Not being allowed to have a car at college would be a deal breaker for DD. She needs a car to transport her instrument. She hopes to get some paying gigs while in college and will need to bring her instrument home for jobs over Christmas break.
Personally, I feel better knowing that she has her own transportation and can get herself to the store, doctors, where ever, without depending on someone else for transportation. Norman OK isn’t exactly a big city and I don’t think that it has much public transportation.
DD doesn’t have any reading assignments as far as I know, but she has to complete AlcoholEdu, Haven for College Students programs and Emotional Wellness on College and University Campuses online training.All those training are time consuming.
@lifegarding: “@madredos thanks, the description on the back looked like the book would be a great read, so I am hoping to read it when he’s done before he heads off to school in late August.”
My husband reads EVERYTHING the kids are assigned to read. It has become a droll fact of life with us. The kids leave the books in their respective study areas and when they are ready to read the book they look beside Dad’s pillow, or just under his pillow under the bed.
I wait for them to one day ask him for the DaddyNotes version.
@Waiting2exhale H does not read everything D is assigned, but they often choose books to read together and then discuss them. One of them last year was “Not a Genuine Black Man” that both found fascinating. D used parts of it for her speech competitions and in one of her college essays (had to be about a book that deeply resonated). Another was An American Insurrection, about James Meredith and the integration of Old Miss. They’re both serious humanities types who prefer non-fiction.
For school, I think I’ve mentioned here before that D has to read a book about voter fraud for orientation and two books for the first semester LA class. One is the history of the Jubilee Singers and the other is the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.
@sseamom: The read on the Jubilee Singers should be particularly fascinating, inspiring and send your daughter down the trail of hunting for old recordings of many of the choirs and choral groups from HBCUs.
Years ago, Ira Flatow (think it was him, could be Noah Adams ) did a marvelous, moving showcase of the Morehouse College Glee Club, detailing the grueling schedule and commitment the young men take on as members of that group, and the program ended with about five performances by the MCGC, and the noted introduction of the newest director of the choir. The directorship of the MCGC has changed hands just a few times in all the years the club has been in existence.
I can still here “Da Mornin’ Comes” thundering, pulsing, racing in my ears. I have it on cassette and would play it every year and just stand and tear up. I cry at almost anything spiritual, especially as the spiritual is so closely a telling of the struggle for the recognition for human dignity and a plaintiff cry for the strength to go on until this life is over and the reward of the afterlife is granted to the faithful.
Wow, @sseamom. Gonna have to go find that cassette.
As for the title, “7 Habits of Highly Successful People,” that is one title which was given to my husband in a workshop at work. That one has gone untouched.
My daughter and I spent the day together (my sweet hubby knows I need as much girl time as possible before she leaves for school). While she’s chosen to major in political science and international affairs (she was admitted to GW- Elliott School and the University Honors Program) today she shared her “concentration” (international environmental studies) with me and why she chose it. To hear your 18 speak so passionately about the importance of sustainable development and climate change was awesome.
During her IB MYP she consistently earned 7’s in physics and 5/6’s in biology. Of course momma wanted her to stick with physics as her IB DP science. She chose IB DP SL biology instead. Now I completely get it. Time for momma to listen and learn.
@Waiting2exhale I cry every time D praise dances, but some of the songs make me cry whether she is dancing or not. This is not the music I grew up with, and I may need to go find the recordings you mention, if they are still available for purchase.
I agree that “7 Habits” might not get much attention…
@HappyFace2018 this kids often know far more about themselves than we think they do, don’t they?
My kids don’t get an allowance now and I don’t have plans to give S16 one when he leaves for college. We are already paying for tuition, room and board and travel to and from home, and we are sending him with pretty much everything that he will need this year. He received graduation money and Amazon gift cards that will be used for his discretionary spending while at school. He has a short/busy summer so it was not possible to find a job, but I’ve been paying him to do odd jobs around the house so he’ll have extra spending money.
@sseamom Her most recent discussions with me has reminded me that her knowledge of who she is is rooted in the environment she has grown up in. I know that may sound cliche but the realization that you have done something right, as a parent, can be an epiphany. Among other things, we made every effort to emphasize others before self.
@HappyFace2018 This. Those types of passionate conversations happen between me and my friends often. Yet almost as often adults complain that teenagers are self absorbed and don’t have any worldview. The teenagers in my own life and the ones in yours prove the naysayers wrong everyday.
@sseamom: I tried for a while to find the radio presentation again, to no avail. But I will work harder at it now because I can do it for more than just myself.
If you stick around here (funny, 'cause I’m the one who is the newer of the two to CC) I will find the cassette, and put the tunes into some sort of Drop-Box thingie or something that I’ll have a kid help me set up (maybe @inn0v8r ?) and get it to you.
I can tell that this conversation is going to send me looking for such music, including that of the Jubilee Singers (whose music I have not heard).
In the first years of my marriage, I heard some prison work songs and field songs which were riveting and recently found a copy of one of the exact recordings. The hard drive onto which I’d done that crashed last October, and it kind of crushed me.
Books: I always try to read the kids’ summer readings @Waiting2exhale!! But I’m often way behind them. I finally finished Warriors Don’t Cry when my second was assigned it. I also have a family reading curriculum that I’ve assigned my kids, based loosely on what I remember being instrumental in my own childhood as well as variations on themes they touch upon too lightly in the curriculum.
Examples of the former: The Westing Game and Witch of Blackbird Pond and Cyrano de Bergerac
Example of the latter: my oldest was assigned The House on Mango Street so I added the following narrative memoirs from other “new American” perspectives: Black Boy, Falling Leaves, Girl in Translation, The Education of Little Tree (which I later found out was faked oh well), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Growing Up Ethnic in America. And my husband said, “um honey, how about you also add The Chosen” so I did.
Weekend Activities: We had a very nice BBQ with extended family yesterday, and today was a major household lazing and entropy-reduction-projects day. DH was able to back up a whole lot of files on obsolete media except for a small stack, which seemed all to have labels like “fretfulmother’s VERY important files” Oh well. I do feel that the only media immune to obsolescence would be a flip-book or a rock etching.
Summer Reading for College: @Ballerina016 - check again because both DH and I had books assigned - in fact I still have a vague feeling of maybe not having read mine (which might have been Silent Spring). DH’s was Design of Everyday Things and was interesting. DS does have a book to read which seemed dull to me but he likes, about the Declaration of Independence. And a few books for his big humanities course too.
D16 is collecting syllabi now for required textbooks and to prep for her disabilities accommodations. So, we have to figure out where to buy or rent textbook and how to employ tech supports.
At orientation one student life rep said $50 (a month? a week? – I forgot!) would be good as spending money. We’ll just have to do a budget and figure out what amount makes sense. She is going to be nickel and dimed, as there is no free laundry, the meal plan is geared to a suitcase college, there is no transit card, etc.
And, because we view her social life as important as her academic life is college, we don’t want her needlessly “sitting out” due to no-funds. (Don’t worry. This was carefully considered. We’re not over-indulging this child.) …So, we intend to help support her financially during freshman year. We expect the expenses to be relatively minimal. She has a savings and summer job earnings to contribute. Details will be worked out in a couple of weeks.
Plus, we don’t want her in a job this fall. She can start 10 hours per week of student work in spring.
No car for this non-driver 17-year-old. There’s half-way decent public transit, thankfully. And, we can look into Uber, Lyft, and taxis. (We have one family car, now on life support, so that’s actually our main concern at the moment.)
@fretfulmother was it part of advising seminar? Because she doesn’t have her assignment yet. I see on her bed TeslabyBernard_Carlson so I don’t know if this was assigned or she is reading this for fun.
@Ballerina016 - as far as I know there was no such thing as an advising seminar in 1989 so I think it was some paperback they assigned us, that they may have mailed to us. I mostly read everything assigned to me in my life but I think I didn’t read that, as well as some deadly dull books in a class on “English Literature” which I took in the mistaken understanding of the term as being books in English, not per se from England, the latter of which it was, alas.
I finally finished Warriors Don’t Cry when my second was assigned it. I also have a family reading curriculum that I’ve assigned my kids, based loosely on what I remember being instrumental in my own childhood as well as variations on themes they touch upon too lightly in the curriculum.
Oh well. I do feel that the only media immune to obsolescence would be a flip-book or a rock etching.