Anyone know the status of the consent law for D.C.?
D19 has been asking for a tattoo for a few years. The answer has always been, no, when you’re 18 you can make your own decisions. She turned 18 a few months back. No tattoo …yet.
We’ve done it…moved her in yesterday. She and her roommate both had a 2-4 recommended time slot. DD decided to shoot for 1:30 so we wouldn’t be going in and out the door at the same time. Decided the furniture layout was bad and started brainstorming ideas but she wanted to wait for roommate who wasn’t there till about 3:30. So with the delay in waiting for her opinion it was almost 6 and time for them to go to their floor meeting when we finished. So just quick hugs and a couple of pics and they were off with activities till 10:30 pm.
This morning her cousin, a recent alumni, picked her up for church. Her boyfriend showed up with flowers, so she was happy about that. She is a bit overwhelmed with all the activities and things to get done. She called tonight and is doing good, but just feels weird being there. I told her I did better when into the class routine rather with the “campy” orientation stuff. She thinks she feels the same. Socially she is doing well. She has met up with her HS classmates there as well as met some new people. Her roommate seems great so far.
In response to the “I can do it because I’m 18” posts…DD is still 17 so I just got a text with a consent form for her to use the gym equipment that I had to print, sign, and text back.
And her IG spam post for today is about being catcalled :neutral:
Moved D19 in over the weekend. I’ve been getting messages from her here & there since we left. It still hasn’t quite sunk in that she’s not just at camp.
I did send a package off this morning and will send another in a couple weeks. Homesickness usually hits her around week 3, so I want to be proactive. Thanks for the cutout pillow Groupon tip. I’m planning to send one of the cats in a month or two. She’ll love that.
We still have a week and a half to go, and D19 is spending a lot of time saying goodbye to all her friends as they leave. She is almost the last to leave, so there is a lot of sadness. On the “up” side we are the recipients of a lot of unexpected affection from her. Her dorm mountain is finally forming - we got her camping stuff for her orientation, so it’s also becoming more real.
She had her roommate assignment, and, for better or worse, they matched her with herself (kinda). Her roommate is also a dancer, and is interested the same major and minor. Oh, her roommate is also Jewish.
Re: tattoos - my wife and D19 got matching tattoos last week. My wife had wanted to get a tattoo of a cat on her foot, over surgery scar, for a while, so D19 decided to get a matching stylized cat tattoo under her rib-cage. The tattoos are identical, except that my wife, the math geek, had a Fibonacci spiral added to its tail. The tattoos are very elegant and nice, IMO.
A cat with a Fibonacci tail. I love it!
D19 is 3rd night in. Huge nerves initially, but the social mixers over the weekend and the more focused college/academic stuff today all seem to be going well. She’s engaged and excited about being there and looking forward to starting class. After the “I don’t want to go” anxiety of a month or so back, this is an especial relief.
My D moves in today. I woke up teary and so sad - I’ve got to put on a happy face before she gets up shortly. I didn’t expect it to hit me hard this morning. Car is packed (last night) and just the truck needs to be packed this morning. My car is a small SUV so two vehicles it is for all 3 of us to go. It’s only 2 hours away so not a big deal. I keep telling myself that I am lucky because I am going back tomorrow for convocation in the afternoon - but the goodbye dinner with the grandparents last night and the quietness right now as she sleeps 1 more hour before she wakes and the energy level is charged in this house - is setting the tone for this reluctant empty nester. It’s all good. I just needed to type how sad I am (to get it out of my system) because I won’t show it to her. I know with past experience it will be fine (with my son) it is just getting over this first mountain.
@Stuffedquahog I totally hear you! Felt the same way on Sunday while dressing in the hotel room before move in (D19 was in the shower). I think it will really hit me when I return on Saturday from moving in my S16 for his senior year.
Good luck today!
Hi, all. D19 is all moved in at Parsons. We managed to pack all four of us and almost all of her stuff (I think we left one or two minor things behind) into the car on Friday, with stuff between D19 and S22 and below both of their feet. Eased a little bit when we dropped S22 off for a night with a friend in the suburbs and continued down into the city.
Got up bright and early Saturday morning as D19 wanted to move in right around the 7:30 opening of the dorm. It was a quick drive from our nearby hotel, and the school had plenty of dropoff spots cordoned off for the day. We were all surprised to find that D19 is in a six-person suite, not the four-person suite we were expecting, but it works out well in at least one respect: The six-person suites have two bathrooms, while the four-person suites have one. They’re in the New School’s newest dorm, conveniently located on top of the university center, so things are in pretty good shape, there’s central A/C, etc. D19 is rooming with the woman she met on the incoming-students Facebook group, who shares many points of coincidence with her (lived in London because of mom’s work, families both moved back to the U.S. from overseas this summer, majoring in the same program, various friends and acquaintances in common, I happened to know the roommate’s dad already). The other two rooms in the suite have one pair of roommates from Taiwan and another from India.
Had a nice weekend overall. We had a great dinner with the roommate’s family Saturday night (S22 came after spending the day with his friend, and the roommate has a younger brother as well; her older sister is away at college). Saw my brother Sunday morning and my mother Sunday afternoon, went to a parents’ reception at the New School president’s house Sunday evening and a delicious dinner just the four of us Sunday night. I worked from my company’s New York office on Monday while DW and S22 attended some other welcome events (around a work meeting DW had). We had planned to drive back to Boston right after work, but D19 and her roommate decided they wanted one last family dinner, so we went back to the Sunday-night restaurant with the roommate and her mom. Walked them back to the dorm after and then hit the road a little after 8. With some electric-car charging snafus (we’ll know next time to head straight for the third charging station we tried), we didn’t get home until 2:30 a.m.
We’re feeling good about the transition so far. Very confident D19 has made the right choice for her present and future. We’ll see how the dynamic at home feels over time, but WhatsApp definitely helps us feel more connected to her than we would have years back.
@Vineyarder, sounds like you had a great weekend/move in.
I’m feeling a bit out of sorts today. We initially dropped S19 off a week ago, but as I mentioned earlier in this thread, we had to go back this weekend to move him from his temporary housing for athletes to his permanent dorm. We got home Wednesday night. Then Saturday, we dropped D17 off at the airport on our way back to S19’s campus. It was a stressful day, packing up the car with S19’s stuff as well as D17’s. 3.5 hour drive to Newark for her flight (cheapest flight compared to Dulles) so we then took her for a dinner near the airport, waited until she made it through security then drove the rest of way to hotel near S19’s campus.
Spent the next morning on a scenic walk around the area before meeting up with S19 where we moved out of one room across campus to another. He’s alone in his 6-person suite until this weekend so the move-in was pretty smooth. Hardly anyone around so no waiting on elevator, etc. Fortunately a teammate is across the hall so he’s not totally alone on his floor. He had about 2.5hours to unpack then had to leave for team meeting. We said our goodbyes quickly, he left and we cleaned up all the detritus then locked his door and left.
I felt ok yesterday-I’ve been thru this before with D17. However, Dh left yesterday for a business trip and is gone all week. Even though I still have two kids at home, it’s a bit of a dead week with nothing going on to keep us busy. Dh travels a lot. Last night when I made dinner, it dawned on me that it’s going to be like this a lot-just me and the two kids. S19 helped so much with driving my kids places when Dh is traveling that I will certainly feel his absence in that regard.
On the bright side, S19 has had a lot of time to acclimate to campus before classes start. The rest of the freshmen arrive Saturday and classes start on Monday! So far, he seems to be settled in nicely. He’s actually texted me at least once a day (unprompted!). ?
Need roommate advice - already. S19 moved into his suite (2 doubles and a bathroom) Monday, and move-in went smoothly. His roommate arrived shortly after us and seemed like a nice kid. However, the first things he moved in were a large tv and a game system. S brought neither. Because of the tv size and the room configuration, the only place for the tv puts it in full view of both beds. Roommate's mom sighed and told me, "Yes, all my son does for recreation is play video games and watch e-games. Oh, and write death poetry." My son likes video games, but we discouraged bringing anything related to college; he has many other interests like soccer, swimming, frisbee, board games, etc. I took S for coffee and explained that roommates just have to co-habitate peacefully, not be buddies.
Three days in, S is utterly depressed. He says roommate turns on game stuff at 8 am and turns off at 10 pm, bringing his food back to the room to eat (he is considerate about sleeping hours). He uses headphones, but the frenetic screen is just...there. S has tried to engage him in small talk, he responds with mono-syllables. The suitemates have already backed off, saying the roommate is "weird." S doesn't want to limit his room time to just sleeping hours - his idea of downtime is relaxing on his bed reading, and that's also his preferred place to study.
So - thoughts? Suck it up and find an alternate place to spend his waking hours? Try to get an agreement on limiting screen time? (The mom said her son usually is on a screen from morning til night.) Move???
@sammoJ sorry to hear this. I have to say it sounds pretty awful. Did the university have any sort of questionnaire for Freshman to fill out in order to match with a roommate? If not, how are they paired?
At my D19’s school after 3 weeks (or thereabouts) after school has started you can attempt to swap out of your room, which I think requires finding someone to swap with. If your son’s school has that, maybe he can find another gamer to swap with.
It’s one thing to live with a gamer who pretty much only does that, but it’s another thing to live with one with a HUGE screen that takes over your room. With the former, you can come to terms with the fact that you might not by tight friends with your roommate but with the latter, not only is the friendship probably not going to happen, but your living environment is really affected. I would HATE living in a small dorm room with a huge screen always on. There’s a lot to be said about learning to live with others, but this sounds kind of unreasonable.
@SammoJ That does sound awful. Hopefully the roommate will start having classes and homework, which will put an end to non-stop gaming. My D16 had bad roommate issues freshman year, and the first thing I told her was to go talk with her resident advisor. It is totally reasonable to come to some agreement about allowed gaming times in the room. The other thing I would say is that your S should keep an open mind at this stage. It’s still early and the new roommate might turn out to be reasonable once S approaches him about the TV on 8am-10pm.
@SammoJ
I echo the sympathy about the roommate situation. Maybe time will help as maybe that other kid just needs to acclimate to things a bit.
My D19 had her orientation late last week. Unfortunately she had 2/3 classes which were not first choices (on quarters). She was in one of the last registration groups due to a vacation and at least the other 2 classes meet requirements (albeit my wife said " why are we paying for these joke classes".)
@JBSeattle, thanks for the sympathy. And I’m sorry about the classes. Got lucky here, first registration group, back in May, so good classes, but I told S19 that he shouldn’t count on being so lucky in the future.
@SammoJ sorry to hear of the trouble, and I hope the RA can help them make an agreement. If after some time it doesn’t work out maybe they can help him move or he can find other places to hang. My freshman year I found a lot of other places to be besides my room.
DD has had to deal with scheduling frustration this week. Her advisor has twice tried to add a class to help her finish a double major, but both of those classes were not required for her second major so I had to tell DD to try again a third time which made her a bit teary. But she sucked it up and went back and now has another gen ed so at least it is something that will progress her toward a degree. If she’s going to fit in both, everything she takes needs to count, at least for now. That stress plus first day homework plus auditions tonight and tomorrow night are making this week a little rough but it should all settle down into routine soon. Other than that I think she’s been happy. She has a chance to get a ride to her BF’s football game Friday night but only if her audition times work out. I wish it would, it would be a fun break for her.
@SammoJ Oh my gosh that is just awful. So sorry! I agree, your son should talk to his RA first then maybe even the RD for assistance and/or guidance.
Well, spent the last two days at my D’s school and she is all moved in. Convocation was beautiful and meaningful! I mostly kept it all together the last two days. I only got teary (and held it in) when my daughter got teary (she was overwhelmed) during the check in process upon arrival. It was our fault, we were 45 minutes early so they weren’t ready for us yet. They were having a quick debrief and the orientation leaders were then heading out to their stations. So she was in limbo and just lost it (tears). She has to be busy all the time - down time drives her crazy. After that, all went well. Very well. She is in the middle of orientation right now and will be until Saturday night. Bentley does an amazing job with orientation. I got a text this morning from her that she was making friends and was happy. What more can I ask for?
My S16 moves in (same school) on this Sunday. Classes start Monday.
I had a funny conversation with D16 about guys and their dorm rooms. We were talking about what S19 should take, and she said it’s really shocking how little many of the guys do to make their rooms ‘homey’. She said many do not even move the furniture or put anything on the walls. They dump their duffle bag on the floor at the beginning of school, unzip it and that’s it. She is really shocked by the guys who don’t even use sheets or pillow cases. They just sleep with a blanket on the mattress, right on the plastic covering. I somewhat doubt that S19 will do that, although I wouldn’t put it past him. Thankfully he does like clean clothes and washes his own clothes at home.
@liska21 It seems to me that a lot of this has to do with the prevailing USA culture which tells boys that it isn’t “manly” to make your livings space “homey”. Back in the days of spears and swords, when I was in the military in Israel, the soldiers did their best to decorate their living spaces, even if we were only staying at a place for a few weeks. When we were sitting in our “permanent” base (we would be there mostly for retraining in the winter), our clinic (I was a medic) was as homey as we could make it. These were boys in the same age range - 18 to 21. There were painted tiles, posters, nice cutouts. We made sure that we had “real” coffee mugs and some small dishes, not general issue plastic cups and plates, etc. So it has really little to do with biological sex or with gender, nor with some universal perception of masculinity, since you really do not get a more macho group than a unit of very young male combat soldiers in active duty.
My husband refuses to even unpack his boxes. We are on our sixth duty station and he just takes out a pile of clothes and his uniforms and everything else stays boxed up- and that’s moving every 1-3 years. He doesn’t settle in everywhere; it’s all temporary to him. When he finally retires he’s going to have a lot of junk or a lot of stuff that feels brand new. Ha!