<p>P56: Sending more healing thoughts to your H! </p>
<p>Tx5: Congrats to S3!!! Woohoo! :D</p>
<p>Sending some more healing thoughts towards everyone who needs them. </p>
<p>Congrats on the Berkeley acceptance tx5! Great news for him!</p>
<p>Forgot to mention that when I mailed off D1’s Valentine’s care package to Edinburgh last week, it cost me $20 to send about $15 worth of candy and other little goodies :(</p>
<p>P56, thinking of you and your DH!</p>
<p>yippeee!! tx5 what wonderful news</p>
<p>twinmama… you are a good mom!!!</p>
<p>esobay… i’m with you, i like not having to move every year! and thanks for the sunshine</p>
<p>12r… wow i hadnt noticed the 100 pm limit… i’m glad!!</p>
<p>Congrats to tx5 and family!</p>
<p>Don’t remember who was asking about UMass Amherst, but I’m in the area and have some experience with the campus and social life.</p>
<p>we dropped to page two! bump</p>
<p>P56, how is he doing? Did they release him from the hospital today?</p>
<p>Just popped in for an update on P56’s DH. Glad the news was good. 
Sending continuing healing wishes his way!</p>
<p>p56, hope the test results are positive.Or should they be negative:confused:</p>
<p>12rmh18 - ummmmm… no… You busted me. it was not Nicks, unfortunately. It was the hotel kind where you tear the pouch open :o Don’t hate me its all I had</p>
<p>TX5 - awesome!!!</p>
<p>P56…SO eager to hear how he’s doing!!!</p>
<p>Will take time for longer post tomorrow, but I just wanted to throw a question out there…have any of your kids done study abroads that left you scratching your head wondering if there was a whole lot more partying/playing than studying? Did you ever think you were spending money more for an extended vacation than education? 
</p>
<p>jc40 - I’d like to hear more on the study abroad topic. DS is considering it. Of course he knows if he does not get better at staying in contact with us, it is off the table. It’s one thing for me to not worry when he is on his tiny, family-like campus… another when alone in another country.</p>
<p>D spent three weeks abroad in France. She was taking the equivalent of two semesters of French. She did pretty well but hearing some of her stories, there were kids who did not do much, drank a lot and partied a lot. It seems it was not too rigorous and you could get away with very little, it was up to the kid to take advantage of it.</p>
<p>Coffee, tea, hot chocolate and some generic English muffins… :)</p>
<p>Sounds great SLUMOM! I have butter and orange marmalade. :)</p>
<p>I think study abroad really benefits those who are “into” studying. Kids who are into partying here, will party there too.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the program. I have heard of a program where there was a LOT of reading and essays outside of the classroom lectures each day. Really so much that the student was not able to take as full advantage of seeing the locale as one might have wished.</p>
<p>good morning all! H is out and back to work today. has some more tests to do as an outpatient apparently but seemed fine last night . Thanks again for all the good wishes and thoughts</p>
<p>S2 is on his 3rd study abroad experience, all in Jordan. The first was a summer program - supposedly focusing on language study, home stays were part of the program, but field trips to see the sights were promised. He was surprised at how many students seemed to have no real interest in learning Arabic. He said it was hard to get the locals to stop practicing their English on him. He worked hard and it was his first A ever in a language class. The next program was in a smaller city, more conservative than Amman, and included a language pledge. Some of the women in the program broke the pledge the very first weekend. He always seemed to have tons of work. Drinking is not a big part of life in Jordan - alcohol is available in Amman, especially at high end places or ones that cater to tourists, but smaller restaurants won’t even offer it. Current program is less focused on language study (though they still take two classes a day), but includes an internship. I get the impression from the list of home colleges and the majors of the students that it’s a pretty serious program with students genuinely interested in its offerings. All the programs include traveling to see the tourist sites. Except for the summer programs the programs have a weeklong break midway through which students use to travel in the area. My kid went and took scuba diving lessons in Egypt as well as going to see the pyramids.</p>
<p>Programs vary - I get the impression that some of the European ones really do seem to be an excuse for partying.</p>
<p>Yay for good news for P56 husband!</p>
<p>My H spend a HS summer in France when he was 16. He had wine with meals, like the locals (and his host family). Came back to US, couldn’t drink. Went to Ohio for school when he was 18, and drank 3.2 beer (remember that?) Then they changed the law and he couldn’t drink again. Crazy.</p>
<p>I would guess the way to ensure a mostly alcohol-free experience would be to do work-study in Muslim countries. As opposed to, say, France, Germany, or Italy. Or Ireland. Or… :)</p>
<p>D did 6 weeks in Florence Italy for 6 credits, they traveled around on the weekends.
Another D did summer trip to Alaska in her field of study. D3 did a Shakespeare Festival in Canada as part of her English major, and the professors bought drinks for students and students bought drinks for professors… Canada has a lower drinking age. We don’t push these things on them, usually they have asked if we can afford to pay for part of it…</p>
<p>Good to hear, P56!!!</p>
<p>Yay for P56’s DH!</p>
<p>D1 is currently at the University of Edinburgh for the semester. She’s told us that many students there (Scottish and international) look at going to class as optional, but she goes most of the time because she finds them interesting. Students seem to be left more to their own devices there. She is not working as hard (or stressing as much) as she does at her LAC, but I think what she lacks in academic rigor she is more than making up for in cultural experiences…such as attending the Six Nations rugby tournament the other day, where most of the Scottish fans were in kilts despite the cold! The drinking age is 18 and she has gone to the local pub with friends a few times (she says the hard cider is her favorite!) but she is not a big party girl. We feel that we are getting more than our money’s worth in the people she is meeting, the experiences she is having outside of her “comfort zone”, and the maturity she is gaining from learning to live on her own in a different country!</p>