I’m assuming he is off to Essaouira in Morocco - beautiful!
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Had a wonderful weekend visiting DD. It was good to lay eyes on her. Upthread I mentioned she was stressing about a promotion that might have been more trouble than it was worth. And a week after starting that, she ended up having to find new housing in short order under distressing circumstances. So in the last month, new job and new apartment, and for a while, a strong urge to run away and come home.
Fortunately, she did not. First day of new job she called still a little freaked out, but ever since, she’s been having a ball. And the apartment thing was rough, I got many tearful calls, but things went down on a Sunday night and by that Friday afternoon she and BF had keys to a place in a better location. So it was a rough time for a while, but for now she’s doing well and it was good to see her happy.
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D19 is now in Boston. She has a temporary sublet until September, and then she’s moving into the place that I mentioned above. She and her soon-to-be housemates are already meeting and getting to know one another. She’s also seen the place and really likes it. There will be six people living in the apartment, and they actually interviewed prospective housemates. The first two interviewed D19 and her College best friend, and the four interviewed the next two.
We’re all going on a trip to Italy and Israel soon, and she will meet us there and fly back straight to Boston. Once she moves to her long-term place, she will be changing her residency status to MA, and her home address will be that place, not here, which is really strange to me.
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I feel the same here about the new home address! D19 started her job at Cornell Medical last month and now is officially a NY resident. A bit hard to absorb the change.
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D19 was home for a while after the semester ended, and we had a fabulous family vacation in Alaska. She’s now back in NY. Her and 3 friends have signed on an apartment (with much less hassle than many others seem to have in NY at this stage). They are all college friends, 2 of whom graduated this past May with jobs in NY, and D19 and one other with one year left at college. She’s been roommates with the one for the past 18 months in dorms already. We’ve met this roommate as well as one of the others who came to stay with D19 for a few days during one of the breaks, and they are really lovely kids.
We are doing a mom and D trip to Berlin and Vienna before her fall semester starts, which we’re excited about. It’s a long time since I’ve been, and she hasn’t been to either yet.
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D19 graduate mid May and less than two weeks later she had to be in Memphis for the start of her grad program for a Masters in Ed. We had to get her down there quick. It was a whirlwind with D23’s HS graduation in there as well. May and June were crazy.
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We are enjoying having S19 with us for our first summer in France. He has decided to do his conversion masters in psychology at the University of Glasgow, so we will drop him off there in early September. He had to go to Paris to be fingerprinted for his UK visa application, and I decided to undertake the heavy parental task of accompanying him to his appointment (ahem). My first time to Paris, and it was beautiful but very rainy and grey - we were happy to get back to the sunny south, although I do look forward to visiting there again in a different season. We are relieved and happy to see that both S19 and his sister, D21, seem comfortable with our decision to uproot the family and move from Tokyo to southern France. S19’s roommates from last year have already visited us, and it seems we can look forward to a fairly steady stream of visitors - I think that helps.
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Sage advice from a friend of mine was : when your kids leave home, it’s best to live somewhere they’ll want to visit. I think the south of France certainly qualifies 
all the best with the move!
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@tkoparent - good luck to your son this fall! You will definitely have a lot of visitors! How fun for your kids and their friends! Does your D21 go to school in the states?
Thanks! My D21 is here with us, attending ASU online. She’s currently in a fitness science program but may switch to art studies.
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If she switches to art studies, it would be pretty cool to complete one of her course projects by taking a little trip up to the Louvre or Musee D’Orsay!
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My kid’s doing well in Boston, but received an unpleasant shock about a month ago. The PI in whose lab she she was an intern at U Chicago for the previous two summers suddenly passed away. He was pretty young and it was unexpected. It is also a huge loss for the field - his stuff was innovative and groundbreaking. He had postdocs, grad students, and undergrads who really don’t know what to do, especially the grad students.
Hey all,
Wow, how sad @MWolf. Hard when something like that happens.
Ugh, I’m not enjoying and am hardly ever in the chat like this for my younger kid, it basically consists (am I allowed to say this?) of a handful of parents who seem to mostly want to brag about how advanced their kids are. Not supportive like this thread. I suspect that’s why it hasn’t attracted a lot of other parents and people very seldom post.
D19 and I had a wonderful trip to Berlin and Vienna last month. We saw about a zillion museums and historical sites and walked an average of around 8 miles a day! Lots of fun, we travel well together. She did really well (all As) in her summer classes as well (finished just before we left), is enjoying her senior year so far, and is now considering how a grad school application is going to look with a pretty good freshman year, excellent junior/summer term catch-up /hopefully senior year but with a pretty grim sophomore transcript followed by a semester withdrawal in between. She’s going to get great LORs from her profs last year and this by the sounds of things so …who knows. She’ll apply and see what happens. Any pearls of wisdom from the crowd welcome!
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It sounds like your daughter is doing exactly what you should after a bit of a stumble. Congratulations to her, that isn’t easy.
The best information about grad school chances are probably going to be her professors. They are the ones who will be writing those LORs and also have a better ‘on the ground’ perspective of how applications are regarded in her field at current time.
I don’t know what kind of grad school your daughter is looking at - but her statement of purpose and LORs will probably be more important than 1 semester of poor grades. Unless, of course, she is looking at the most highly selective grad programs. In which case - I would definitely refer back to her current professors who can most likely give her the best advice and counsel on how to address the situation most successfully.
D20 has had her eye on grad school since freshman year. And…has decided not to apply this cycle. Instead, she is looking at taking a year or two before applying to grad school - hopefully overseas. Her professors have been very supportive of this - their position has been that their LORs aren’t going anywhere - and taking a breathe can be the best thing for many after finishing undergrad.
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Agree - her one prof has said that if she’s feeling insecure about the poor grades (it’s a year rather than a semester of them) she could do the GRE to try make up for it but that it’s not really necessary so i guess that’s a good indication. The colleges she is most interested in for her field are mostly overall highly selective but I don’t know if they are as selective in what she specifically wants to do. She’s basically been told she has a spot in her current school’s grad program if she wants it so I guess that’s also a good sign, but I think while there is some attraction of comfort zone of school + friends (2 of her best friends already graduated but working in the city and she’s sharing an apartment with them and one other senior) she wouldn’t mind spreading her wings a bit.
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S19 started classes yesterday in his postgrad program in psychology at the University of Glasgow, and he is really happy so far. This is a one-year “conversion” masters program aimed at people who have undergraduate degrees in other fields or psychology degrees from schools not recognized by the British Psychological Society. Once he finishes this program, he’ll be able to do a field-specific masters in sports psychology. He took a mini-school trip over the summer and visited Edinburgh and Brighton as well as Glasgow, and gritty Glasgow was the one that appealed to him. He wanted to be in a city this time after being in a small Ohio town for the past four years, and he found the people in Glasgow, both in the town and at the university, to be very friendly and welcoming. I flew over with him to help him get settled in his housing, and I also really liked the city. He’s studying in the UK because the field of sports psychology is more developed there than in the US, but we weren’t really sure what to expect academically. So far, everything seems to be much more relaxed than I had imagined, and the professors are being very supportive and helpful. He also had his first practice with the running club today. Although he had “retired” from track in May, I guess he realized over the summer how much he enjoys it, and how much he benefits from having that kind of structured commitment. In the UK, postgrads can participate competitively without the kind of limitations imposed by the NCAA, so he will be able to do that, and enjoy the camraderie of the group, but without some of the pressure he felt as an undergraduate. His ultimate goal is to get a Ph.D., so this is only the first step in a long road, but so far, so good.
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Hi everyone! I love that people are still updating us on this thread. D19 is doing well. Tulane graduation was a blast with jazz music, second line parades, kids all carrying custom umbrellas- I don’t know how my other kids graduations can stack up to that!
D staying in New Orleans for a few months, got full time offer at her marketing job and thought that was what her plan was. Then last minute she changed her mind and took the plunge to do something she had always thought about but never thought would happen - she left NO and moved to NYC! She had no job yet but her friends were looking at apartments and she had to decide right away. I encouraged her to go for it knowing if she didn’t do it now she probably never would.
It took a little longer than she wanted but she did get a job and starts next week. She didn’t have a “dream job” but in the back of her mind knew she always wanted to work in the music business somehow. She will now be working at a small company that presses vinyl, manufactures tapes & CDs and creates any type of band merchandise you can imagine - I am so excited for her!
She is loving exploring NYC but is very nervous about living through winter for the first time in her life. 
I get to see her this weekend when we are all meeting up in Boston for a family wedding then work starts on Monday!
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Taps microphone Is this thing on? D is settling nicely into adult life. After a focused job search, she landed a research assistant job in a lab that is a perfect fit for her skill set. She is salaried but only works about 25 hours/wk. I’m envious and wondering if I chose the wrong career path. 
Sadly, due to company policy, she won’t be able to take any vacation time over the holidays. We may move our family celebration to her since S is also in Philadelphia. It’s been really nice having my children in the same city. S was sick recently and it was so lovely that D could take him soup and other essentials.
Since she’s settled for awhile (grad school is still a couple of years away), she finally got a furry friend. She has been dying for one. Several of her friends got animals during undergrad, which seemed to me like too much responsibility for a college student.
Oh! And she registered to be an alumni interviewer; she is super excited to share her love of Penn with potential future Quakers. I reminded her that not all the kids she thinks are amazing will be accepted. Still, I know it will break her heart when that happens.
I’m thrilled she is successfully launched and is content with her life in Philadelphia. Hope you and your families are well too!
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Wonderful news on the job front and it sure is nice to at least have your kids in the same place instead of opposite directions!
DD got her cat during internship last summer. DH was upset at first since she was far from “settled” and it’s been a little bit of trouble at times but she would say well worth it.
Last week she went to a regional conference for work and was a presenter along with two other young colleagues. The other conference goers seemed to enjoy their session a lot. It’s been a year since she moved down for her job and while she doesn’t love the location, career-wise it has been a tremendous experience builder and challenge.
We are heading down to see her next weekend so I’m excited. Her BF’s parents will be there Friday night too so that will be fun to see them again.
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Hello all. I am also glad to see all of your updates! My D so wants her fur baby (1/2 shih Tzu 1/2 Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) with her. But she is getting her co-Terminal Master’s, and like most Stanford students, she is still living in on-campus housing. She misses him so much and he just turned 9. He is only 16 pounds but weirdly long, and just slightly too large to fit comfortably in any under seat carrier for an airplane—I ordered and returned many that were the largest that would fit all the standard airlines and researched which airlines allowed the largest carrier. We heavily debated me driving her dog to her from Texas to California to keep over the summer during her summer job, and then her driving him back, but in the end decided that was just too much. There is also a semi charter airline called JSX that flies out of my city that lets you buy the adjoining window seat and the dog can lay on the floor, but the closest airport on her end in California was in Burbank, a 5 1/2 hour drive from her summer job. It would have cost between $1100 to $1300 for the two seats one way. We probably would have done that if JSX flew to a Bay Area airport. As you can tell, she realllllyyyy wanted him with her for the summer and considered every angle. In the end, we decided it was cheaper to pay for her to come home for a few two 3 day weekends and then 2weeks between the end of her job and the beginning of the fall quarter. But me and the pup making a 25 hour (not including rest stops) one way drive was a near thing. 
She did get some great news this week that she got a grad student CA position starting in January that will pay for her grad school tuition plus living stipend. This current quarter was her last quarter on undergrad financial aid, so I am very relieved, and happy for her. 
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