What part of the country do you live? Weirdly, I don’t have that many East Coast events yet–possibly something in DC in September.
Boston area! 
Oh, interesting! I think I do have an event there in November, although it’s not on my website yet. No reason for me to stay anonymous here, given that I’m sort of a public figure, whatever that means. I’m a bestselling crime fiction author–feel free to check out my schedule at davidweiden.com. Might be more fun to see my photos on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanbliweiden/. Pics of my two college kids in there, although you have to scroll down a bit. Cheers, Dave
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I want to say this is incredible! Thank you for sharing, I am totally buying your books:)
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Yes! But you’re a dude? Also, I’m going to buy a book just because you feature the Simpsons on your page.
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D25 is presenting at a research poster competition Friday. She asked us to come visit. We are excited to see her.
The research program was time consuming, but an overall positive experience. Her supervising professor invited her to continue next year if his fellowship is approved. They have been very encouraging and supportive.
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Smiling at the “you’re a dude” comment! And also the Simpsons reference!
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For Christmas I promised d25 Harry Potter on Broadway tickets. She loves Tom Felton!! We went this weekend and waited at the stage door after. She got video and his autograph on her playbill. I have 1 happy girl!!!
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That’s fantastic! What a fun gift and a great experience!!
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How are your kids faring this semester/quarter/term? D25 decided to take…drumroll please…26 units this quarter. I thought she was planning on dropping a class after sampling them, but she decided to keep them all. To be fair, six of those units are dance, so there’s little to no homework, but they are very time intensive (I think she’s dancing about eighteen hrs/wk?). She appears to be plowing through it all, with less downtime than last quarter, to be sure. I hope this means that she will take it easier in future terms. She has already told me that she wants to take three different genres of dance next year, which means a minimum of eighteen hours of dance, + any rehearsals, all next year. I appreciate her drive, but am exhausted just thinking about it.
Note: this is the kid that we told “take five years to double major”. She now thinks she’ll double and potentially add a minor and be out in four. 
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I hope S25 is doing well. He doesn’t call often and I’m trying hard not to ask about grades. His semester hasn’t been too loaded (I don’t think) - he’s got five classes, but none of them seem to be crazy hard in terms of complexity of content. He’s got an English Lit class - which is not his strength (conversations and participation and understanding the actual reading - no problem; writing papers about it - the world might as well end). This is his last week of class, exams are the end of this week and beginning of next week and he’ll be done by next Wed 4/29.
Last we generally discussed his grades, he was expecting 1 A and 4 Bs. Which, if last fall hadn’t happened, I’d be thrilled with. But to keep the scholarship that needs to be opposite (4 As and 1 B). So currently he’s signed up for three classes in summer school in the hopes that he can get enough As to balance out the low grades from last fall . I’m really not excited about that plan. He’s working full time doing construction management this summer - it shouldn’t be physical work like last year as a laborer, but it will likely still be exhausting. He’s spreading the courses out so they aren’t all at the same time, but still, it’s a lot. I’m really hoping he gets at least one more A this semester so we can drop one of the summer courses.
Next fall he wanted to take a reduced load of four classes. His argument was that he’d be better able to focus on keeping his grades up. He’s got enough credits that he won’t be behind, and four classes is enough to be a full time student, but I’m not buying the argument. The issue isn’t the time to do the work, it’s the motivation to actually do it. He does better when he has less free time, so adding more time into the mix doesn’t seem like a winning solution. Plus one of those four classes is completely virtual and asynchronous, so he’d only be going to three classes a week. I asked him to add one more because we think it might be a prereq for something later - he’s registered for it because he wanted to make sure he got it, but if the advisor says he doesn’t need it he may drop it. And he decided to register for a 1 credit PE class.
The PE classes at Clemson are kind of killing me. They are all called “Leisure Skills” classes. The title of Leisure Skills just makes me laugh. Some are more athletic, like racquetball, swimming, kayaking, golf, a variety of dance options. They include things like ultimate frisbee, disc golf, riflery, shotgun, yoga. But they also have mindfulness meditation and others that sound like talking a walk outside and appreciating nature.
S25 had a huge break in his schedule on Tuesday/Thursday next year and since he’ll be living off campus and parking is hard to find mid-day, he won’t have anywhere to go but won’t want to leave and try to park again, so he signed up for a Leisure Skills class. He’s signed up for Backpacking and Hiking. Friends, my boy is an Eagle Scout. He’s won an East Coast championship for orienteering. He’s backpacked and hiked through three high adventure camps, one of them for 115 miles over 10 days for which he was the most senior scout and leader. He better kick butt at basic backpacking and hiking. Seriously reading the list of things you learn he knows how to do all of them, and well. This one credit class better be the easiest A of his life.
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OMGosh, I laughed so hard at this. 
Yes, it dang well had better be an easy A!
My D22 had a musical theatre studio class last fall. One day the professor showed an IPA chart (international phonetic alphabet) and asked for a show of hands of everyone who was familiar with it. Well, my kid is a linguistics major – she looked around to see if he was kidding, LOL, and then was the only one who raised her hand. 
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[wet wʌt də ju min nɑt ɛvɹiwʌn noz ɑɪpi.e səʧ ə wiɹd wɔɹld wi lɪv ɪn]
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Okay I am not a linguist, mind you, but even I could read that after a minute of squinting at it.
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I definitely did same!
And when I first read the “International Phonetic alphabet”, I was looking for the NATO phonetic alphabet (VERY different - Alpha, Bravo, Charlie…) - my kids are always confused that people don’t know that – not very helpful for musical theater though..
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Wait, what is the musical theater connection to the IPA? Also I only got a chunk of that line by squinting… (But I love musical theater)
I had to ask ChatGPT. I got much of it, but got stuck on the word that means “such”. So you aren’t alone!
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That bit of IPA was a great addition to my morning routine of coffee and all the NYT word games!
Long time no check-in…
S25 is doing great. He opted to officially declare PoliSci with a likely double in philosophy. He may try to add a triple to that in his foreign language, depending on how the credits work out. He maintains that he won’t be that far off and it should be doable, but for the moment, I am hoping he just focuses on completing the requirements for the other two! I think registration for the fall is this week? Not sure, but I think he’s got it well under control and will never make the mistake of sleeping through it again. Classes this semester are harder for sure, but he finally seems to be in the swing of things and is balancing his academic and social life really well. He also has a band now, which is so cool, and they even had a gig at a local bar! As for summer, he’ll be working at a local food truck primarily, but he’s also lined up some part-time, project-specific work with an area attorney. We’ll see how that goes. He was debating getting involved in some political campaign work this summer as well. I’ll be curious if that comes to pass or if he opts to hold off until the next cycle. He’s not really a phone bank/door-knocker kind of guy, so I’m not holding my breath. I can’t believe his first year is almost done!
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I’m guessing they were learning about diction and enunciation, possibly learning how to modify vowel sounds when singing, etc.
It’s more a thing in classical or choral singing – which is my daughter’s main focus. She also has a second major in classics, and if you get her going, she will talk your ear off about the differences in pronunciation between classical and church (ecclesiastical) Latin, and especially while singing. She’s sung several variations of the Latin mass over the past eight years of high school and college, lol. 
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Funny story, we live in Atlanta, and the Atlanta airport has a plane train that announces, “The next stop is concourse A. A as in Alpha.” (Or concourse B. B as in Bravo, etc.)
Few years ago they decided to be cheeky and changed it to, “A as in Atlanta. B as in Burgers and Beverages.”
And it wasn’t consistent – it would be one thing on the way out to the concourses, and the other on the way back to baggage claim. It drove my kids CRAZY.
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