D19 went to practice at her old gym today- she was welcomed to join whenever she’s home- and they presented her with a belated gift of a plaque and $200 for incidentals at school. Considering they’re already letting her train for free- and have been since the beginning of summer when her high school scholarship closed- I thought it was very sweet of them. She didn’t even meet the gym’s criteria for the award (5 years in the gym- we’ve never lived anywhere that long), so they definitely didn’t even have to think of her. They held her job for breaks too- she’ll be coaching later in the week. I’m just happy for her and wanted to share.
D19 has break next week and has been invited by a friend to stay in New York. Her break is like that of @homerdog’s S19, so it also made no sense to come home. She was going to stay on campus and catch up an rest, sleep, and hanging out with whoever was staying, but then she got the invitation.
@socaldad2002 , my D17 is in a SoCal school and she doesn’t have a fall break, and family weekend is in Feb. So when she first left for her freshman year, that was a LONG time until seeing her at Thanksgiving. But after that, I think we saw her every month …Dec and Jan for holiday break, Feb for family weekend, March for spring break, nothing in April, but she was home in early May.
Compared to S19 who we saw after just a month at fall family weekend, and now 3 weeks later at fall break! He also gets more time off for Thanksgiving (a week vs D 3 days…that’s not much time for flying across country). It just seems like he has a lot more break time than her overall.
@milgymfam, so nice of the gym!
I was so proud of S19 last week and very surprised about what he did for his “random” roommate. The boy is super sweet, a hard worker, and has had a bit of anxiety about school work since starting college. His birthday was Thursday and S organized 15 guys to go out to dinner, chip in for a gift, and get a dessert/sing. S19 is normally good about forming groups and organizing some things like fantasy football leagues etc. I just didn’t think he would do something so thoughtful, but I was so happy that this sweet kid got that kind of attention for his first birthday away from home.
Another big surprise (and not like him) is that S already has a girlfriend! He even sent some cute pics of them going to a pumpkin patch this weekend. What is happening? 
It’s so interesting to read about all the different experiences our kids (and their parents) are having this first semester. We went to see S19 for Parents Weekend at the end of September, and it was fun to see how well he’s settled in. His classes are all over the map, from classics to philosophy to sports science, as well as a mandatory first-year writing workshop that he is finding very valuable. He’s starting to think about what to take next semester - more classics, more sports science, a psychology class, maybe a dance class - he knows he’ll need to decide on a major (or two) sooner or later, but for the moment he’s just reveling in the opportunity to try all sorts of things. He’s also training with the track team five days a week, and seems to have settled into a reasonably disciplined work/run/fun schedule. He won’t be home until mid-December. He has fall break this week, that that’s just a Sunday and a Monday, and he will stay on campus. Thanksgiving break will be a week or ten days, but it doesn’t make sense for him to fly back for that when he’ll be home for winter break a few weeks later. We are in Asia, so trips home are expensive and he also doesn’t want to deal with the jet lag with his first meet coming up in early December. I’m hoping someone adopts him for Thanksgiving so he can have a real traditional experience.
S’s fall break begins after this coming weekend. Well, technically it begins on Friday but the first weekend of the break is a traditional massive party weekend that everyone says he would be a fool to miss.
We can’t afford to fly him home for fall break. I don’t know if he’ll be too sad - he is staying with a friend who lives near Loch Ness and they’re going monster-hunting. December feels like a long time away. They have no break for Thanksgiving so he’s going to have to make this break count.
He has three major papers due this week before the break. As of last night he had finished two of them but the third is barely started and due tomorrow, and he hadn’t read one of the two texts it’s supposed to be based on. He was never a procrastinator in high school, so this is new territory for him and he doesn’t like it. These are the first grades that he’ll get on anything. He’s not used to lacking assignments in class, not sure where he is academically.
He does like all of his tutors. Their pattern is to have one big lecture per week and then smaller tutorial sessions outside of it - so one class of 100 or so students then two or three classes with 6-10 students and a full professor leading the discussion. These tutorials apparently get pretty intense but are also immensely fun.
He wanted me to mail him his old Renaissance Halloween costume for one of the plays he is in. I went to FedEx, DHL and UPS and the cheapest quote I got was $121. International shipping cost is insane. I think that’s one of the things I miss the most with an international kid. I would love to send him home baked stuff, things I see in stores, that extra pair of boots he forgot, Halloween costumes, a book I found at a used book store. But I can’t justify $121 for a costume that’s worth maybe $20. I can order stuff off of Amazon UK and have it there in 24 hours, but it’s not the same thing as sending him something that I touched myself. It feels so remote and clinical.
Ah, well. He is having a good time and things are as they are. They have the ‘Freshers Drama Festival’ in early December, a series of plays put on mostly by freshmen. Kiddo auditioned for a bunch of them, was called back to read for four, and apparently the directors of all four plays fought over which one got to cast him. His part, in a play called ‘The Handbag’, is a character with a stutter who performs a scene from ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. I’m sure that makes more sense if you see the play. Or maybe not.
@ninakatarina I know exactly what you mean! S19 is having his first birthday away from home in two weeks. We actually ordered some things he wanted from Amazon US and had them shipped to us in Asia. Now we’re going to wrap them and send them all back to the States. Seems crazy, but just having Amazon ship to his dorm wouldn’t be the same.
D19’s fall break was only two days long (Oct. 10 & 11) so a total of four days with the weekend. She flew home Wednesday after class and went back Sunday morning. It was a quick turnaround but she returned to school well-fed and well-rested. I’m envious of those with kiddos who have longer fall breaks; D19’s friend at Swarthmore has a week! Thanksgiving break will be a quick trip too as D19 will have class the Wednesday before the holiday. Booking flights is a challenge.
@elena13 That is such a nice thing to do - you have every right to be proud of your son. I am absolutely certain that the celebration made a huge difference for his roommate.
@ninakatarina I wonder whether your S will pick up an accent, and come home for break sounding a bit like Sean Connery (or maybe Peter Capaldi)…
@mountainsoul yes. Those Thanksgiving flights stink. We are newbies to it since our whole family lives within driving distance and we never travel for the holidays. I booked S19’s Thanksgiving flight back in September and it was still super expensive. There’s really option but to fly on Wed and Sun and that’s when everyone flies. I wish they had the following Monday off and that would really help with flights. Now, I just have to hope that weather doesn’t become an issue that weekend and that he gets home as planned.
I’m heading down to New York tonight for a benefit dinner that DW and I are going to tomorrow. I’m going to work from my company’s headquarters (and stay on to work there the rest of the week), so I have to be there tonight to be in the office early; DW is coming during the day tomorrow. I was planning to take D19 to lunch tomorrow as my chance to see her, but she prevailed on me to also take her and her roommate to see “Joker” tonight. She’s canny about preserving her limited spending money! Will mean a late night ahead of an early day tomorrow, but my hotel is right near the office, so I can get up later than usual. The things we do for these kids!
D19s fall break is Mon & Tues Oct. 21-22, and I’m going to fly out to California for the long 4-day weekend rather than her flying home–she wants to show me around, introduce me to her friends (who are pretty much all staying there for break!). Staying at an Airbnb guesthouse near campus and planning to eat most of our meals at the dining halls (why not, apparently the food is excellent!). Hope to get to the beach & Disneyland. Really looking forward to spending time with her! Bought her flights for Thanksgiving break and was horrified at the price–four times what I’m paying to fly there this week! And that’s having her fly out a day early (missing classes on Tuesday). We never travel over Thanksgiving so it was serious sticker shock. I guess they know they’ve got you!
@homerdog We never travel over the holidays either so I am very late sorting things out for D19. I’m concerned about weather too! We had a one day snowstorm last week that brought high winds which affected D19’s flight home. Her flight was diverted to NE until the winds calmed down. Her poor seatmate (also a Penn kid but not a friend) missed his connecting flight home to CA. I hope he was able to fly home Thursday despite all the cancellations. Spending break in an airport would be no fun and I’m sure his parents were worried sick.
Hope everybody gets along with flights for the holidays and no major travel issues! We don’t have that problem but soon there will probably be a time when DD will have to deal with snowy roads here so that’s a concern too.
Yesterday DD auditioned for a children’s show that tours elementary schools the week after finals. She got the lead role, though she was actually hoping to get a comedic role for once. Maybe one of these times! Always cast as the sweetheart…She’s excited though to spend a week performing for kids, with “her people”.
@ninakatarina Be aware that since the British Post Office was privatized a few years ago, they have got very hot on charging import duties/VAT on any “presents” mailed into the country.
It’s really irritating (because you usually have to go and collect the package) as well as being costly (at least 20% of the declared value plus fees). The best solution is to order things online or if that’s not possible, to put a very low value on the USPS customs declaration if you aren’t bothering to insure the package.
When I send presents to my family in Germany I order from Amazon.de
Shipping is usually free then (if I order enough) and you can have it gift wrapped for an additional fee. I can usually choose whether I want to pay in US dollars or Euro with my CC.
Oh boy, housing for next year opens up 11/4. I told DD she probably better get online that day to make sure she gets what she wants. She does have a plan already, for an on-campus apartment with three other girls. I just don’t know how fast the apartments fill up.
I hope her current roommate doesn’t have trouble finding roommate(s). I had kind of hoped the two of them would stay together since they get along so well and it would be a break from being with theatre kids all the time.
@bjscheel yeah I don’t get such early housing plans for next year. What about the kids who aren’t connecting with someone enough to choose a roommate? Just seems like adding another layer of stress pretty early on.
S19 is doing fine (at Dartmouth) and studying hard. He seems to be in the library until 1am many nights and is up early for practices and other activities (sunrise hikes seems to be a thing). He is keeping very busy with class, practices, clubs (so many clubs) and his dorm activities (he is in an IR theme house). I have not heard about partying or drunk dorm mates…yet. They still have 2 weeks to go until the freshman frat ban is over. I think he might be in on a substance free dorm. I’ll have to ask. The clubs are super competitive and he yet to get into a club that has a competitive application process. That has been disappointing. But there are many no-cut clubs so he has no shortage of activities to be part of. He’s especially liking the outing club and is doing a bunch of stuff with them.
Homecoming was a blast with lots of parties, bands, marches, the huge bonfire, and the football game (S19’s first). It was Dart’s 250-year anniversary so more hoopla than normal even.
@homerdog S19 is one of those kids that took MV in senior year of HS, but is retaking MV in college. We talked over whether he should skip ahead to LinAlg, but the math department recommended starting in this ‘honors’ MV class. D16 took LinAlg in freshman semester and it was really tough. Dinged her math GPA (got a B) and that dogged her for awhile and prevented her from applying for some fellowships and jobs that required a 3.75 min math GPA. She’s a math major and has now gotten her math GPA up, but I learned a lesson and recommended that S19 play it safe and redo MV.