We’ve just dropped off S19 at Caltech on this past weekend, probably the latest start in the country! Drove there and back from Colorado through some breathtaking scenery. Wonderful crowd of kids and parents. Asked S a couple of days later if he met any interesting people who he’s like to be friends with, and he said “Everybody!” This is really a perfect place for him, I’m so happy and at the same time so sad he’s away!
Woohoo! Just found out I won two free tickets to DD’s performance. The theatre department made a FB post that you could enter to win by commenting or sharing. There were only 2 comments and 5 shares- and one was my sister. Can’t wait to see it on Sunday!
5-week grades are in, all A’s. And the last of the local scholarships finally showed up- now I just have to wonder when and how the refund will come since everything’s paid up.
@milgymfam congrats on the second job, sure wish DD could find something to fit her schedule.
@yucca10 Love that “Everybody!” So awesome. We just dropped D19 at UCLA last weekend and that felt super late, too. The week before we left we all really felt like “let’s just get on with this” lol. Move in was super busy, but really fun and the feeling of excitement all around campus was so inspiring. D19 has the most amazing view of LA with the ocean in the far distance. I was a little jealous ; ) SO excited for all of these kids, well, adults now!
We have D19’s family weekend coming up at Parsons, and before that it’s her 18th birthday. (She and S22 are both young for their grade years, as they both seemed ready for school and the town we were living in had a different age cutoff than many.) Strange to me that DW and I are about to be the parents of an adult! But gratifying that she’s turned out to be such a good one. Thanks to advice here on CC, I have a health-care power of attorney prepared that we’ll get signed this weekend. Much better to be safe than sorry. For the birthday celebrations, we’re having a family brunch and she’s going out to dinner with some old friends, on us. We’re getting her a package of yoga sessions, as that’s an avid interest of hers that gets expensive for a college student. Very much looking forward to seeing her.
Hi. I haven’t been on this site since the redesign and I still hate the way it looked, but I’m having a nostalgia fit and I realized that I hadn’t updated people on our kiddo’s journey to college.
As a refresher, after a disappointing Ivy Day he applied to St. Andrews in Scotland on March 31. We deposited at Gettysburg and started to prepare for them, but heard back from St. Andrews on graduation day, late May.
We were unprepared for some of the logistics of going to another country for college. Kiddo didn’t even have a passport. Well, now he does have passport, visa, enrolled in National Health Service, full immunization records, and presumably they’ve checked his background.
College in Scotland starts later than the US. Dorms opened September 7th, classes didn’t officially start until the 16th although there were some pre-sessions during freshers week.
My husband and I flew over there with him and it was a wonderful journey, though very expensive. I’m reading about parents weekends with faint jealousy. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to visit again before graduation. I hope so. It’s a beautiful town.
So beautiful! The university has been feeding us a steady diet of pictures - sunrise over the ruined cathedral, a surfer on the West Sands beach, golf at the Old Course, the gardens in front of the dorms…
Kiddo got the best dorm assignment. His roommate is from Colorado and the roommate’s hobbies are baking and knitting. So kiddo has taken up knitting and they all get together to watch Great British Baking Show each week. Kiddo reports that his classes are great. They’re divided into lectures and tutorials - the lectures are large, the tutorials are very small (6-10 students with a full professor).
One big difference between the UK and US is the drinking age. This causes problems for some American students and was one of my worries. Kiddo seems to be navigating it well. He’s settled on rum and coke as his drink of choice, light on the rum because ‘too much of it tastes nasty’.
There was a big golf tournament in town last weekend. Bill Murray was there for the tournament and was involved in a fender bender a block from my kid’s dorm. He said he walked right by it without realizing there was celebrity involvement. So he spent last weekend stalking the golf course until he got a good photo of Bill Murray. Then the tournament put on a huge fireworks show Saturday night, but kiddo missed it because he was playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement of the computer science building. Heh.
I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t been feeling sad or anxious or the least bit of separation anxiety. I’m very calm and a bit lightheaded. It helped that my husband and I took a week to tour Scotland together after dropping off the kid, and had a fantastic time. Now we have 18.000 photos to go through and a raft of trip reviews to write and a start on life in an empty nest. It’s a bit more quiet, but we’re making do.
Hi @ninakatarina ! Been wondering about you! Sounds good so far but what a thing to have to organize!
We made the 90 mile trip 
yesterday with a van load of family and friends to the theatre performance. She did great! Went to supper with 14 of us total including some of her theatre friends. Fortunately before we left her room her roommate came back and we didn’t leave her alone. She’s coming off an extremely busy month and big performance weekend and so I’m sure she felt a little deflated when we all left. (And had a paper to write reflecting on the show!) She has commented a couple of times how she really likes to be with people. But good news she made so many friends in the process she will have plenty to call upon to hang out. And can now get involved in some new things as well.
No worries with her, now her HS senior boyfriend with college football dreams injured his knee Friday so we’re all a little worried about his future plans 
“D19 has the most amazing view of LA with the ocean in the far distance. I was a little jealous ; )”
@crknwk2000 Hopefully she’s not in the non-airconditioned triples. That southerly exposure gets very toasty when there’s a heatwave There’s a good reason sophomores pick the northeast facing non-view rooms first…
Happy to see your update @ninakatarina !
I’ve recently returned to CC as well. We are now starting the planning process for S21.
As for S19, he’s been at Penn State University Park for just over a month now. Doing really well. Getting along with his roommate. Seeing his good friends from high school who are also there but not too often. They are all in different majors and intentionally live in different dorms.
He’s involved in several clubs. He calls every Sunday. And we text a bit throughout the week. He has called a few times freaking out about some academic-related stuff that seemed like a big deal. After realizing he still needs me but in a different way, I put on my Big Mom Pants, listened, asked him what his plan was, told him that it sounded good and that everyone goes this stuff in college, and said “let me know how it goes.”
Each time, he has handled the situation on his own according to his own plan and big shock… everything has turned out fine. I was just there to listen. Which means we are both are getting better at this adult relationship thing.
The best thing is that before heading off, he talked often about coming home for homecoming, which is this coming weekend. We mentioned it on the phone yesterday and he was all “Oh, that’s this weekend? Have fun [S21]!” Apparently, he will not be coming home. Which I take as a positive sign that things in Happy Valley are going well. 
I miss him being around. A lot. But the joy I feel from him spreading his wings and feeling more settled in his new surroundings surpasses all of that.
Well said, @InfiniteWaves . I think this is how I feel.
D19 is back at school from her short Rosh Hashanah trip to NY. She had a great time but also said “it is very nice to be back though” (in her dorm), which made me happy because it means she’s really created a home space for herself there.
@ninakatarina - was also waiting for feedback! It’s kind of strange to hear you being worried about the “early” drinking age. 18 or younger is the norm everywhere else I think. (Us and our fellow expats all think it’s strange that the US drinking age is so high!) That said, I do think the drinking culture in the UK can certainly get worrying occasionally, so good to hear your son has navigated a reasonable route in that. Glad to hear you had such a good time there. I love Scotland. Not sure how flexible you and your husband are with vacation timing etc, but keep an eye out for airfare ads, there are some very good deals that occasionally come up for US-UK, and it can be much cheaper out of season. Hopefully you’ll be able to visit a few times.
We had a particularly early drinking-age experience for D19 because we spent her last two years of high school in Switzerland, where the drinking age is 16 for beer and wine, 18 for hard alcohol. She had one overdoing-it night that led to a lot of throwing up and most of the next day in bed, but in general she and her friends were fairly sophisticated and moderate in their consumption. Wine with dinner, grown-up-style. I’ll be interested to hear about her experience now in New York.
A couple of things about drinking -
(1) it’s illegal in the US unless you are 21 so kids really have to know how their colleges handle underage drinkers. I still think it’s possible to get a ticket that will be on your record if police can prove you’ve been drinking and you’re under 21. Of course, on campuses, lots of kids drink and the college police look the other way and focus on safety but it’s good for kids to know how that works at their school.
(2) I don’t want my kids drinking anything they didn’t mix themselves or doesn’t come out of a bottle/can/keg so no “punch” or pre-made mixed drinks.
S19 had a few beers here and there the summer before he left for school. His plan going into college was to stick with beer when drinking, no shots or hard alcohol. It’s only been a month but he reports that beer is pretty much what everyone is drinking anyway. I believe he’s doing a good job of having a few beers at parties and leaving it at that. Having to run six out of seven days makes it harder to drink much anyway. Sunday is a big homework day for him and he already learned his lesson about drinking and going out late on a Saturday night. Reading and problem sets are pretty challenging on little sleep and a tiny hangover!
Hi, @ninakatarina! welcome back, and your trip sounds great. Keep your eyes open - there are all sorts of cheap flights to the UK that pop up, so you may find affordable trips to Scotland more often than you realize.
Just got back from Family Weekend at Midd. Rosh Hashanah services and dinner were really nice, and I wish we could have stayed for the day as well. We also participated in Hillel Shabbat services on Friday. The Rabbi at the Hillel is Reconstructionist , which is decently close to the Secular Jewish upbringing that we gave D19, so she’s pretty comfortable there. Her roommate is also Jewish and was raised Reconstructionist, so they go together when they can.
Unfortunately, the Family Weekend was a bit early this year, and fall foliage was just starting (though it seemed to be changing in front of our eyes). It was still beautiful, though. We took D19 and her roommate out for breakfast one day, and took D19 out for a belated B-day dinner, as well.
D19 is settling in wonderfully, and, as I wrote, she lucked out mightily with her roommate. In general, their entire corridor is a great group of kids (and three of her Posse are in the corridor as well). The only problem is that they are all a bit too into social interaction, and D19 has lost much sleep to late night Deep Conversations, and late night explorations of the different parts of the campus. She is, of course, a bit stressed, but that was expected.
We have always allowed D19 to taste (and later to have small amounts) or whatever beer or wine we were having with dinner. Neither my wife nor I grew up in countries with a real drinking age, so we do not have the same attitude that many people here have. However, we have made sure that D19 understands the effects of alcohol on perception and on decision making. She has been at a couple parties, but she takes all of the required precautions - brings her own drinks, or only has a drink that she has opened, never has more than one beer or the equivalent, and leaves relatively early.
I have to say I was pretty shocked by how much substance use goes on at D’s school. Everyone is accepting of the sober partier that she is- she even parlayed it into a job- but I was like whoa. Weed is decriminalized near campus and she and I had a long, open discussion about weed usage. She read some info I sent her and decided to wait a few more years. She is, however, prepping for her second tattoo already. She has never been forbidden from tasting alcohol and we even encouraged (but not pressured) her to do a wine tasting in Italy when her host family were owners of a vineyard. She chooses not to drink. She has anxiety and doesn’t like the idea of losing control, so I don’t think we will have any issues there.
@ninakatarina I was thinking of you guys, too. So glad you had a week to experience Scotland! My husband teaches a course there every year and wants me to go with him, BUT it’s in February. So it may not be as beautiful as when you got to see it.
@bjscheel How fun that you got to watch your daughter’s show! Those things make me wish D19 were closer. She did really well in her first regatta and we would have loved to be there to see all the action and interaction.
I had to quote @InfiniteWaves too because that summed up my state of mind so well. Every time I walk by D19’s room, or ask for a table for 4 instead of 5, I feel her absence, but I don’t feel the sadness I thought I would because I know she’s thriving. Her world opened up in good ways and challenging ways . . . she was ready, and she loves it, and watching that happen is awesome.
@ninakatarina
We are uber-travelers, so I love to look for deals. I wouldn’t give up on visiting Scotland yet. Norwegian Airlines is running round trip Boston to London-Gatwick from $335 in December. Then Gatwick to Edinburgh RT from $80 on EasyJet. If you have the time, the relative cost for airfare can be pretty low. ?
Is anyone else running into trouble accessing CC from their mobile device? I can get onto the site but just get a blank page when I click on the forums. I’m going to try to clear cookies later & see if that helps. I finally just logged in from my laptop…
Figured it out. Some new security setting on my browser was blocking anything ftom showing up. I disabled stuff one by one. (It was something called Fingerprinting Protection.)
If only fixing the formatting of the forum “upgrade” was as easy…
Ever wonder if your 19 chose/stumbled on the right major? I know most college students will change majors one or more times - that’s to be expected as they gain exposure to more career opportunities. But I have to share this.
S19 has said since freshman year in high school that he wanted to go into finance, specifically investments. This was based solely on a Personal Finance course, which to my mind had little to do with a finance career, and his personality is totally not Wall Street. He is now at the Darla Moore School of Business at UofSC with a declared major of finance. He joined the DM investment club and sends detailed and enthusiastic texts elaborating on the stock his team chose and his own analysis of the stock (using over 7000 data points, he noted). He attends every guest speaker session at DM, excitedly shares everything he heard, and contacts the speaker after. With a deadly serious tone that has me biting my tongue to avoid laughing, he asks questions about our investments and offers his advice.
Okay, maybe finance is the right choice…
Heh, @SammoJ . I chuckle because 4 weeks in, D19 had already decided to change her major - she now wants to double major in a field that had previously excited her, she had “forgotten” about, and was reignited in passion by one of her electives. The other half of the currently intended double major is linked to, but not the same as, the one she had intended to do in her application. Let’s see where the next few years go 
Happy Fall y’all. Well, it’s not cool here or anything in south TX, but I’m hoping for some lower temps possibly tomorrow. Like the low 80s, which would be great! Happy New Year @mwolf. My fam is 1/2 Jewish. (My DH) but I’m the one who always knows when the holidays are. Ha ha!
@ninakatarina Scottland sounds amazing! I hope your DS likes to golf. My DH would love to golf in Scottland.
I am going to visit D19 next weekend. I am of course so excited. I made plans probably in April to visit now. DH and D23 thought that was crazy/extra/weird but now here we are and now and they are a bit sad that they didn’t want to go. He isn’t good w/ planning ahead, which is weird, because that’s my whole M.O. If I can plan ahead, I’m doing it. D23 gets next Monday off for Columbus Day so I’ll stay in Phoenix through Monday. Unfortunately it’s still fairly hot there, like here, but it cools off at night, so I’ll take that.
I’m pretty proud of how I have adjusted to D19 being gone and far away. When I first came home after dropping her off I was a wreck. Like you @3sailaway, since she is thriving socially and loves her classes, I can only be happy for her. She was so tired of the kids she went to school w/ here, except for her small core of best friends, she really needed to go somewhere as far as she did. I get to talk to her a few times a week, but that’s about it because she’s always busy. And that’s fine too, as long as I know she’s okay, I’m okay. We are so lucky these days to have Snapchat and texting! I Snapchat her almost every day w/ a video or picture of the cat, so she loves that.