@bjscheel so sorry about your dad! It sounds like it has been a very rough time for your family. Hugs to you and your daughter!
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Well, D made it almost all the way to the end of the first term happy and healthy and thriving. Unfortunately, with only a few days left, sheâs had to enter strict isolation as she was a close contact to someone positive with the new variant. She is super sad to be in her dorm room 24/7 eating only the collegeâs terrible vegan food, and sheâs missing her one opportunity to participate in the local Christmas traditions on campus. She had tested negative 5 days in a row and has five more days of isolation left.
Is she vaccinated? Vaccinated people donât isolate.
Depends on local policies. Many if not most places they donât, but thatâs not going to be true universally.
She is vaccinated, but Oxford is requiring everyone who comes in contact with the new variant to do the full 10 day isolation regardless of vaccination status or symptoms or negative tests. The UK is not messing around.
so they knew five days ago that this close contact was infected with the omicron variant? Or anyone who is a close contact of any Covid case has to quarantine? That stinks regardlessâŠ
They knew five days ago she was a close contact, but she didnât have to isolate, just test every day for ten days. When they found out it was the new variant this morning they required all close contacts to immediately isolate. She has tested negative five times now, and hopefully five more and free.
Nvm already discussed.
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There was a large outbreak in Midd, so the last few days of classes and the finals have moved online. The students are all vaccinated, so there are no real worries about serious health issues, but nobody wants kids to go home and spread it to others. Luckily, D19 is in a social house this year, and so are almost all of her friend group, so they are within the same âbubbleâ and can interact. They also have a kitchen, so they have access to meals other than the grab-and-go meals that are provided as things are shut down.
So far, J-Term is still going to be in person. D19 is doing individual research for J-Term, which would have been in-person in any case. D19 is also boosted, so sheâs OK.
Sheâll be coming home for a week and then then spending Christmas with her boyfriendâs family (we donât celebrate at all, while they have some secular-type celebration). She has a nasty cold or something, but itâs not COVID (negative), and the worst seems to be over. However, it sucks to have it while trying to finish up a bunch of finals and essays.
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D is done her first semester and is out of covid isolation (she remained negative). She got her âgradesâ and though she has no idea what they mean, sheâs told itâs nothing like American grades and she should be happy (she got âexpected 2.1â in all classes). Sheâs kinda bummed about being alone on Christmas, but I sent her some decorations and a few gifts, and she made cookies and watched some Christmas movies and it made her feel better. Sheâs even more bummed about New Years- she is very anxious about her planned trip to Venice with friends due to covid, but she doesnât want to be alone on New Years either.
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@milgymfam , glad your daughter is out of isolation but sorry sheâll be alone at Christmas. The timing couldnât have been worse for an end-of-year COVID wave, but weâve been lucky with S19, who flew back to Japan from Ohio yesterday. We were pretty worried over the past few weeks whether he would make it. First Japan asked the airlines to stop taking any reservations for Japan, even from citizens. Then they backed down from that as to citizens and residents but started ramping up the quarantine requirements. Now, if you are coming in from a state with an Omicron outbreak, youâve got to do three daysâ quarantine in a hotel and then, if you test negative, you are released to do an additional 11 daysâ quarantine at home. Ohio announced its first Omicron cases on Monday, but Japan luckily didnât add them to the states requiring hotel quarantine, so S19 breezed through yesterday with just a PCR test and now he has to quarantine here for 14 days. Itâs a pretty strict quarantine - they actually call you up at random times and make you prove your location - but he brought home some papers he needs to submit before semester-end, so heâs got lots to keep him busy for the moment. From that perspective, having him locked up in a hotel for a couple of days (at government expense) wouldnât have been the end of the world!
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Thatâs typical. You just donât want anything below 2:1. About a third of students get a first in finals, or at least did pre-pandemic (see https://gazette.web.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/gazette/documents/media/final_honour_schools_bachelor_of_fine_art_and_bachelor_of_theology_2019_-_1_to_no_5280.pdf) with almost all the rest getting a 2:1.
But you usually do better in the final year than in earlier years and tutors tend to underpredict by way of motivation. Iâd expect maybe the top 10-15% to get âexpected firstâ depending on subject (slightly more for science than arts subjects). For a student who isnât familiar with the British system it would be pretty remarkable for any tutor to give you an expected first after just one term. You just need to not compare actual percentages with US standards (a first is 70% plus, a 2:1 is 60-69%).
Definitely donât want a âDesmondâ (a 2.2)!
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Now this shoe has dropped. DH got to field the middle of the night call early MondayâŠsheâs doing okay though and they seem to have done it on good terms. But itâs still rough.
Got to watch her Childrenâs Show by Zoom Monday night. Got the general gist but the clear masks/microphones/Zoom made it very difficult to pick out all the dialog 
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Happy new year everyone! Wishing much happiness and success to you and your kiddos this year.
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Happy new year! S left for Barcelona on New Yearâs Eve and arrived safely the next morning. Heâs spending a couple of nights in a cool looking hostel and I think heâll check into his apartment tomorrow. Heâll be living with two friends from school and a few other kids from IU. S is determined to really improve his Spanish and become fluent, and so far he has only messaged me in Spanish since he got on the plane. 
Good thing for google translate. I hope all of your kids have great semesters!
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I hope he has a great time!
S19 headed back in a week for track. Class doesnât start until 1/24. Hoping for a little turnaround in omicron by then! Caught Covid this week but it was basically cold symptoms for four days. He managed to run ten miles on two of those days so it really was a mild case.
Got a gig as a TA for Intro to Astronomy next semester. Bowdoin has juniors and seniors TA classes sometimes. Itâs not like a TA at a bigger school. They donât teach. They just hold study sessions to help the students for tests and hold office hours if they need help with problem sets.
Since he took a semester off, he just declared his majors in October. Math and Physics. Still not sure what he wants to be when he grows up but hopefully some doors will open for him!
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D19 spent Christmas and New Years with her boyfriendâs family (great kid, great family, but itâs strange), and will be heading back to Midd in week and half for J-Term. Rather than taking a course, she will be engaging in a research project. She was invited back to spend another summer at the lab where she did an internship last year, and she is likely going to be continuing the project that she is starting this J-Term.
She is seriously looking at grad schools which is making me feel strange.
She was born when we were in grad school, so how is she starting grad school herself?
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Happy New Year, everyone! S19 has been home for about three weeks and will be heading back to the US on Sunday for a week of track practice before classes start. I spent this morning organizing his Covid test regime - a PCR test five or fewer days before he arrives on campus and an antigen test the day before he enters the US. Itâs very expensive to get these tests here with the required certifications, but maybe, just maybe, this will be the last time we need to do this? Under Japanese rules, he was quarantined for 14 days after arriving, so he has mostly spent his time at home sleeping and playing video games, as well as eating all the Japanese food he misses in Ohio (my husband is a very good cook). He took a heavy course load in the fall and ended up with his best grades yet. (Heâs a psychology student, so heâs trying to figure out what that says about him.) We are really hoping we will be able to visit him in April and catch one of his track meets live. Until then, it will be up at 2 a.m. most Saturday nights to watch the out-of-focus livestreams!
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