<p>Mamom, vamom - one would think a flooded basement would be a disaster. Not for my sister. Her hubby is a pack rat and had years and years of magazines and optometry journals stacked in the basement along with cartons of other dreck that had not been touched for years. With that one flood…swish…it all become soggy garbage. She also saved on moving expenses when they moved the following year.</p>
<p>ShawWife also hates shopping. I shop on the internet. I find what fits me from a store and buy when the most expensive products are on big sales (I bought two cashmere scarves for $25 each and a camel’s hair blazer recently for $99; and my normal suits are $1200 but I get them for $300 to $350). ShawSon shops the same way as EAO’s boy except that he doesn’t go to the store. </p>
<p>ShawD buys it for him, takes it home, and he tries it on. He just had his birthday and is harder than I am to buy things for. He doesn’t want things. He says, “If I call you and need something, you guys almost always buy it. So, if I don’t have it, I don’t need it. So, don’t buy it for me. That would be wasteful” There were a few purchases that were wants and not needs – after freshman year, he asked for a smallish flat screen TV. He said he would prefer to a) watch football games while studying rather than watch in a big common room; and b) use it to relax. He had done so well freshman year – a prize for academic performance – that I said yes. ShawWife said “Let’s talk.” ShawSon said, “Have I ever done anything to suggest to you that I wouldn’t do whatever it takes to do well academically?” She said, “No. OK. Get the TV” That was the want. Plus a basketball. He’d wear whatever is left over until it shreds.</p>
<p>Well, yesterday we bought a Kate Spade tweed suit for ShawD at Century 21. Much more expensive than she normally buys but on a huge discount. Looks very nice on her – the outfit is sort of like a stylish first lady kind (think Jackie O). This morning, she said, “I think I want to return it. I don’t think I have a use for it now.” She could use the parts separately as well as, someday, for interviews, but she thinks the price tag is too high for the relatively low usage. OK. So we’ll go back and return it. She doesn’t like a trip where she buys everything she’s found, I guess.</p>
<p>Hi Everyone, </p>
<p>My kiddos (2) are both non drama and low maintenance…though kiddo2 is more fashion conscious as a highschooler than kiddo1 was at the same age. Kiddo1 has gotten a little more interested in whats in the closet since about Sr yr…</p>
<p>Neither kids is big on “wants” and so it made packing for college easy. Gosh for the holiday break kiddo arrived with just one smallish duffle bag and the backpack with the lap top …</p>
<p>Hmm I would say that sunglasses are the big splurge here for both.</p>
<p>Saw this on the news feed…
glad its not one of our kids roommates…</p>
<p>[Promiscuous</a> roommate from hell may cost Massachusetts college $150,000 - Yahoo! News](<a href=“Promiscuous roommate from hell may cost Massachusetts college $150,000”>Promiscuous roommate from hell may cost Massachusetts college $150,000)</p>
<p>Hi all…a stressful start to the week thus far. But today’s looking much better and hopefully, that’s the trend for the rest of the week!</p>
<p>D ran into some issues at school yesterday - was incredibly upset, texting me back and forth. But to her credit, she talked to the administrators herself and has sort of resolved it. She has another meeting with the dean setup. Proud of her for taking charge, learning how to deal with these issues. Hard being so far away, knowing that you cannot help - knowing that you shouldn’t really help - just guide her through the process! Sigh…hopefully, her week improves…</p>
<p>Got some good news about S today - he won an award he was nominated for. Amazing - things have been going very well for him these past couple of months with one achievement after another and if I may say so myself, couldn’t happen to a nicer kid. He is in the school musical this weekend - so very very hectic! Somehow (!), he managed to convince him to co-ordinate/organize the post show cast party and about 40 kids have signed up thus far. How do I get roped into these things??? :)</p>
<p>There was another post about this lawsuit on cc already. I think it is an important suit myself but so many others think it is trivial. I personally think people have a right to stay in their own rooms without the indecent exposure myself. I am not quiet or nice and would have ripped their covers off and went running down the hallway announcing this to all within ear shot. It would have been crazy but no one would want to be with crazy me and I would have gotten a single right away. Can you imagine this. You are laying in your bed at night sleeping. Then suddenly the roommate is going at it with her boy friend with in few feet of your bed. Now I didn’t dorm at college but I did share a house with girls after college and there is no way we would be doing it in front of other people. There is no way I want a guy sleeping in my bedroom without my permission too. I just think this behavior crosses the line.</p>
<p>Been one of those evenings…</p>
<p>Selling my kiddo 2</p>
<p>Cheap
As is
Braces completed. Has first retainer.
No implied warranty regarding academics, attitude, manners
Comes complete with ample clothes, laptop, school books, cell phone, mp3 player and eligible for drivers license in some states. Shots/records current. Passport current.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>fog- You made me laugh. I hope all is well. I’ll take yours if you take my 15yo.</p>
<p>Hi everybody, It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been lurking occasionally and finally have a few minutes to post. Want to say how especially happy I am that AvonMom and Fogfog’s son 2 are both well. You guys went through quite an ordeal and it’s so good to hear that they’re both OK. And fog, you have me hysterical w/ your last post – I can completely relate. I won’t suggest that we trade S2s b/c it sounds like we’d end up dealing w/ the same issues.</p>
<p>S1 will be returning home for spring break in 2 weeks. His begins on March 24. Seems like such a long wait as most colleges have an earlier break. He was just accepted to a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator summer program at his school but he’s leaning toward working with one of the labs instead as he’s very interested in the prof’s research and it can continue through the next academic year, if not longer. So, in either case he’ll spend most of the summer – at least 10 weeks – at school. Man, I’m going to miss him this summer. During high school he never spent more than a week away during the summer and the last 2 he was here working at a lab in NYC. As for sophomore housing, he’s joining a literary co-ed frat called St. Anthony’s Hall. I’d never heard of it before but it sounds right up his alley. While the kids major in everything from the arts to the sciences, they share a love for all things literary. One snafu: he doesn’t have a roommate as of yet and may be randomly assigned. He was very compatible w/ his roommate this year but he didn’t like the location of the frat so he opted to live elsewhere.</p>
<p>S2, like fog’s, is giving me some trouble occasionally w/ his attitude and manners. It can be wearying but i think it’s typical teenager stuff. He recently won some nice awards for his creative writing and has applied to some summer creative writing programs. Keeping my fingers crossed that he gets into at least one of them. Will take him to casually look at some colleges over his April break, maybe Bard and Sarah Lawrence, and to MA for a few schools. He’ll probably be a creative writing major. Told him when he graduates he’ll have to find a day job to support himself while he writes his novels/poetry at night :)</p>
<p>An update on the URM girl I’ve volunteered to help this year: She was rejected from her ED school, one I advised her not to apply ED to bc it was way out of her reach (Dartmouth). She was also deferred EA to UMichigan, Tulane, and ED2 to Tufts. She’s been accepted to Dickinson with $40,000 merit aid. We’re now waiting to hear from the rest of her schools. I was on pins and needles until she got that acceptance to Dickinson. I don’t think I could be a private college counselor…it’s so stressful. She did get an email from one of the admissions reps of a school she has yet to hear from to tell her how much they loved her essay. That was very nice (and hopefully a good omen).</p>
<p>RenMom, kudos to you for helping the URM student and congrats to both of your sons. arisamp, congrats to you on your son’s achievements (and, I assume, recognition).</p>
<p>All is quiet in the Shawbridge household. ShawD and I are back from NY this evening and it is back to work for me tonight. She’ll see friends for the next few days. The trip did give ShawWife several very free days to largely finish an installation that is going up later this month (it is very different from her usual work and is likely to get some publicity). She seems very happy and is inviting over a couple of museum curators. Usually, she works to the very end isn’t comfortable inviting them when she doesn’t know what the work will look like or or does it in a rush in the day or two before the work is going to be shipped out. ShawSon doesn’t have spring break for a couple of weeks and said he’s working very hard and is likely to stay there for the break. </p>
<p>I’ve had a lovely respite without extensive work travel, but now it starts up. Mexico City, New Jersey, Munich, London, … plus I’m taking ShawWife to Barcelona for Mother’s Day. She’s never been and it is a great place for artists – Gaudi is inspiring.</p>
<p>Safe travels, Shawbridge!</p>
<p>D called last night, very upset by her mid term grades. I am not exactly sure what all of the specific mid term grades are, though her class grades range from B to A-. I am not entirely sure what there is to be upset about. They are lower than she is used to (straight A’s in high school) but still higher than needed to keep her scholarship and she still has the rest of the semester to work on bringing them up, now that she knows how the teachers write the exams and what they expect on papers.</p>
<p>One specific problem is her calc III class. The instructor is just that, an instructor that is not done with his PhD. He is more of a TA without an overseeing PhD in the class with him. He doesn’t know how to write exams, the first “minor” test was way to easy, so he wrote a very difficult midterm. D’s score was below the class average and the class average was a failing average. He is giving the exam back and allowing them to make corrections. And, she was upset by this. I told her it was a learning experience for the instructor, too. He needs to learn to write exams sometime and it so happens to be her class. And that she should be glad that he is man enough to know he wrote it too hard, is giving them a chance to redeem themselves and she should take full advantage of that.</p>
<p>It upset her so much she wants to take all of next year off as a gap year. Then she said she didn’t want to screw up her scholarship by taking a year off. I told her it may be better to take the year off after earning her B.S. and before starting medical school. That way she’d have a year to apply to med schools without having to work on her senior thesis at the same time. She seemed to accept that.</p>
<p>Shaw - you have raised some nice kids. </p>
<p>RenMom - Nice job on the Dickinson acceptance with great merit for the URM. Sounds like your S’s have some nice summer opportunities lined up.</p>
<p>fog- today is another day. Hope kiddo 2 wakes up on other side of bed today. :)</p>
<p>aris - congrats to your S on the award! Good luck with the cast party. Your D sounds like she is handling things very well. kuddos to her. </p>
<p>FlMathMom- I only wish our cellar had flooded. Unfortunately it was only a puddle, so we get to keep all the “crap” down there. 
Drain is now clean and cleared and checking account is out $300. </p>
<p>I read about the promiscuous roommate. I would have been horrified if it happened to me. I do remember being sexiled one of the first nights at college my freshman year. Never happened again after that though. On the class of 2015 and class of 2016 FB page for my S’s school. I know I have seen a questionaire to answer to find potential roommates and one of the questions is about whether you would be OK if your roommate had sex while you were in the room. yuck. So i guess it isn’t unheard of with todays kids. (hopefully not mine)</p>
<p>Fog - “This too shall pass” - one of my mom’s favorite sayings!<br>
Shaw - Nice of you to include little old New Jersey in your international flight plans - we’ll try to spruce the place up a bit. We do have a Century 21, that must be the draw.
Arisamp - Hope your dd’s week gets better and congrats to your ds!</p>
<p>Back from page 2.</p>
<p>Got a chuckle out of reading the new thread about how hard it is having to wait for RD decisions on April 1st. It brought back the memories of our community countdown last year at this time. And then it gets worse with the indecision of April and the final selection process. :)</p>
<p>amandakayak, we have been to the Morristown Century 21, which ShawD rates as having better jeans than the downtown store. I’m from NJ and we stopped in and visited grandma there this weekend. She was appreciative. My next NJ trip is several days with a client. It’s the culmination of lots of trips and is both exciting and high stakes.</p>
<p>bajamm, you are right to suggest she treat her lest than perfect score as a learning experience. You may also have given her the following piece of advice, but if not, here it is: She should go in and find out what the instructor is looking for. ShawSon is very focused because he is dyslexic and doesn’t want to spend time on work that is off target. By talking with his teachers, he learns about the kind of things they are likely to test for. It works for him.</p>
<p>mamom, I hope that we as parents would teach our kids basic levels of respect (for the kids’ roommates, their partners, and themselves) and that my kids’ roommates parents have conveyed the same. I want my kids to learn how to have healthy, adult relationships and that includes sex (as part of a relationship, not as a one night stand). But healthy adult relationships wouldn’t include sex with the roommate in the room.</p>
<p>bajamm- I am sure D will do fine in the course. My D thought she was going to fail Calc 3 in the Fall, but kicked it up a notch and ended up getting a B as the final grade. When the kids call upset, the best we can do is listen and not make any rash decisions over the phone.</p>
<p>shaw- I have never heard of Century 21, but have been to the Manhatten H&M. I may need to check out Century 21 when we visit our family in NJ.</p>
<p>I am very glad that my kids are 4 years apart in age. I am not sure that I could handle going through 2 senior years in a row.</p>
<p>D1 did email yesterday. First email was for us to check her checking account and move money from savings to checking, with no information about how she is doing. I guess it was too hard to do on the smartphone. I replied “So nice that you are alive and well. How is your trip?” She them replied that she was having a great time, Prague was gorgeous, and she was in Berlin, and oh, by the way, “I got my grades for last term, and they were all A’s.”</p>
<p>FogFog - we didn’t have many of those days with D1 but almost everyday is like that with D2…occasionally we see glimpses of the sweet girl we used to know but we have more hard days than not. She is “breaking” under her heavy junior year workload right now…everything is drama.</p>
<p>RenMom - congratulations, that is wonderful that your URM has a place to go…and kudos to you for helping her/him out.</p>
<p>bajamm - you are not alone…many of us are also dealing with kids that got perfect grades in HS but are now finding out they are no longer the smartest one in the class. Also, they are also learning that their instructors are human and do make mistakes. It is all part of the process…my D had a hard time last semester with one of her instructors that had extreme political views that were so different than anyone else she had ever encountered. He pushed her over and over again to defend her views and that was a very valuable lesson.</p>
<p>This Facebook post from DS today:</p>
<p>“oh cool i’m on the dean’s list i guess”</p>
<p>Nice to hear…even if it is for first term and the end of the second term is approaching…and I have to find out about it on Facebook… ;-)</p>
<p>The best part is actually the “oh cool” part–one of his difficulties with school achievement growing up was that he didn’t want to be identified as a smart kid–never wanted to be recognized, figured it wasn’t worth trying to get good grades if it just meant he was going to have to go to some award ceremony. I think he likes college. I am so relieved.</p>
<p>chs2011mom,</p>
<p>Our kids are growing up alot this year aren’t they? It sounds like your S has realized that good grades are important and one can still be humble while accepting the honors that sometimes come. And, maybe it is easier for him to accept the honors when he doesn’t have to sit through another boring ceremony on a hard chair or bench.</p>
<p>Hey Everyone,</p>
<p>Thought I would mention something about internet searches etc…</p>
<p>Last night we did google searches of our names, and under the images google searches.</p>
<p>We were very very surprised to see so many pics of our kids and their friends show up…pics from publications at the school, pics from things they “liked” on FB (even though their settings are private/friends only…)</p>
<p>And imagine my surprise to see comments I posted on FB connected with stuff and my friends…all through a google images search.</p>
<p>Our younger kiddo has pics that were connected with the cell phone and gmail that are showing up in a picasso album and we can’t find a way to remove them.</p>
<p>I don’t use FB for any games etc and have basically kept it because I can see what kiddo is doing at the U via our FB friendship --we use the messanger feature to chat once in a while…and can see pics etc…andI have kept in contact with people living overseas and reunited with some old friends. However I am really thinking I may need to delete what I can and live with whats in the cache already…</p>
<p>All this is to say even if our kids have their FB settings tight, much can be learned about a person with a goole search and google images search.</p>
<p>^^how weird:</p>
<p>I searched: D1 has a 6th grade pic there but nothing else?
D2: not one picture at all</p>