<p>Shaw - Love the nursing idea! I think nursing is very under rated. You can do so many things with a nursing degree - in my circle one grad runs the psych nursing unit at a major urban hospital, another works with pediatric cancer patients, another teaches a graduate program and conducts nutrition research at a national university, another does hospice work, one sells surgical devices, one sells cosmetic meds/lasers, and one is a Physician’s assistant focused on transgender issues - talk about a broad cross section of careers. The point I am making is that it is a very broad degree that can open many doors beyond what we think as traditional nursing.</p>
<p>Emmybet - I am so happy that your D seems to be better - my D has a med issue and she also takes BCP but it took months before she settled down. We called her Sybil during the transition :)</p>
<p>Amanda - LOL - I played Scrabble on my phone during D2’s college kick off session! So boring and not very helpful but I am on my “what I did for one, I will do for the next” kick…</p>
<p>Class of 2015 - did you buy the CSI insurance? I belive it covers lost and stolen phones…check it out!</p>
<p>Shawbridge- One of my dearest friends from high school became an RN and then a Nurse Practitioner. She said that much of nursing on the floor of a hospital is all about teaching- assessing the patient, looking at what the dr’s recommend and then interacting to explain to the patient what is going on and how they need to deal with things. It was great. As a NP at the VA in the ICU ( anymore acronyms I could fit in?) she is more an overseer and gets lots less patient interaction which she misses. Nursing can be a rewarding field. Regular RN nurses sometimes are not treated well and here in NY are now subcontractors rather than employees of many facilities which sucks for patient continuity and benefits.</p>
<p>AK- Laughing here. I am now the go to person for the one friend whose kid has not yet gone to college. I preach CC all the way (and the friend actually posts a bit in the 2012 thread.)</p>
<p>EmmyBet- Glad to hear the D is reaching equilibrium. </p>
<p>My D is doing ok. She had been calling multiple times a day to ask questions, shoot the breeze while walking someplace, or complain. Yesterday she called in the am because the pharmacy had screwed up her prescription ( this on top of the health services staff “questioning” the meds her dr had presribed. No idea why as we are talking a migraine pain relief pill and two allergy meds.) And then we didn’t hear from her the rest of the day. Which I would have been totally fine with except she had been calling all the time. Curious. She called this am and told me about her great ecology class swimming in the river in their undergarments (with FB pics!) and then helping another student get to Northampton, going out to dinner, missing the bus and having to sneak into her evening music “lab” class late. </p>
<p>Big sigh of relief. THIS is what I hoped/expected college to be like. Glad she is busy and happy and that she had no interest in calling home. Hope it continues and we hear from her less and less. Good day here.</p>
<p>On the coming home thing…our student is frankly too busy…has a sports commitment that includes every weekend…so we won’t be at Parent’s weekend as the team will be at Princeton…and there just isn’;t time because of practice daily etc and the heavy workload.
When I wanted to book the Thanksgiving ticket, I ended up picking a flight 2 days later because of the Y-H game which is that weekend andevidently “everyone” stays for the weekend and game.</p>
<p>AK – your story reminds me of last year about this time, going to DS’ financial aid info meeting at his high school. The main presenter was the man in charge of financial aid at our local (very large, multi-campus) community college. </p>
<p>I knew I was wasting my time when he kept pronouncing it “FASFA.” :rolleyes:</p>
<p>LOL, cgpm59! I have heard that too - hard to believe it came from the person in charge of FA!</p>
<p>Avon - your countdowns have been so fun to follow. I followed the end of the year ones last spring before emerging from my “lurker” status. Thank you!
Hope this doesn’t mean we are finished communicating! I am always interested in hearing what you all are experiencing - so often feelings I am having, but have no one “here” to commiserate with.</p>
<p>It is so exciting to hear our kids become introspective and find their strengths/challenges and their passions for careers. Talked with someone this morning about how important it is for us to be listeners and consultants to our kids, rather than telling them what to major in. My dad pushed engineering on me (all good intentions). He was an electrical engineer and thought it was a great future for me. Unfortunately, I spent several years trying to please daddy and not listening to my inner voice crying out to do something else. Happy to say that S and D are both directing toward fields that they are passionate about - and that I have gotten excited about for them.</p>
<p>Adding my thanks to Avon for the wonderful countdowns. I am so glad I get a break for 2 years with the college stuff. DS is a frosh. He will benefit from all I learned as D went through process last year. Despite earnest and competent counselor, I got my best info here. Vast majority of kids stay within a 3 hour drive from home, so that is where staff excelled.<br>
You could not pay me enough to sit through another meeting for the next two years, but, as several others have said, I will do for the second what I did for the first. We may have some more athletic factors to consider, so I’ll be visiting some new forums ;)</p>
<p>**The LAST new student move-ins are at University of Oregon and the University of Southern Oregon on September 22nd which is TODAY!
The last move-in day is TODAY!<br>
Labor Day is past. Football season is in full bloom. The summer is gone as fall arrives tomorrow! And this countdown is FINISHED! :eek:</p>
<p>[ul]The LAST Move-in day is TODAY. The season of move-ins is finished. THEY ARE ALL FINALLY LAUNCHED![/ul]</p>
<p>Woo Hoo! The CC class of 2015 is officially launched. </p>
<p>I can’t say that I’m sorry that I don’t have to sit through those HS college meeting again. Our HS guidance counselors talk the talk, but they steer most of the kids to in-state or nearby OOS publics.</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone on the final launches! We’re finally “there”! </p>
<p>Thanks Avonhsdad for all your work keeping us on track with the launches! You are amazing!</p>
<p>Can you believe there’s already a thread for 2016 acceptances! My how time flies!</p>
<p>I’m getting to sit in on it all for the 2nd time, but with a HS freshman it will be a few years. Still, the back to school stuff is all pretty redundant!</p>
<p>I will add to the chorus of thanks to Avondad for his countdowns, and congrats to the last of the launchers! Hope it all goes smoothly!</p>
<p>Hard to believe DD’s been there over a month already. She has midterms in all her classes over the next ten days, so we’ll find out how her transition has been. On the social front, things seem to be settling in. DD’s been socializing mostly with people she met on her preO project. The rm situation isn’t great (she is in a forced triple); DD says the other two have been partying every night at the frats. The other night she said one of her rms came in VERY drunk, but managed to crawl into her upper bunk. Then, at some point in the wee hours, DD woke up because she thought said rm was choking; she then turned over and got violently sick–all over both herself and the other rm in the bottom bunk. When DD called me the next day, she said that the room still smelled, even though they spent the rest of the night cleaning up. I recommended opening the windows (they have a corner room) with the fans going, and picking up a can of Febreze if necessary. Kind of hoping that rm has also learned a lesson.</p>
<p>Oh, dizzy, YUCK! Can facilities help at all with deep cleaning?</p>
<p>Congratulations to everyone on successful launching, and many thanks to AvonHSDad. A couple of my D’s friends are going to Oxford and still have over a week, but we seem to be done on this side of the pond.</p>
<p>I just had a lovely call from D. She has a cold, but happily it waited until AFTER a cappella auditions. D had a difficult relationship with the music department at her HS and refused to sing there, so she was thrilled that she was tapped for a group. Now we have to add the weeks she will be on tour to the annual calendar. I can’t even be sad that she will have less time at home over Christmas and Spring Breaks, since she will be having so much fun!</p>
<p>^^Except for the bedding, it’s all hard surfaces (linoleum floor, no carpets/rugs). The mattresses have a vinyl covering, so I think they stripped the beds and did multiple loads of laundry, and wiped everything down with lysol/bleach wipes. Luckily (?) they are in a suite with their own bathroom, so the cleaning products were at hand. I think at least some of the smell was actually the cleaning products.</p>
<p>DD’s take on the whole situation–she’s grateful that the partying happens elsewhere; most nights, she has the room to herself in the evenings so she can study/chill. She assures me that she is socializing some, just not with her roomies. She’s been making a point to try to talk to people in her classes. If she goes to the freshman cafeteria, she can usually find people from her preO group to sit with. She’s joined a choir, and found someone to take an evening modern dance class with. And she’s been going to the math “homework help” sessions, where she finds out that she’s not alone in feeling a little lost in calc III. So I think she is adjusting pretty well.</p>
<p>Boychild called late yesterday to tell me the life vest he ordered was being sent here instead of school because he forgot to change the shopping address on the order and that he needs it by Friday as he has a regatta over the weekend. UPS comes to my friends company everyday so they took it with them to work this morning. But because I had to do an overnight delivery instead of a two day delivery it’s going to cost twice as much. Sigh. At least I didn’t have to schlep to UPS first thing this morning. </p>
<p>He did tell me he got a B on his first Anthro paper which made me forgive him a bit for costing me more money. ;)</p>
<p>Somehow I find myself in tears. I am brought back to last winter when we were all waiting to cross over to our kids becoming second semester seniors. Only a very few of our kids knew were they would be calling home this year. Bluejr was one of the very last because of snow days that delayed midterms. I’m also reminded of the lyrics to Daughtry’s Home (on one of my favorite playlists now) which is so appropriate for our kids… When you find you, come back to me…. We teach them all we can, send them off to find themselves, and pray that when they do they come back to us. Yes, college is about an education, but they can do that online in the bedroom. Being on a campus 5miles or 5,000miles and challenging their beliefs, drifting from us to become adults is far more important IMHO. We can only pray that when they do find themselves they come back to us.</p>
<p>Cheers to our wonderful kids and successful launches!! They did it (and so did we)!!</p>
<p>I echo everyone who has thanked our steady Captain!! I consider myself among the lucky ones here who has another kiddo in the class of 2014 with the Captain where I know he’ll keep us on track and on time!! :)</p>
<p>blue - so true, so true. I am feeling very sentimental about this, too. Even with my D’s somewhat shaky launch I know that she is taking a very valuable journey, a very important step in her life, that she is learning about herself and the world and is exactly where she should be (college - it doesn’t even matter which one). This is what we were all hoping and dreaming last year and we did make it. </p>
<p>I’ve certainly known lots of kids and families who have undergone one blip or another in this process - it doesn’t have to be perfectly linear, and especially not perfectly “successful,” whatever that means, to be valuable. A HS senior is waiting for judgment, preparing for rejection, hoping for rewards that are often arbitrary. A college freshman - or a kid on a gap year, or a kid exploring other options - is making a life for him or herself. That is a really wonderful place to be. </p>
<p>I know my kid, even with her stumbles and frustrations, is proud to be in there making life happen right now. HS absolutely is SOOO yesterday!</p>
<p>What I find weird is having this college grad in our family, for whom college, too, is “yesterday.” Although I think there is something about college that you can carry with you and hold precious for a long time. As you move into the adult world, it’s a valuable foundation - literally one you build a career on - and you can preserve a certain kind of ownership that is much more lasting than with HS.</p>
<p>Which is another reason why I am cherishing this transition with D2 so much - I know she does see being where she is, doing what she is doing, as a gift, both from us to her and from her to herself.</p>
<p>Oh, Blue. I don’t think that you have anything to worry about. You are a wonderful mother, and I’m sure that your sons will always come back. This is a new stage for all of us. Maybe we were helicopter parents, but the good news about this generation is that they are close to their parents. My grown nieces and nephews are all close to their parents, who are now enjoying grandchildren and sons and daughters in law.</p>
**</p>