I’ve seen my daughter once since we left her in Ohio - she came home for 2 days for my wedding. My older daughter and I are going out on the 24th to pick her up for Thanksgiving, we’ll be bringing her back on either the Saturday or Sunday after Tgiving.
She is flying home for Christmas because I found much better pricing at an alternate but not too far away airport, and again for spring break (same thing - a different alternate airport that is <2 hours away). We’ll be driving out at the end of the spring semester to get her.
@albert69 - have you tried to get the free student version and failed? Can you ask the professor about it?
@Irishmomof2 I haven’t tried to get the the student version, I was just planning to use the lab computers. But now I’m nervous about doing that because the lab computers recognize the files are from the illegal software.
@albert69 Try to download the student version of CATIA yourself. If groups are working with CATIA, you probably need to have that available to you. Don’t rely on what others are saying as far as not being able to download software.
My D is 4 hours away. When she was applying to schools, I was excited to see that the city has a train station not far from the school. But I discovered only two Amtrak trains a day go through there, and they are both only 1.5 hours apart. But it’s still much better than driving 8 hours round trip.
I’ve seen her more than I expected when I dropped her off in August. I went down for parents weekend, she came home for fall break on the train, and then we met in another state for a funeral the next week. She made a surprise visit home last weekend with her roommate, who has a car. I have to say it’s still hard for the first few hours after she’s gone to get back to the new normal, though.
My S15 is on the other side of the country but I have seen him twice since drop off in late August. I flew there 3rd week of September to take him out to dinner and then I flew back again for parents weekend 3 weeks later. His dad flew out to see him about 3 weeks after that and they also had a great visit. He is coming home for Thanksgiving which will be just 3 days ago home for a 6 hour flight… wish Thanksgiving was longer. I would rather add an extra 3 days to the end of the school year to have a full week for Thanksgiving.
D1 is maybe less than 2 hours away. She has come home one night in July, one night in September, and we visited her on grounds for Family Weekend last month. She is not coming home for Thanksgiving, but will for Christmas.
Being in Asia, my daughter is half way around the world in New England. I pray that the weather cooperates for her trip here in December. The 30 hours or so that we have to wait once she gets on the first plane is going the be like torture. Any delay due to weather will only make it worse!
I’ve taken Megabus once, I’m not sure what would be dangerous about it?
Sometimes the schedule makes it arrive or depart late at night in downtown areas that may not have many people around that late. That can be avoided by choosing a daytime schedule.
A friend’s son uses it to go back and forth to school 4-5x a year without incident.
D1 and D2 will be driving up together for Thanksgiving on the 25th once they’re done with classes in Cincy/Lexington respectively. Only going to be home for 3 days, but it’s better than nothing. My MIL, FIL, and SIL and family will all be here for Turkey Day as well, so it’ll be great to have a house full of family. :-bd
Hopefully my Packers will remove their heads from their rectums by then and not cause indigestion that will spoil the holiday feast. :-q
@dyiu13, D used the Megabus before and it was totally fine, plus extremely reasonable cost-wise. My Mom uses it all of the time. Just be sure you know where the drop off point is because the locations are not always the best. They can be late due to anything that makes traffic late. D texted to let us know when they would be arriving so someone was there to pick her and her friend up. She and her friend watched movies during part of the ride on her computer.
Well, just an update on the problems I was having with the group project: I decided to explain the problem to my instructor. He was glad I told him and is working out a plan so that I can work for separately with the one other person on my group who didn’t want the software either can work separately for the remainder of the project, using the lab computer. I don’t know yet whether the other members of the group will have anything happen because of the software - the teacher asked me if I’d be willing to tell more people than just him if the university decided to take action because of it, and I didn’t tell him yes. If it’s an academic dishonesty issue… I don’t know. I’m not out to get the people and I don’t know that I want to start my path in college as a whistleblower, I just don’t want to use the software. I think that I’ve done my part, ethically speaking. I did explain how he could discover that at least one of them was using the pirated software because we some files posted on one of the school systems that I’m pretty certain the lab instructor has access to, so they could check those.
@albert69, I think your instincts are correct – keep out of this potentially sticky issue if you can. I’m glad you’ve found a way to do the group project without having to do something you have ethical concerns about. Other people’s decisions are not your responsibility.
D is coming home on the Peter Pan Bus which is a little more like Greyhound than Megabus–it does have an actual terminal. But otherwise it’s comparable and I don’t see it as unsafe, having ridden it as well as Greyhound, Boltbus, etc. I do see why some might consider bus rides unsafe, though–some of the passengers could seem scary to a young sheltered rider.
My D takes Peter Pan regularly. It’s stop is on the edge of her campus and it’s the fastest way to get to the two closest big cities, one of which we have family in. In her case a LOT of students ride.
Happy (early) Thanksgiving all. I hope you enjoy your college kids if they are coming home. D was very happy to be home for the first time in 3 months. She was thrilled to take a shower w/o shoes on AND be able to lock the door to the bathroom. She was also reveling in the luxury of 2-ply TP! :))
Thanks for sharing the article @bopper. Because of a lifestyle we have chosen, we don’t get to have that experience in the same way. Being relatively non-transient among a typically more transient overseas group, there will be no high school friends for us to compete with for our daughter’s attention when she comes home for Christmas. Her friends, many whose families left with them, are scattered all over the US now, at their various colleges and homes where their families relocated. No doubt we will still see changes, I sense them when we talk or text. I think she will be happy to slip into her overseas world for a few weeks as much about living in the states full time has been a bit of culture shock. But, once she is here for a while I think she might get a bit bored, and will be anxious to get back to her new life.
I can hardly wait to see her, once we got sub-30 days before her arrival, I decided it was okay to count down.