<p>^ That’s kind of funny cooker if your daughter was prepared to show her new roommate some western culture! It’s great that they are working it out though.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m a fan of random roommates. In Bluejr’s case it has worked out beautifully. Every time I learn something more about his roommate I adore him more. Everything is just so unexpected. He plays waterpolo…of course he does!! He’s such a happy kid. Last night he did the cutest shout out to Bluejr on facebook for helping him with physics and always believing in him. I didn’t ‘like’ the status because that would be creepy, but it made me smile. His BFF made a cute comment about how much she loved both of them and their “bromance”…ahhh to be young. They just seem to be having so much fun.</p>
<p>Bajamm, momjr, kinderny - thanks for the holiday greetings. I’d be interested to hear how the various schools handle the Jewish holidays and what your kids do. </p>
<p>Olin will not penalize the students for not going to class; however, I’m not sure what that means. DS had intended to attend services Wednesday evening and during the day on Thursday. Some of his non-Jewish friends were going to join him. As of two days ago, he said he felt uncomfortable missing class on Thursday b/c too much important stuff was going to be covered. Olin is a hands on school so you can’t learn by getting the notes from another student. I’m ok with whatever he decides. I’ll let you know more when I do.</p>
<p>Re: DH’s ex - we get along great. We actually like each other. Background: My husband was single for several years before meeting me so I had nothing to do with their divorce, she lives in Israel, there are no money or custody issues as all kids are adults. We are very fortunate. She has even stayed in our home when she is in FL.</p>
<p>At Hamsphire, at least this year, they are on break Columbus Day, Yom Kippur and the preceeding weekend (dorms and libraries will be open). Hampshire is not closing for Rosh Hashanah, but some profs cancel classes (both of D’s did, hence her trip home).</p>
<p>We are not actually Jewish (although D’s claims to be “of the tribe” because of my maternal grandfather who was.) She even makes Hamanteschen from scratch each year for Purim and we celebrate Christmas Eve with latkes, blintzes, sour cream and applesauce. (Yes, we are weird but try to keep some family traditions alive, even if it is just the food.)</p>
<p>BI - your kids sound amazing and lucky to have all those invaluable skills. Kudos, mom, no matter why they had to learn.</p>
<p>Olin roommates are matched based on a few lifestyle questions. If I remember correctly, they asked about the general time you went to sleep and woke up, how loud or not you play music, cleanliness habits (my son and his roommate both said they liked clean rooms hoping to get someone who liked to clean…NOT), not much more. DS said he and roomie are very compatible. Can’t wait to see their bathroom (private) on Family Weekend. I, however, will NOT clean it like one if my friends (who still cleans her engaged daughter’s bathroom).</p>
<p>Kinderny - we will be happy to have you, your daughter and your entire extended family in the tribe. There are those in history that would have counted you and it would have been considered a bad thing. We hope you enjoy the traditions, the food, the stories, the music. No one can have too many good wishes.</p>
<p>Parents weekend starts on Friday but Hillel is having a special shabbat service and dinner which we could attend but aren’t. Instead we are going to nicest restaurant in lewiston. </p>
<p>I always left it up to boychild whether he wanted to go to school on the Jewish holidays since he was at a Catholic prep school which obviously wouldn’t close for them. He usually didn’t want to miss school. Our school district closes for the hols so was never an issue before h.s. </p>
<p>Off to get my hair cut and colored. Desperately overdue. </p>
<p>D’s responses to the housing questionnaire resulted in a single - not unusual in her college and probably good for her, as she shares bathroom and common room with 9 other women but can still shut her door. She doesn’t seem to be struggling to make friends. We haven’t heard about anyone in particular yet, but between her a Capella group, her other singing group, and her suite, she has lots of people on hand to get to know.</p>
<p>D’s basic skills are quite good, except for the money side. The things she is best at she doesn’t need yet, like cooking, but she knows how to clean, do laundry, iron, and such. Before college, she had a savings account and a credit card on our account, so has not paid bills (except withdrawing money to pay us back for things outside her clothing allowance). Now she has a debit card, and I haven’t heard of any problems so assume it is working out. She is not a big spender, but I think she is still surprised by how much real life costs.</p>
<p>Our kids are in the middle. Both the ShawSon (sauteed chicken or shrimp with thai or Indian spices, used to make Dutch Baby pancakes before he went on a diet) and ShawD (pavlova, anyone) can cook well. They can do the wash if they have to though find home more conducive. </p>
<p>Nothing on the financial front. I’ve set up all bank accounts and have set up online bill-paying for them (and set it up so I or my assistant can monitor if bills are being paid). I’ve set it up so it’s convenient for me. That’s something they’ll have to learn as they go forth. </p>
<p>Neither has yet had a real job. ShawSon did a fabulous job working for me this summer which is different but seems to understand how to manage money. ShawD has only had internships but she’s very practically minded. She’ll move to an apartment next year (or perhaps the year after depending upon whether she transfers to nursing) so she’ll pick it up pretty soon. Not worried.</p>
<p>We accept! With alacrity! I always told my husband that if the church where we are members continues to make me cranky, I am joining my friend’s Reform congregation. I always love going to temple services there, they are so rich* (and often joyous).</p>
<p>
No rest for the wicked…er, uh. Good work AHDad! ;)</p>
<p>My ds may not know how to do many things but he has mastered the Tom Sawyer approach to life. There is always a Becky who is willing to paint that fence, and my ds will find her. But that is why he doesn’t have a credit card or much in the way of savings. He called me in a bit of a crabby mood yesterday (rare) where he lets me know he is not being a chump and doing all the homework for calc like some people (ok, blood pressure is now elevated) and how he went to a party and met up with the girl he met the week before and was interested in. But then she ended up making out with the buddy he came to the party with, while he was sitting right there. I told him to please do his homework and not to have this kind of conversation with me, as he seems to have his priorities mixed up. So now, by extension, I am in a crabby mood.</p>
<p>regarding how the different schools handle the Jewish holidays: Cornell has a 20% Jewish population, but they don’t bother avoiding the high holidays when scheduling exams. DS has a calculus exam on RH. (The exams are centrally scheduled, and the prof expressed frustration that they don’t take the high holidays into account since this is an issue every year.) He and the other Jewish students in the class were given the option to take the exam the day before or have their other exams each be weighted more. My DS chose the first option as he believes this first exam will be the easiest, as it will be based on material he was already comfortable with from HS. I think he is worrying about missing classes Thursday though because he has exams coming up in other subjects as well. Yom Kippur was almost well-placed wrt fall break, but not quite. YK is Friday night and Saturday, and that weekend they have Monday and Tuesday off. Having Friday off instead or in addition would have made it possible for him to travel Friday and be home for the holiday. Now his choice is to skip classes Friday (probably not a good option) and travel then, or wait until Sunday to travel if he doesn’t want to travel on the holiday (no evening bus service available), and if he waits until Sunday, it’s kind of a waste to bother coming home for such a short break. He still hasn’t decided what he wants to do. Adding to the difficulty of the decision is the fact that the Hillel is not organizing meals or services for YK since it is “during” the break. </p>
<p>S2 can make a meal, but especially enjoys grilling. He can bake, too. He made his girlfriend gluten free chocolate chip cookies for her birthday last year. He can do laundry, but avoids it if Mom will do it. He also knows how to iron, but doesn’t like to do it. Too bad for him – his past 2 summer jobs required that he wear dress clothes – so he ironed. He can also do some basic sewing – buttons and can sew a straight line (to mend a torn seam). He can clean – and does a good job of it. Can also mow the lawn and trim shrubs.</p>
<p>He has had a checking and savings account for several years and has had paying jobs for the past 4 summers. He can write a check and manage his accounts. He’s lucky that, so far, we’ve paid for the gas and insurance on the car that he shares with his brother. He hasn’t been responsible for maintenance of the car yet, so that’s something we should work on. He’s a great saver! He’s quite good with the ATM card…we’re not fans of debit cards, so discourage the use of the debit card. He has a credit card linked to ours right now and writes a check to pay for his portion, if any, each month.</p>
<p>Roommates: I think my sons don’t have a good feel for where they fall on the “neatness scale”. S1 filled out his roommate survey and declared himself to be very neat (he isn’t!). His roommate was probably surprised if he expected someone neat and tidy. S2 had a 5 question (I think) survey that was used for roommate matching and he told me that he chose something in the middle between neat and messy. (He’s a real neatnik!) He gets along fine with his roommate and recently said that, “he’s a little messy, but not unbearable.” </p>
<p>BI: “it is in a savings for him when he moves out” Love this – my parents did this for me. I lived at home for a while right after graduating from college. It was nice for me as I traveled 75% of the time for my job. I paid rent and they gave it to my DH and I to use to pay for our wedding. I always appreciated that!</p>
<p>^ ohiomom - We didn’t need the rent money, however our oldest needed to understand that not going to college means paying rent wherever you live, just high enough to be uncomfortable - but doable (ie, he had to give up some luxuries, work more hours, or look for a higher paying job). He’s on the aspie spectrum and has to learn by experience. He had to fork over cash as transferring electronic funds wasn’t going to speak to him, whereas cold, hard cash he had to take out of the bank weekly made an impression. We struggled with the morality of this so putting the money away in a nest egg was a good compromise. </p>
<p>On the flip side, I paid rent when I lived with my mom as a 20yo however she needed the money at the time. My only gripe was I didn’t get my room as she’d rented it out when I left at 18. When I was old enough to understand she was trying to keep the house I grew up in I got over it (about the time I had my own mortgage at 23…doesn’t it usually work that way!!!).</p>
<p>amandak- your post had me in stitches. just tell your son TMI!!! ha ha!! I guess it is good he tells you things…I have to dragggggg things out of my D!!</p>
<p>BI: My parents didn’t really need the money either, but it was important to me to pay something since I was living there, eating their food, and making a nice salary. I laugh now because I felt insanely rich after having almost no money in college. When I look back at what I was making, it wasn’t really all that much – just seemed like a lot to me at the time. Anyway, my parents took the money, but I didn’t realize that they were saving it to give to me at a future date. As for having your son pay rent, it’s a good teaching tool for your son since he needs that concrete example.</p>
<p>AK: Loved picturing your son using his charming personality to get things done.</p>
<p>LOL, Amanda! I can’t imagine my son having a conversation like that with me. </p>
<p>just got a voice message from the dear lad. Seems he has a Geology lab field trip on Sunday leaving at 8am and we had planned on sticking around until early afternoon ato have brunch, etc., before heading to Portland to have dinner with my niece’s in-laws. Guess I’ll have to look into something for us to do in Portland as I don’t want to show up that early at in in-laws. Then he mentioned something about sailing at some point which he said he can miss - but from the sound of his message doesn’t seem like he wants to. </p>
<p>emilybee- I am getting similar vibe from my D re: parents weekend this weekend. I am thinking next year we will skip it and just pick a weekend to go down for something on our own…</p>
<p>Hollie, boychild couldn’t wait for us to be on the first boat back to girls camp (and the parking lot) on visiting day so I don’t know why I’m surprised. </p>
<p>Maybe next year we’ll just stay over one night.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting the Sainsburys survey story, FogFog. Just to put it in context: most freshers here in SainsburyLand will be responsible for many of their own meals the exception being those at the the three collegiate universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Durham). And all freshers handle their own tuition payments/student grants. When D was at Oxford, we never once saw a tuition bill. All those were sent directly to her, along with the College battels the bills for food and incidentals. So students here are expected to budget and cook. Sounds like emilybees boychild though could give most freshers here some lessons!</p>
<p>That says alot and shows really how much more independent and ready they have to be to handle tuition payments, budgeting for food and incidentals, cooking etc…!
FWIW, are these students at public or privates colleges/universities (in similar status to the US educational model). What does tuition cost for them?</p>
<p>I know that the eduational system in parts of Europe for example means public universities and few fees for the student.</p>
<p>And we have kids here in American colleges with full meal plans, paid housing and tuitiojn bills being handled by the parents
…and we pray they are going to class, doing laundrey and balancing their time…</p>
<p>Samuck, he would be fine - it’s me who has the hard time figuring out how the college thing works over there. One of my friends kid wants to be a doctor but got rejected from every uni he applied to so either had to sit out this year (and do what?) and try again next year or enter some other non doctor program. I can’t figure out my other friends twins who are my kid’s age college thingy’s either. They are going someplace this year for only a year and then applying to someplace else for next year. Or something like that.</p>
It’s great that they are working it out though.</p>