs. Nobody’s allowed to take them sophomore year, and the upper limit is 3/year for juniors and seniors, though you can petition for more if you can make a good case for it. (He did.)</p>
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<p>LOL. Your reply is so funny because I just finished reading *Dracula *last night. Have any of you read Bram Stoker’s original novel? Son made me read it and it was so good. Of course, we all know that “Dracula” = “vampire” but the original readers must have been so surprised and intrigued!</p>
<p>After 5 weeks in the hospital, my dad is coming home. He’s moving slowly towards a full recovery.</p>
<p>In the meantime, things are moving rapidly on other fronts --laptops, bedding, wisdom teeth, school forms, plane tickets – as we anticipate moving one D to grad school and the other to college.</p>
<p>What a crazy summer.</p>
<p>Zetesis, how wonderful that he’s coming home! May the rest of his recovery at home go smoothly and happily.</p>
<p>Thanks! It is wonderful, but my parents are a bit apprehensive – they don’t feel quite ready for this. But my mom’s a trooper and has organized home care, etc., so I hope they’ll do fine. Luckily, they only live 5 miles from us, so we can be there in a pinch. I feel torn in a thousand directions at present. I’m sure you all share that feeling too!</p>
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<p>I wish I could just stop time for a bit. Son is always asleep when I leave the house in the morning and is often out for the evening when I return. I feel like the last few weeks are slipping by without meaningful contact.</p>
<p>Oh, missypie - I feel that way all the time lately. I just want time to stop.</p>
<p>It’s been a couple of weeks, D is loving college life, she made so many friends and is super socially active in the evenings, since her first class isn’t until Noon. Maybe too socially active although she received good grades on the first 2 tests so far. The summer session ends 8/7, she’ll come home for 10 days, then go back on 8/17 for a week of sorority recruitment before classes start.</p>
<p>I just bought her airline tickets for Thanksgiving to come home. Prices dropped REALLY low this morning, I saved $70 compared to the same flights yesterday.</p>
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<p>What she said.</p>
<p>Good to hear it, JerseyShoreMom. I confess that I try not to think about you who have already sent yours away because it makes me feel very inferior…mid-August is coming too quickly for me to handle, and you’ve alrady done it successfully. I’m not worthy.</p>
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<p>Of course, Husband can’t wait for him to leave. I can forsee some rocky days ahead - Husband celebrating and me mourning. (I guess that’s when it’s good to have two more kids at home.)</p>