High School Class of 2016/College Class 2020

[indimom]

That's definitely a lot of stairs!

I just wanted to throw this out there. When my DD was in high school she played on the tennis team and developed shin pain. I took her to the doctor and she had her start taking 2 vitamin D gummies and 1 calcium gummy everyday. It really seemed to help her. She told me that she went out to buy them again because all of the activity that she's doing now, she started having the pain again.

Not sure that it would work, but it definitely helper my DD.

Thank you for the tip, I'll pass that on to her.

 

[zoemurr]

Oh no!!! At least she's on meds, and you know she has a roommate she can count on.

At the risk of being labeled a helicopter mom, my daughter and I drove down to see my son on Saturday. We left at 6, and got there by 9:30. He had a 10:30 appointment at Apple to have the cracked screen on his phone replaced. It was a 45 minute drive-- no parkways, all local streets. (We passed 9 churches and a street fair.) They replaced the screen, ran some diagnostics, and the phone failed. So they replaced it for the price of a repair.

Next stop was Best Buy, 20 minutes away, somewhat towards the direction of school. He explained that the laptop he brought just before leaving for school had never worked, the message he got was that it wasn't reading the hard drive. (So it was pretty much a $2000 paper weight.) Best Buy policy was to send it out for repairs, which would have cost 2 weeks and required another half hour drive for a college freshman with no car. I asked to speak to a manager. The sales guy spoke first, explained that we had just made a 3 hour drive from Long Island to handle this, that we couldn't go last week because of the threat of the hurricane, and that my son had already lost 2 weeks. The manage asked me (my credit card had paid for it) exactly what would make me happy, and I said I would like to leave with him having a working laptop. He made an exception to company policy and gave my son a new laptop.

Next stop was Target, to get enough food (mostly junk) for the 4 suitemates for a while. There was some soup and there were 2 cases of water and some Gatorade, but mostly junk. But B said he's been working out every night and hitting the salad bar a lot, so I'm not terribly worried on the weight front. Their suite has apparently become one where the guys hang out, and I'm fairly confident that a good portion of that junk food disappeared over the weekend.

A quick stop at Kohls and then on to Applebees. In addition to lunch, we ordered a serving of Buffalo Wings to go-- the guys can heat them up in the microwave.

By then it was 4 pm. I was going on 3 hours sleep-- I had babysat for a neighbor until 1 am Friday night. I knew the ride home would be risky, so we got a hotel for the night. By 4:30 my daughter was out cold. We napped and watched TV until 10, then called it a night. We got up early yesterday morning and were on the road by 7am, home by 10

So it was a VERY good trip. Had I not gone down, it would have easily cost him a good $100 in cab fare. After 2 weeks in school, he doesn't know anyone with a car well enough to ask a favor of this magnitude. Last week he was miserable, now he's happy and talking about what it takes to become an RA. He texted my husband Saturday asking a question about MLA form, so he was in the midst of printing some homework using that laptop.

All's right with the world, and it was a good trip. As a bonus, my 16 year old daughter got her first college tour. She doesn't want to go there-- she wants to forge her own path-- but at least she's seen one school and has a baseline for comparison's sake.

Alice, you need to do what works for you.

My DD is fortunately only 30 minutes away so we didn't worry about every small thing she might need. I picked her up last week and we made a trip to the Dollar Tree (socks for Humans vs Zombies) and Target for some odds and ends we didn't buy previously. Half way home I realized she didn't grab the socks. DH went up there on Saturday. Last night, she writes that she got a job, and needs her passport by Wed to fill out the paperwork, so I guess I am going again tomorrow. This is more my fault than hers as I didn't want to overbuy, and we were softies about making another trip for the socks. I guess we were supposed to know that she needed a passport or ss card for the job but it was off our radar and I don't want to mail it. Kudos to all of you more organized parents.

As for the meal plan we only got 10 meals on the advice of upperclassmen and she isn't using them all. I offered to buy her some food and she said they have plenty as they cash in their extra meals for snacks at the end of the week. Freshman 15 here we come!

She pledged the service frat where her dad and I met 25 years ago yesterday, is doing ballroom dancing, has joined 3 committees and now will be telemarketing (yuck.. but she chose that over food service) two evenings a week. Really hoping she can hold it all together.

 

[jetskigrl]

We called 1800 dentist. They said he had an appointment, but the dentists office said it was only a window for a dentist, and they couldn't see him till next week. In the meantime, the tooth feels much better, so he declined the appoint,net. ( my husbands cousin is 40 minutes away, and was going to bring him. )

I think the pain might have been the wisdom tooth breaking through.

So he's doing much better, thanks.

So glad to hear that he is doing better!!!

We made the 1,100 mile trek from PA to MN and got DD all moved in! It was well-organized and the weather cooperated, thank God. DD is doing well. Classes started Thurs. and now she is overwhelmed, but likes her roommate and the food. (Her school regularly ranks in the top 10 for food in various national rankings.). She has plans this weekend with new friends. She calls a lot and didn't pack well so needs me to send her a couple of boxes of clothes, but seems to be doing well. I hope she doesn't overextend herself and I hope she doesn't procrastinate, but it is out of my control. Her books cost $600, though! I hope she can use some more than once.

Congrats on getting all settled I'm glad that everything is going well.

That's cool. DD found out that she lost five pounds so far in the three weeks she's been there. She has been terrified of the freshman fifteen, but she's finding that she is sometimes too busy to eat - plus she gets her 10k steps on her fitbit just walking back and forth to class.

Before she went to the health center for her sore throat, I stressed several times that the Blue Cross card is medical - the Cigna card is prescriptions. She still forgot. She and the medical biller finally figured it out - it's not readily obvious. She said as she left, she heard the staff saying she was cute. (Not attractive cute (athough she is) but Awww freshman kind of cute).

She likes the food okay. The dining hall by the residence hall is better than the one by the classes. I told her that I was having nachos for dinner one day last week - so she went to the late-night to grab something and they happened to have nachos that day. She was thrilled. Her room has a full kitchen so sometimes her roommate and she will cook a meal. I got her the 10 meal a week plan because I know she isn't going to want to run home all the time to grab something to eat. She was unhappy with her roommate the other night because she used the blender for a fruit smoothie and didn't wash it or even rinse it afterward. DD was up at 2 am and had to do it. She doesn't even see the irony in that.

LOL - DH stopped by when dropping off DD last weekend (Labor Day) and said that our DD is definitely the neat one in her group (which was a shock to me, LOL). I think all three of them are learning quickly that there is no one there to pick up after them now

Ugh! DD's roommate dragged her to health services today...sinus infection and strep.

DD spent Labor Day weekend at home with a cold too. She alternated between doing homework and sleeping all weekend. But she was happy to be in her own room, at least. Sounds like getting sick that is pretty common the first few weeks. Of course DD then shared it with me and her brother (just in time for him to go back to school). She can home again this past weekend because the internet was out in the residence hall and she needed to turn in some work. I'm sure she could have found someplace else with working internet but I think she wanted the excuse to come home again.

 

[jetskigrl]

That is the same problem my son is having! I love his school but this is the one thing that is annoying me. We have to pay so much money for the dining plan and it is never open at convenient times for him to eat. So he is missing out on meals we have paid for and either eating ramen noodle soups or buying meals at the nearby restaurants. Thank goodness we switched him out of the unlimited plan to the 14 meals a week plan. This gave him more dining bucks to work with.

He has already decided that next semester he is going to switch to the 9 meals a week with even more dining bucks to eat at the restaurants.

DD said that a lot of the other kids are having the same problem with the dining hall hours so hopefully enough will complain and they extend them. Since it is their first year, hopefully they are still figuring out what works and will adjust it.

 

[mjkacmom]

Ds told me today he needs a tux for chorale. I don't know his jacket size (except that he wears a long). He's the only freshman, and the only one who isn't a music major. I hope he doesn't need it soon.

 

[Arkansan]

Ds told me today he needs a tux for chorale. I don't know his jacket size (except that he wears a long). He's the only freshman, and the only one who isn't a music major. I hope he doesn't need it soon.

DD's school is BIG for music. She auditioned for the (Freshman Women's) choir--there are only two choirs for Freshmen--prior to moving in. We stayed in the building during her audition, but on a separate floor. I noticed a sign on the wall about men in certain musical groups (orchestra, etc.) needing a tux and it had times when a representative from a company would be there to measure and take orders. Does your son's school maybe have something similar?

She made the choir and had her first rehearsal on Friday! Her first voice lesson is today. Voice lessons cost extra, but she will also earn credit.

She texted me that she doesn't think she's smart enough to be there--even though she tested out of Chinese I. (She took it anyway, fortunately. I agree with her decision here.). Anyone else's child feeling overwhelmed and not good enough? This is hard to be so far away! My parents will fill-in for us over Parent's Weekend, but it is hard not being closer!

 

[wishesuponastar]

DD had a little scare. She is used to seeing the way her high school did online grades, where everything is totalled into a running percentage along with the raw scores. Well she went online and saw the score for her chemistry lab was a 59.5 and almost cried. Then she realized that it was out of 60 and they figured that college kids can do their own percentages.

I have to make the five hour round trip out there four times next week. She has to have surgery on her ankle Friday and needs to visit with the doctor first on Wednesday. She wants to miss as little school as possible and is mostly concerned about her spanish class and chemistry lab. I am picking her up Tuesday night, taking her back Wednesday afternoon, picking her up again Thursday night and then back on Sunday. We want to get this surgery done before the snow flies. Her school recently was named the campus with the worst weather in the US and I don't want her walking through it on crutches.

Since she had to drop marching band, she doesn't see those kids as much so she joined the writing club to meet people and to make friends. She thinks she's really going to like it. I guess her roommate is making friends because DD said that one of the girl's friends has a car and they went to a nearby town to shop. Her mom came to visit so that probably helped.

She already had a visit to the health center. She thought she had strep throat, but the doc says it is viral. I am hoping it is gone by Wednesday. But other than all that she's doing great.

How is your daughter doing after surgery?

 

[wishesuponastar]

Ugh! DD's roommate dragged her to health services today...sinus infection and strep.

So sorry your daughter is sick. What a nice roommate that she took care of her. Hope she feels better real soon.

 

[MomofKatie]

A good place to look for a decent, inexpensive tux that a student doesn't have to worry about being too careful with is the rental tux shop in the college town. Most have rental return tuxes for sale at nice prices. DD had a few guy friends involved in orchestra who got their performance tuxes that way.

 

[mjkacmom]

I was going to check out the tux shop in town. Tux rentals ar over $200.

 

[Aliceacc]

What happened with the dental situation?

He says it feels much better.

All I can figure is that he was teething, waiting for the Wisdom tooth to poke through.

 

[Monykalyn]

Well...DD called last night-1st college exam and it was chemistry. She studied for it, says she knew the material and was actually helping others in study group as she understood the formulas etc-called when she got out of the exam convinced she failed. Said she couldn't get the formulas to come up with answers offered (multiple choice). A bit upset obviously-she has never had to struggle or study for school-the places she had to work were extra curricular (Lunar Research team presentations gave her fits and and sleepless nights). Had to talk her down a bit. Then this morning I texted to ask what actual grade from test was --84% so a B. So now she's mad that she didn't do better(instead of being a huge relief that it is not a "fail")-said she freaked out because there was no clock in room and they had 1 hr 20 min to complete test so she had no way of pacing herself. Prob need to her a cheap "old fashioned" watch for test days LOL! She has maintain a certain GPA to remain honors college but it is too early to freak out about it.

Family weekend coming up...

 

[jetskigrl]

Well...DD called last night-1st college exam and it was chemistry. She studied for it, says she knew the material and was actually helping others in study group as she understood the formulas etc-called when she got out of the exam convinced she failed. Said she couldn't get the formulas to come up with answers offered (multiple choice). A bit upset obviously-she has never had to struggle or study for school-the places she had to work were extra curricular (Lunar Research team presentations gave her fits and and sleepless nights). Had to talk her down a bit. Then this morning I texted to ask what actual grade from test was --84% so a B. So now she's mad that she didn't do better(instead of being a huge relief that it is not a "fail")-said she freaked out because there was no clock in room and they had 1 hr 20 min to complete test so she had no way of pacing herself. Prob need to her a cheap "old fashioned" watch for test days LOL! She has maintain a certain GPA to remain honors college but it is too early to freak out about it.

Family weekend coming up...

I'm glad to hear that the exam went better than she originally thought. I had to LOL at changing to think she should have gotten a better score now that she sees what she got. That sounds so much like DD.

She called last night to check in and said that she was a little concerned that she got a B+ on a Life Drawing assignment (had to draw the human figure in skeleton form from front, back and side). She was used to being one of the best in her Art classes in school, never less than an A on assignments. But now she is sharing the classes with other students that are on the same level as her. The teacher said the average grade on that assignment is usually a C and they need to understand that grading at this level is not the same as high school, etc (I guess a lot of kids were worried about their grade).

She is also worried about maintaining her scholarship but I reminded her that even if she slips below one semester, they would probably just put her on probation and give her another semester to bring it up. They don't want to lose the students either.

 

[punkin]

Chemistry is usually graded on a curve. I remember getting a 30 something that wound up being an A.

 

[Riles_and_Gabe]

Myself, my DS's father, and his stepmother are set to fly out this Saturday to Illinois for family weekend. I know it has only been a month but I can't wait to see DS!! Talking on the phone is just not the same.

DS called this week upset because he found out that during Thanksgiving break (11/23-11/25) and during spring break they need to be out of the dorms. Because flights are so expensive during Thanksgiving week we weren't planning on having him come home. We had hoped they would have fun activities on campus. So this morning I had to buy a ticket home for him. We bought one of those mystery flights on Expedia. You knew the dates but you didn't know the airline or the times. It actually worked out pretty well and was much cheaper than I thought it would be . And the best part is that instead of having him fly from Chicago to Boston, I was able to have him fly from the city he is in to our home city which saves him bus rides of about 2 hours each on the both ends! I was able to get the ticket for $255 which wasn't too bad (just not quite in the budget).

Thankfully, we were already planning on going somewhere with him on Spring Break (I would love to go somewhere in Europe but we will have to see what the budget allows).

Is this common for the campus to close the dorms during Thanksgiving break? I can understand over Winter break when they are gone for a month. But to close the campus for 3 days really sucks. They are paying so much to be there, it doesn't seem fair that they get the boot. Thank goodness the flight ended up being affordable because otherwise I would have had to find some hotel for him to stay in for that time period (how depressing would that be to have him alone in a hotel room for Thanksgiving!).

On the plus side of this, I get to have him home a bonus week I wasn't expecting!!!

 

[Kimberlyann11]

How is your daughter doing after surgery?

Her surgery is Friday. She is ending up missing more school than we thought she was going to. They changed her presurgery visit to today so I have her home from today until Tuesday - as the doc wants to see her Monday before he sends her back to school. We picked up the crutches and boot today and had a knee scooter delivered. She has discovered that it's a lot harder to walk on crutches than she thought. I am also concerned because when I was there last night, the elevator that she would use to get to her room was broken. There is another, but she would have to go down four or five stairs to get to her room and she can't do that with the knee scooter and it would be difficult with the crutches. I'm sure she'll be fine, and she'll be able to get through the three weeks - I'm just a worrying mom.

 

[mom2rtk]

Her surgery is Friday. She is ending up missing more school than we thought she was going to. They changed her presurgery visit to today so I have her home from today until Tuesday - as the doc wants to see her Monday before he sends her back to school. We picked up the crutches and boot today and had a knee scooter delivered. She has discovered that it's a lot harder to walk on crutches than she thought. I am also concerned because when I was there last night, the elevator that she would use to get to her room was broken. There is another, but she would have to go down four or five stairs to get to her room and she can't do that with the knee scooter and it would be difficult with the crutches. I'm sure she'll be fine, and she'll be able to get through the three weeks - I'm just a worrying mom.

I would be a worrying mom too.

 

[PlutoPony]

..... She has discovered that it's a lot harder to walk on crutches than she thought. I am also concerned because when I was there last night, the elevator that she would use to get to her room was broken. There is another, but she would have to go down four or five stairs to get to her room and she can't do that with the knee scooter and it would be difficult with the crutches. I'm sure she'll be fine, and she'll be able to get through the three weeks - I'm just a worrying mom.

May be worth it for you or her to call the Disability Services office on campus and let them know she will be temporarily "disabled". See what kind of information and services they might offer her. If nothing else, it might help get something like the elevator fixed more quickly if they know there's a student who depends on it. I'm sure they've had students going through this type thing and you might be surprised at what you learn from them. Good luck!

 

[Kimberlyann11]

May be worth it for you or her to call the Disability Services office on campus and let them know she will be temporarily "disabled". See what kind of information and services they might offer her. If nothing else, it might help get something like the elevator fixed more quickly if they know there's a student who depends on it. I'm sure they've had students going through this type thing and you might be surprised at what you learn from them. Good luck!

Thanks! She's handling the disability services stuff herself. They had an application that needed to be filled out, but I coulldn't access it as I don't have her id and password. She got a copy of the application, but ran out of time to hand it back in. She waited a bit too long to get started on it. but I can take her there Monday when we get to the school.

I know they have a shuttle bus and a van that you can arrange ahead of time. All the main doors have the big buttons that you can push to open them. DD has a student in her dorm who's in a wheelchair who seems to get around pretty well.
This school has a ton of athletes and they are always getting hurt. So i think once she gets the application in, they will have plenty of resources that will help her.

 

[punkin]

DD finally got around to signing up for orchestra and jazz ensemble. Apparently she didn't even have to audition because there are no other basses this year. She also signed up for women's club rugby. She's barely over 5 feet. I don't know when she'll have time for all this.