<p>Shawbridge, good luck to your daughter with her transition, sounds like a wonderful opportunity and its nice that she seems to have found what she wants! Hope it all works out.</p>
<p>So after I mailed the huge box, get a call from D3 asking me to send her arcrylic paints up as she got into the painting class she wanted. UGH! Of course not even sure I can send those in the mail, can you?</p>
<p>Great to hear about what everyone is doing or planning to do in the spring and/or planning for the future. I am still trying to figure it out but its kind of fun to explore my options. Still have my high school freshman at home and don’t want to jump into anything full time but as I know those 3 1/2 years will fly by…</p>
<p>Well off to face the day! Enjoy!</p>
<p>Good luck FLmathmom with your class and test!</p>
<p>D has returned to school for early Track practice. Her efforts to line up something for the summer were lackluster, to say the least. I told her to view it like college apps (reach, match, safety). A reach job would be an internship in the career she wants; a match would be something more attainable, like working in a local store or babysitting, and safety – working for me. Which violates a cardinal CC rule: love thy safety. :)</p>
<p>D heads back to school today. Unlike last semester, she was not already planning the next time she heads home. She is doing an oral history project this semester, which entails interviewing people in her sport in our area, so we expect to see her at least 3 or 4 weekends this semester. She and a friend are currently scheduled to come to our house for Spring break (a week in March), mostly due to funding limitations. I assume she will continue to call frequently, so the whole thing is kind of anticlimactic. Just glad she chose to go to school 90 miles away- just far enough for comfortable distance but not too far.<br>
And all but one of the papers she is redoing for her one class are completed. The last one is a creative writing exercise that she just rolled her eyes at. She said we may be skyping one night this week to revise it properly.<br>
Now onward and upward for our 2nd semester college students.</p>
<p>I’ve suggested that our son look for a Habitat for Humanity spring break option, but he might come home if he gets some job interviews lined up. I’ve always found Spring breaks a bit strange - most are not around the K- 12’s Spring breaks and it’s usually not even Spring!</p>
<p>Regarding Habitat for Humanity and Spring break. Most schools have HH groups at their colleges, and the spring break trips fill up quickly. If your kids are wishing to do a work trip with HH, I believe that they should have already applied, but some locations may be different.</p>
<p>I took D1 back to school yesterday, and unloaded her ‘reduced’ amount of stuff. If she brought less ‘stuff’ back to school in January that she had in August, then why was the SUV still full to the brim? I told her that we may need to rent an 18 wheeler to get her stuff home in May.</p>
<p>D1 is going to Berlin and Prague with the Chorus group at school over Spring break. They are supposed to perform as well as sightsee. I never went anywhere but home to NJ for Spring break. I think I may go back to college myself.</p>
<p>D1 plans to have the talk with her roomies to update the room mate agreement tonight, since classes start tomorrow. She was pretty stressed about the whole talk, since she is concerned that the problem roomie will not even understand the issues. The girl is in her own world and does not socialize at all at school, except for her bf.</p>
<p>EAO, you can send acrylic paints in the mail in the US. ShawWife has them shipped from art supply companies. You wouldn’t want to mail them overseas.</p>
<p>Class of 2015, I like your formulation. I just spent an hour with ShawSon, who is a junior, talking about what he is looking for in a summer job (and a job after college), and he’s scheduled a meeting with the career services office to figure out how to conduct a job search. I’ve never conducted one as each job has, to a certain extent, led to the next. I used my contacts at the first place to suggest people at the next. From there, I’ve an entrepreneur for 20 years. So, while I have lots of useful contacts, I am glad he is going to see what career services says.</p>
<p>S’s school really pushes internships and we got a letter from the Dept head telling us to make sure our kids at least look. Of course, S swears as a freshman he would never get one. I swear as a freshman practically flunking out he won’t. But, I want him to apply and get some interview experience. If (as if it were a possibility) he doesn’t get an internship, he will work at the apt complex he worked at last year. </p>
<p>S’s one week spring break overlaps 11yo D’s 2 week break. We are trying to plan a trip somewhere, not sure where just yet. S was planning on driving to Canada to see a hockey game with friends during break til I informed him his passport expired last year and he would have to pay to get it renewed.</p>
<p>He flies back to school on Monday. Has already told us that he plans on staying at school for Easter. I guess I will be mailing his basket out to him.</p>
<p>Like the idea for summer internship approach! I have asked my S to apply for summer internships this break and so far he puts in very minimal effort. So his reach will be a nice paid internship with a 500 Fortune co or something, a match will be either his old job or staffing at Boy Scout summer camp and safety I have no idea .(I dont count cleaning house and mowing lawn as working, ha-ha)</p>
<p>So much for buying textbooks early. One of Ss books arrived last week. Last night he received an email from a teacher that said I hope no one has purchased the book because we are not going to use that book. Would you know it that happens to be the book arrived. The book has been posted and now one week before class starts and teacher tells students not to buy the book? Of course S was upset and said to me YOU told me to buy books early and now see what happened!</p>
<p>I think S will be glad to get away from us next week.</p>
<p>For summer, d will be coming home and taking calculus and Spanish in the summer session. SInce that is about half a schedule, I am sure she will be looking for a job too. She will be doing pet sitting for us, anyway.</p>
<p>My son will be serving the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a juror for his spring break.</p>
<p>This summer he will be going to Rome for a half-semester program through his college. He is very excited about being selected and thrilled to be able to spend 5-6 weeks in Rome with the option to extend the stay another two weeks and do what he wishes-the school will even change the travel arrangements for him. It may be less to send him there than to take a half semester at the school since the housing costs are so much less there than in Boston-the difference is usually about the cost for the flight. The rest of the summer will be his since after that there will be no more summers-between co-op and summer sessions this will be his last “childhood” summer.</p>
<p>My son will be coming home for spring break to hang out here. It’s an early one and doesn’t coincide with any of his siblings’ breaks, so I imagine he will spend a lot of it sleeping in and staying up late. Not sure if any of his friends have the same break.</p>
<p>Luckily, he has a summer research position at a university in the area, so that is off the list of things to do. He is working on figuring our the details (hours, weeks, etc) but knows that it is a paying position in his field of interest. Woo hoo! I think I was much happier than he was to have that taken care of!</p>
<p>Pepper–I remember you talking about your DS getting jury duty. How did the state get his information? Do the colleges have to report students? Does he have a job at school? I’m just curious because usually it’s a residency thing. I can’t remember how they snagged your OOS son for duty.</p>
<p>Pepper–
for my kiddo2 there are some schools on the list - in MA…
…and the states ability to tap jury duty out of “out of state” residents attending college there is crazy!!!</p>
<p>Hope all are well. Just got a quick PM from my kiddo at the U…happy to be back. The box we shipped is there. Enjoying first days of new classes.
Luckily the classes kiddo choose aren’t being hit hard by the “mega-class” issues…
check this out…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>when each yr is about 1200… then a class of over 500 is more than 10% of the undergraduate student body! Don’t know what the cap is on those…</p>
<p>VA I think they just pulled it off an address list. He is required to have a mailing address on campus. He finally checked it after he had been at school a while-and there it was waiting for him! He thought he was going to get in trouble since there was no date on it-I guess it didn’t occur to him to check the postmark.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it is an effort to snag these kids or just his dumb luck. Again, to be clear, I am fine with him serving on a jury-but not in Massachusetts! There are kids he knows who got summoned who live very far away from the school-seems like a real hardship to not excuse them unless they appear to ask for a hardship exemption. </p>
<p>fogfog I would like to sign up for the hoaxes class-that sounds very interesting. Would they really run a class that large?</p>
<p>Boychild called today. Loves his classes (so far.) Two have a community service component so he’ll be tutoring at the public library 3 days a week at an after school program. I love that his school has a strong a commitment to outreach in the community and they incorporate it into the curriculum. </p>
<p>In other news, I am so exited. My dear friend in England daughter has been offered a full athletic scholarship to play soccer at UCONN. I’ve been helping them navigate through the system and giving my opinions on the different colleges recruiting her. Most were small, christian schools in the south & midwest, which I didn’t think would be a good fit and then there was The Citadel, which she was excited about because it was the only Div 1 school that showed any interest but she would have hated it there. So when the UCONN coach called I was very relieved as I’m sure she’ll be much happier there than the others and it’s Div 1. Plus, it’s only a few hours from me which I know puts my friend’s mind a lot more at ease. I feel like I’m launching another kid!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback – I feel like we’re all so “imprinted” by this college process we’ll see every challenge through that lens.</p>
<p>emillybee – how wonderful (full ride @ UCONN)! It’s great that you were able to help this young lady, and with such great results. Nice to hear about boychild’s school integrating community service with classes. That school is genuinely committed to graduating good people.</p>
<p>Hurray- emilybee. Things are not looking that rosy for the S of a friend that I have been helping apply. It’s not my story to tell- but he is unhappy at his school and it shows.<br>
D is planning on coming home and trying to get a full or part time babysitting job this summer. I have encouraged her to seek out more affluent areas where parents are working full time and need school age children day care, but we will see. We also might have a friend of hers from school staying with us, as her parents say they will continue to pay for school but she is not welcome home this summer. Poor kid- the mom really is psycho so it was not a complete surprise but it still hit hard. We’ll see if she finds another place for summer where employment is easier to find, but feel good that she knows she will not be out on the street once school closes down.</p>
<p>D1 applied for a summer camp position at a different camp then the one she has worked in the past, but she knows the director very well. D2 has attended the camp and loves it. We told her that this will be her last year of working at camp, and will need to get a real job after her sophomore year. The good thing about working at a resident camp, is that she saves all of her money, since room and board (aka- tent and camp food) are included.</p>
<p>D1 still has not been able to talk to her roommates about updating the roommate agreement. She had texted both roommates last week to determine when they were coming back, and asked if they could both be available either Tuesday or Wednesday. One of the roommates is more than accommodating, and responded to let her know what is a good time. The other one (the girl who leaves the light on at 2AM) arrived back at campus on Tuesday, but was basically out of the room until midnight last night. D1 had texted her during the day to see if she could possibly come back for their meeting. She claimed that she had no idea when she would be back, and couldn’t give D1 a time. The roommate is slightly self centered, to say the least. </p>
<p>D1 texted me this morning to say that the meeting is scheduled for tonight at 9:30. I hope that all of the roommates are there. I give D1 credit for being persistent, but I hope she remains calm during the discussion.</p>
<p>DS got back to school on Tuesday evening and has already met with his advising dean regarding the one open class slot he has to fill, has shopped and ordered books online or from the bookstore based on best price, and called home as he forgot to ask for a check to put on his GO Card (used for laundry, snacks and all other miscellaneous items around campus and at some spots in town.) We just hope this motivation continues as the second semester unfolds. He also said his target is a 3.75 this semester as he needs a 3.5 overall to apply to the B school next year for their business minor program. We will have to wait and see. What a difference a semester makes! :)</p>
<p>AvonMom is feeling better and was able to venture out with her sister for lunch and a shopping trip yeaterday. They were smart to go and take advantage of the near 50 degree weather here in mid-January. It will not last! In fact, the snow is due tonight and tomorrow! :eek:</p>
What a difference a semester makes! :)</p>