Neither son will be home for Thanksgiving, so we decided to go out of town and visit my folks in South Carolina.
The older son came home for two days, so we had an early Thanksgiving with him. Then, he took back leftovers of the turkey dinner, beef veggie soup and chili. He’ll do Thanksgiving again with friends and attend the UVA-VT football game. We’ll see him just as his law school finals hit.
Son '14 is remaining at school. He can stay at his fraternity house where he plans to work on internship apps for two days. Thanksgiving will be at his girlfriend’s family’s home. I’m sure he will bring leftovers back to the house. Then, he has a couple of days before finals start. We expect to see him and his girlfriend in mid-December. She will be spending a few days with us before Christmas.
Hugs to all those who will be missing their kids this holiday. I’m so thankful both of mine are close by and will be able to come home! I’m picking up my daughter tomorrow afternoon and will have some time with her. I’m very glad she’s coming home because it’s been a hard last week or so with friends having issues and being an RA to them. Luckily her hometown friends will all be home as I know she needs a good dose of time with drama-free, sober friends! She’s talking about having the girls over to make them crepes (one of her favorite things to do) and treat them to spa times at home too. I’m looking forward to seeing them all too, although I’m hoping the chosen morning turns out to be Friday and not Wednesday when I could use the time for cooking! However, we’re only having MIL over for dinner so any cooking can wait until the girls are done and gone. I’m just looking forward to the chatter and laughter they all bring and know that DD will feel so much better after connecting with them. Then she’ll spend the rest of her time studying for more midterms after vacation! DS will come home after work on Wednesday and says he plans to spend the weekend here! Since I’ve finished repainting his room, all is good!
Good news! DS was scheduled to be on a flight that landed around 9 pm on Wednesday but his later class was cancelled and we were lucky enough to be able to change him to an earlier flight without fees. I get him for a few extra hours now!
@2014novamom Yes, it works great for us here in Hawaii, because there’s no awkward short Thanksgiving break to deal with. He’s on a quarter syatem, they start in early September, go until now for fall term. Then a long break, Winter term starts 1/4 and goes until, spring break in March. Then Spring term goes 10 weeks until early June.
Only drag is that it’s a bit pricey to fly from Hawaii on 1/3! So he’s actually going on 12/27 to spend a week with a friend in Texas, then the short hop from TX to CO on 1/3 will be cheaper. And that’ll be fun for him too, it gets kind of boring here after a few weeks.
Love having everyone back home again! Thanks to D’s shop professor, she was able to get home early. Her academic professors cancelled classes on Tuesday, so she was just going to have to stay for shop. She asked about making up the hours and he ended up cancelling not just Tuesday, but Monday night as well. She was able to leave by noon today and home in time for dinner!
DS has been home for thanksgiving break since Friday night. It feels good to have the house full. He also came home for fall break and will come home again for Christmas. I am thankful for Southwest’s cheap fare that made doing this possible.
D didn’t get out of class until 4 today. She’s on the road now on her way home. It will be a long night. Although I can’t wait to see her, I’m worried about her driving so far (7.5 hour drive plus 1 hour lost to time change) this late. I suggested she either drive about half way and then spend the night in a hotel or wait until tomorrow, but she’s anxious to get home. I will be waiting to hear from her at each “check-in” along her route this evening. I’m making homemade chicken soup (stock and all) and apple pie while I wait for her - they’re two of her favorites and will keep me occupied. She’s looking forward to some R & R over break.
S won’t be home for Thanksgiving. He is going to Dallas to spend the holidays with my siblings and Mom. He’ll be home for Christmas!
Anyone’s S/D looking into study abroad for junior year? It’s a big thing at DS’s school and he’s looking at the different programs and working on his application now. He wants to go to the UK, which should be great for a theater minor who is also a history buff (and who is not interested in going anywhere that English is not the primary language). Although he’s a CS major, his program is designed so that he doesn’t have to take any major courses if he doesn’t want to, or can’t, while away, and he still won’t fall behind (one advantage of the quarter system, he’ll replace one quarter - 1/3 of a year - with a semester’s worth of courses abroad). So he’ll probably be taking art, history, theater, etc., and have a break from the CS and math.
Anyone know anything about these universities: Glasgow, York, Lancaster, Warwick, Queen Mary?
DS is looking at Maymester. He is thinking about applying for a summer internship which will preclude him from doing summer abroad. So Maymester seems to be the only choice. He is hoping to do a program that will count for credits going toward graduation.
DD is looking at programs for the fall also. She’s studying public health and should have enough credits for her concentration without worrying about how many she does abroad. So she’s trying to figure out whether she wants a public/global health abroad program or something else. Options she’s interested in include Amsterdam, Switzerland and Edinburgh as well as a multi country program in some variation of Brazil/India/South Africa/Vietnam. Given the situation in Europe right now I’m not really sure where I’d prefer her to go! She had been focusing mostly on Amsterdam but we asked her to also look into the Edinburgh program. Switzerland would be good too but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the program didn’t want students to be traveling different places and that’s part of the fun and experience of studying in Europe!
My daughter is looking to study in University of Melbourne for Fall 2016. Right now she’s on track for graduating one semester early, but if she choose to have a minor and a double concentration/track on her major (Information Science) she’ll graduate May 2018. What are the pros/cons of graduating early? Except for the obvious of saving money for a whole semester.
Another May-term looker in my house. This years offerings didn’t appeal, but her freshman advisor is leading one next year (May '17) that sounds promising.
D was planning on doing an intensive language immersion program in Paris at the beginning of summer. She still wants to go, but I am having second thoughts. She is also planning on Spring semester abroad, probably at one of the British programs.
@2018dad I can offer my (decades old) perspective on graduating early (from the institution your D may be at, judging from your icon!). I did it in the hopes of saving tuition. It also allowed me to start a seasonal career-related job in March. However, it turned out NOT to save any money – in my case all of the parental contribution from Spring semester was added to Fall semester, so we paid twice what we had been paying and I didn’t get the chance to take another semester of classes. Also, I moved back to a dorm figuring I could more easily break the lease. They let me do it because I wasn’t a student but they were NOT happy about it. I’m still proud I was able to finish early and I think it helped my career, but it didn’t save the money I had hoped to save.
No study abroad for DS, which is a bummer, but it’s too hard to do with a varsity sport and double engineering major. He is considering a co-op his last two years which means he’ll have to do a 5th year but since he won’t pay tuition while on co-op is ok. We’ll have to pay housing costs but a good co-op is worth it.
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