Awesome, count me in! We will all need a party to cap off this momentous journey we all are going through. Whether it has gone relatively easy or a bit harder…everyone of us has grown and changed and there will be many things that we will miss and many (some we might not even know of yet) that we will not miss! It is sure to be a bittersweet event.
Hubby left for Tiger Town with S14…we have done this before but this time has been tougher on me than usual. This holiday season (while being wonderful with our nuclear family) has been fraught with ridiculous drama with a small contingent of extended family. As a result, our last few days with S have been very heavy and not as special as we planned or wanted. 8-X. We never were able to make one of S’s favorite dinners (Eggplant Parm) or finish the holiday cookie baking which put a bit of a damper on things but he totally understands and I will send cookies to him as soon as time allows. Many of my real world friends lament that they cannot wait until their college age children return to college (they constantly complain that they upset their home routine) but I am not in that demographic. S being home is always a calming and happy event and is very helpful after giving him three or four days to sleep, veg out and generally recoup! No school sanctioned visits now until mid March…not sure I (or hubby) can wait that long. We may have to push in an interim visit either down there or up here.
Congrats @happymochi . Now we wait. I thought that would be the easy part. Not easy , just different.
@Cheeringsection I totally understand the scholarship push. And like you, I’ve decided to leave it to him and trust that it gets done. With exams next week, that’s a big if.
@sseamom I’m sorry you got the reaction you did from your friend. I certainly wouldn’t offer anymore assist, even if solicited. I recently lost a 35 year old friendship when I gave one of my best friend’s solicited medical advice. It is always disappointing when something like this happens. In terms of your “Blizzard of 2016” stock up on bread, milk and toilet paper.
@cakeisgreat tiramisu sounds great with or without the booze in it…but we must have some in glasses to toast as well!
Thanks @carolinamom2boys I am sure things will calm down one way or another and at this point we are fine with whichever way it ends up calming down!
@sseamom I am sorry that your 35 year old friendship ended after giving solicited advice…as with our family recently…no good deed seems to go unpunished! It hurts terribly but try to gather strength from your family and other friends. It is truly that friends loss! I am definitely here for you!
Re obnoxious posts: An online writers’ group I used to frequent had an option to “disemvowel” obnoxious posts/posters. It was a step short of removing them, so that if you really, really wanted to know what they had to say you could read the post-- but otherwise, people skimmed past it.
And welcome, @bookmom7 and anyone else I may be missing!
@sseamom I’m sorry your friends were like that! Actually, if you wanted to outline how you did things here, I know a few kids I could pass it on to. The comment “people think the big name colleges are the only option” kind of pinged, because honestly that’s where S has been, and what some of his younger classmates (juniors) are thinking.
@carolinamom2boys I still have the MacAllen (whisky) and recently acquired a pretty decent pinot noir. I’ll share! Sounds like a lot of us could use it.
Just caught up again on all your posts over the holidays. Congrats to all who have finished their applications. It is a big moment. My DD is still working on a last scholarship application. She is in project week at school now (they build a bridge test it then rebuild it and do a write up) and she has One-Act play starting up so I pushed to her to finish last week without success. Oh well.
Reading through all the posts I was really struck by @fretfulmother’s story about the trip to Israel and the layover in London in 2005. It got me thinking again how sometimes not getting the thing we want turns out to be a great lucky break and it just takes a little time to see that. I am trying to keep that thought in my mind as these next few weeks and months pass.
S is a freshman at Tulsa, after a pretty extensive college search. I have nothing but positive impressions of the school. Here are some examples. My S met with one of his professors 5-6 times during the semester to discuss his big term paper. S ended up on the front page of the student newspaper racing through an inflatable obstacle course (just fun)! He has remarked that his peers are very talented and qualified. Even the food in the cafeteria is delicious. S’s great experiences are backed up by an average ACT of 29, listed as a most underrated college by Business Insider (compares rankings to mid-career salaries); top 50 for grateful grads; and an A for financial strength by Forbes.
I would be more than glad to answer any questions, or direct you to a couple of folks in admissions, who have stayed in touch and I now consider personal friends.
@sseamom Sorry you got that response. I think sometimes its hard for people who aren’t having very good luck with things, to hear about how others are and this may have been part of the reaction you received.
I personally don’t come to this thread that often because I find it a little hard to read post after post about how kids have received so many large merit awards. I know everyone is just sharing their happiness and I do truly feel happy for all of you, but then my personnel pity party kicks in, where D hasn’t received any merit beyond the two schools where it is purely formulaic based on a table. It not a mystery why. I guess I could shake my fist at God for giving me a child who excels at English but can’t do math but that won’t get me anywhere. Maybe instead I should just thank God for the two schools who give merit based on the total M+CR and don’t care that the split is very uneven. Oh well, getting too philosophical here. But my point is, sometimes the reaction you get, isn’t based on what you said, but what is going on in the mind of the person who heard it.
Oh and I’m in for the party and will be bringing some wine and crackers.
@petrichor11 I too have a few bottles of liquor and or wine that I would love to share to our 5/1 BBQ along with some good eats as well!
@CAMidwestMom I too thought that the FAFSA was supposed to be gross income numbers and not net income. They usually ask for the numbers reported on specific line numbers of Form 1040 which would lessen the tendency for errors.
@me29034 We will likely be in the same boat a few years down the road. S21 is a math whiz, even surpassing D16 (I have no idea who will help when he has a math question once D16 is off to school next year, he is already well past my feeble arithmetic assistance, same for Mrs. Skates), but struggles mightily with English and especially writing. He is actually quite knowledgeable in things like social studies, government, history, but gets turned off by testing or studying for those classes, and especially English, because his writing is such a struggle. We will be counting on his math scores propping up the rest, unless we find something that kicks in for him to not just improve, but embrace the written word, and a bit of inflexibility and anxiety due to his being on the ASD makes changing his view points on such things an incredible challenge. We may be looking at those same ‘merit menu’ schools with him, and thank goodness for those schools (-:
@Skates76 - good luck!! My youngest has an IEP for expressive language, both writing and speech, and his therapists have really been able to help him with that. For example (he’s in 3rd grade) allowing various kinds of “brainframes” and use of typing instead of writing by hand. Does your S21 have any of those possibilities in school?
Did someone mention booze?