<p>Ack, DD is a little stressed. The roommate assignments were supposed to be out by yesterday, now that has turned in a rather vague “by the end of the week”. She wants to get to know her new roommates as soon as possible. </p>
<p>Lisafest: Enjoy while you can, although your DS will probably be home often, the first semester anyway</p>
<p>Aww…cooker, I know how you feel.</p>
<p>S is at a 3 week camp and only left on Sunday. He called yesterday evening and D called (from home) at the same time. I ignored D’s call to talk to S (who knows when he’ll call again!). D wasn’t very happy :)</p>
<p>Did stop at Kohl’s last night, armed with the 30% coupon. Not too good of a shopping day - although we still managed to spend quite a bit 
D did get the clothes she wanted and she found a mattress topper in XL. Picked up towels, pillows, some plates/bowls and other stuff that we didn’t really need 
Next big thing on the list is to finalize the laptop purchase.</p>
<p>mamom - we got pictures of the kids when D did her senior pictures. Splurged on that. Also got family pictures when we were on the cruise last month. Add this to the graduation pictures and we’ve spent a pretty penny on pictures! But I love pictures and don’t really mind spending on them! Now, planning on rearranging the family room somewhat to make one wall the picture wall!</p>
<p>Welcome, Lisafest; I’m pretty new here too.
Cooker, sorry about the missed call. Those 3 weeks will fly by fast, though.
Mamom–great idea about the photo! I might have to do that too! DS &DD only overlap for a couple of weeks in August, before DD goes to the dorm & DS heads abroad for 13 months.
Kumite, I felt the stress up until Monday, when DD found out she was assigned to a triple (in a double-size room). Three girls in something like a 10x15 foot space; should be interesting. </p>
<p>Remember when you didn’t know who your roommate was until you stuck your key into the door?</p>
<p>I do remember not finding out who my roommate was till I got to college in the fall. And actually, she never showed up. Her father had been seriously injured in a car accident, and no one else was ever placed in the room fall quarter. I was honestly lonely and always felt like a tag-a-long with the other roommates. At the start of winter quarter, someone moved in.</p>
<p>D1 did talk with her roommate on the phone a few times before starting her freshman year at state flagship three years ago. Once they were in the room together, D1 figured out they were very different. Her roommate slept in till late in the morning and rarely seemed to go to classes or do homework. She would go home for the weekend and come back Tuesday. D1 was also very lonely that first quarter. The roommate didn’t come back for the second quarter, D1 had a new roommate she adored, and this fall they’ll be rooming together in a house near campus. D1 absolutely loves the school she is going to and will graduate in four years. Don’t be too discouraged if your D or S doesn’t have the “perfect” situation from the beginning. It can be a learning experience and still have a happy ending. Still remember D1 emailing us about our first visit to the college town midweek for an honors college parents meeting with a list of things she wanted from home and ending with " and could you just take me home with you?" It about killed us. But, she’s far from that 18-year old today.</p>
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<p>Oh, mamom, I feel much better now that I know I’m not the only one. :)</p>
<p>D received her room and roommate assignment–took awhile because she’s away for the summer with limited internet access but the roommate seems very different from her…she too is away all summer but told D via FB that she bought just one thing for the room before she left…a vacuum. My D filled out the questionnaire honestly last May and let’s just say I can be certain that she didn’t give any indication that buying a vacuum, or any cleaning supplies for that matter, was anywhere on her mind!!</p>
<p>I do hope their different outlook on what’s at the top of the list to buy for your freshman dorm room isn’t indicative of anything more…or, perhaps I can just hope that opposites attract!</p>
<p>cgpm - I would let your son prepare his special evening for his gf. I hope he maintaintainns his romantic side for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Lisafest - Welcome. Don’t hesitate to share.</p>
<p>Finally finished booking all the hotels for our 3 week1 summer trip to Boston & back. I’m pooped. Really looking forward to visiting many friends from long ago.</p>
<p>DR table starting to pile up with ‘stuff’. Getting exciting.</p>
<p>
LOL. H gave me a stick vac which I requested for xmas. Except it was not the one “I” wanted, but the convenient one for him to buy. I told him at xmas and several other times I wanted to return it and get what I wanted. I never got the receipt and the vac sat by our back door for months til I moved it into our RV. There it sits and now I am thinking, hmmmm, maybe I can send it off to school with S. Every boy needs a vac at school right???</p>
<p>H went off on another rant last night about money. We all just kinda looked up from what we were doing and did our best to pretend we were llistening. Then today I get a call from a women selling a ride on mower on craigs list. She was returning H’s call. Ha! We have two mowers for our suburban size lawn and HE wants to spend money on another one. I just have to remember that next time he brings up the money issue.</p>
<p>Ahh, the good old days pre-internet when it still cost extra $ to make a long distance call so you didn’t meet the roommate until you entered the room and were stuck with one another. No “match.com” type questionaire, no coordinating the room. </p>
<p>Mamom- That is funny about the riding mower.</p>
<p>DS came home tonight to share his “promotion” at work to assistant marketing director. Pay raise and he can work whenever he comes home from college and the best part…he gets business cards! It took everything we could do to keep a straight face as he shared his new duties which include: making spreadsheets (“I can get paid for working at home on the computer!”), assembling promotional packets, corporate food deliveries, running kids night (“Can you believe I get paid to play board games with kids!!!”) and…wait for it…being the Chick-fil-A cow! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I am the proud mother of a cow! MOOOVE over Ronald McDonald…lol</p>
<p>Seriously, nice to see him excited and nice to know he will have a job whenever he wants to come home and work.</p>
<p>momofzach: Love the promotion! At one point, wouldn’t he have just DIED if you suggested that he wear the cow costume? And now, tied to a promotion, it’s fun!</p>
<p>keylimepie: Are you planning to use a generic waiver? I know that some schools offer a school-specific one, but haven’t seen anything for Duke. A friend told me that when she and her son went to orientation, they had waivers available for grades and medical information and they encouraged the kids to sign them and turn them in that day.</p>
<p>momofzach - congrats to your S on the promotion! Business cards, wow! I know my S loves his “groundskeeper” job. They even sent him for a one day training class to learn about lawn care, planting flowers, etc. Although he is low man on the pole, he is working with the guys who do this for a living year round and it has made him feel much more of an adult doing an adult job rather than the normal kid job working retail, camp counselor that he might have ended up doing instead. Of course, he doesn’t get to wear a costume. :(</p>
<p>I am trying to get S to communicate more with his roommate (who is trying to transfer outof the dorm). S feels it is a waste of time. H (back to the money) wants to make sure we don’t duplicate anything roommate is bringing and wants to share in buying big items like refrig, and I just want them to get off on a good foot in case roommate can’t get out of the dorm. S tells me he is insulted that roommate is trying to transfer out and has him already pegged as a jerk. But the transfer has all to do with the dorm being all male an nothing at all to do with S.</p>
<p>MomofZachh–love the promotion and all of the perks!!</p>
<p>Waivers–I hadn’t even thought about this–nor power of atty…What does everyone suggest?</p>
<p>Mamom Send that stick vac to college…its a great solution!</p>
<p>Sunnyday–on FB you can search with just a last name etc…maybe that will help? </p>
<p>I have seen the FB page of our kiddo’s roommmate. Kiddo is gone all summer and I have nudged to kiddo to reach out a bit–since its just about a month away. They are Fb friends, so perhaps there is some chatting in the background. From what I can tell, the kids have similar academic interests and some similar outside of classroom interests–some also very different. I hope its a good match.</p>
<p>FlMM–I have been to Boston twice for short trips (one college search ) and loved it. You will have a grand time I am sure!</p>
<p>On dorms and roommates–my frosh year I got a Jr as a roommate. Imagine how thrilled she was! NOT! The dorm was almost all soph and jr… I remember I called her because my mom encouraged me to reach out. I was so nervous. I mispronounced her unusual name. She and I were from different parts of the country and everything in between. She was COLD and I was so disappointed to not to be received warmly…I moved in when the dorms opened and everyone else seemed to move in then…she didn’t sow up for a few days and when she did her friend (a guy) then spent the night in her twin bed with her in our tiny cinderblock room. It was a shock for me all the way around!</p>
<p>I ended up changing rooms to room with a soph - whose roommate decided to leave college to marry her high school sweetheart…gosh that all seems so long ago…</p>
<p>The thing with roommates is it is about sharing community and not necessarily being best friends. Schedules are different and there is compromise involved- Thankfully kiddo is easy going. I am hoping the roommate isn’t a slob, a binge drinker, and that they work things out well for sleep, quiet and study … Kiddo is in a doubel while most of the suites around them are quads so I expect the room can be quieter…Since the building is very old–I woner how thin the walls are??</p>
<p>fogfog - I had the EXACT same experience my freshman year…a junior that didn’t show up for days, when she did it was with her boyfriend, she wasn’t happy with a freshman roomate…I had to stick it out for the semester but it was lonely at first.</p>
<p>cpgm - Ah, your son is a romantic, I would let him do it…so sweet. THere aren’t many of them out there so I would encourage it.</p>
<p>cooker - I am sorry you missed your D call… I too missed a call from D2 who is on a remote beach saving turtles…I cried. I am expecting to hear frm her today…she left a VM that indicated that she is having a very mixed experience and is homesick…:-(</p>
<p>How is everyone surviving the heat wave?</p>
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<p>mamom-The problem with splitting big items is who takes it when the year ends? It might be better just to split who brings everything than to share costs, unless it is a rental fee. The “microfridge” rental is a pretty good idea unless one of them already owns a fridge. You don’t have to move it in or out!</p>
<p>momofzach: we love Chick-Fil-A. One of our close friends is the manager of the store here. It’s only been open a year. Our grandson rules the play place there!</p>
<p>And while your son may have business cards, ours is featured in the profile picture of his employer’s FB page. It’s a furniture store and he is pictured “sleeping” on a very expensive mattress! Such a proud moment. He created their FB page and website and their online ordering system. Hopes to be able to maintain it as a little consulting job on the side during college.</p>
<p>From the roommate stories, I think I’m glad DS2 will have his best friend as a roommate. We are splitting the cost of a new mini-fridge and microwave. Ordering them from Sam’s Club about a week before move-in and will pick up at the store near campus. </p>
<p>DS1, his wife and son have arrived safely at my mom’s lake cottage in Michigan. I’m so jealous, but we will join them on Sunday. </p>
<p>And today is DH’s 51st birthday and his first full day in his new office after tow days of orientation. I arranged to have the gift shop (job is at a hospital) deliver a new travel coffee mug with balloons attached to his office this morning. I think he will be surprised (and maybe embarrassed but that’s fine!)</p>
<p>For those of you with commuting spouses: Do you have any “contact” with their co-workers? Or visit their workplace? It seems so weird not have seen where he works or who he works with. In his job with the city, he was two miles from home and I often stopped in to pick him up for lunch, say “hi” to his staff, etc. Now he has 15 people working for him and I don’t know that I will ever really meet them if he continues to commute. I guess it’s balanced by not having to move, but it’s strange.</p>
<p>SO what kind of waivers and power of atty stuff do we need to consider AND since kiddo will be in a different state, do we need to do it in the state of the school? </p>
<p>any Attys here?</p>
<p>**I have taken the first and last move-in dates for this countdown from the list on this thread. To try and list all of them would be overkill to say the least.</p>
<p>First new student move-in is the University of Georgia on August 9th. (Excludes cadet training at West Point)
Move-in day in 19 days.<a href=“Less%20than%203%20weeks!”>/color</a> :eek:</p>
<p>Last new student move-in is the University of Southern Oregon on September 22nd<br>
[color=red]Move-in day in 63 days.**</p>
<p>If there are earlier or later move-in dates, please post them so that I can pick them up and adjust the countdown postings.</p>
<p>I am back, did anyone miss me? God, I missed you people!! I kept thinking how I wish I could post while I was in these meetings but I just can’t handle the iPhone keyboard, makes me go all crosseyed. So, Pitt. Compared to some of your registration experiences, they certainly had the parents and kids scheduled pretty tightly for the 2 days, the second being mostly without parents. It was hot as heck and muggy so I am glad to be home today. I did get a chance to take a tour of his dorm, and as luck would have it, saw his exact suite layout. 6 boys in 3 doubles will share (and be responsible for cleaning) 2 sinks, 1 toilet and 1 shower (toilet and shower oddly are together in a tiny room so there will be no toilet when someone’s in the shower). Shower is 1/4 of say a 60" round table, a triangular shower that no burly guy would fit inside. Good thing ds is a beanpole.</p>
<p>Scary statistics of this class in the engineering school - avg. HS GPA 4.1, math SAT 700, and avg. college freshman GPA for last year’s frosh class = 2.9. Boy needs 3.0 to keep his scholarship. Ds did audition and make the marching band so that is good, but that makes him have 18 credits. Eesh. I have a feeling add/drop is going to be important.</p>
<p>Ds spent the night in the dorm with a bunch of others, found some friends, fit in and kept saying how excited he was for it to start. It made me nauseous. Seriously, I can deal with the separation I suppose, but I am just so unsettled about this. They had one parent program where they advised you about how to deal with your new college student, led by a colorful (e.g. he swore alot) prof in engineering - scared the crap out of me. I hadn’t thought about how much bad stuff could happen. I didn’t. Maybe I would rather just focus on sheet colors, or how high the bed can be lofted and how many rubbermaid tubs can fit underneath… I had a very dull, non-scary college experience. I went to a small liberal arts college that was btw a dry town. There wasn’t any drinking, but yes, there were drugs and I can say I bet, not as much as 30% were doing anything there either. Really. Dh was a commuter student at a CUNY. Now, they are talking about what they can do with FERPA rules in terms of telling you about what is happening with your kid. Example is your kid confides that they have been raped, and the code the advising office will give you is “you might want to come take your child to lunch tommorow.” They wanted to emphasize how important it is for you to keep the lines of communication open with your kid so they will come to you. No one was passing out those waivers - or mentioning that they exist either. So I left that room (where many many other scary situations were given) thinking, he is going to stay at home, go to cc and then maybe transfer to a nice cloistered school of monks. Am I alone in my panic?? </p>
<p>Blue - Hope you survived as well, I don’t like to “meet and mingle” either!!
Kinderny - Hope those cccccchhhhaaanges are for the better!
Welcome to new posters. Sorry if I don’t comment on everyone’s posts, I am very behind. Sorry for the missed phone calls and phb - hats off to your cadet!
Pepper - hope the heat at the beach is not sweltering.
Sunnyday - heck, I found the roommate listed in his school’s newsletter and what senior award he received, found him soloing at a christmas concert on youtube, looked at facebook. I have done everything short of a credit check. You are not alone.</p>
<p>cpgm - Forgot to add to my lengthy post, Mr. Colorful Prof also had an entire slide devoted to breaking off the relationships with the gf/bf back home before coming to college. He said basically make it happen or your kid will not be able to focus on studies and will fail. He was blunt and borderline crazy but I could see the point at least.</p>
<p>Amandakayak – I’d be scared by all the info too, but maybe it’s better that they’re telling you all this – eyes wide open – because a lot of bad stuff can happen when you throw a bunch of kids together, unsupervised. Maybe they’ve had an incident; maybe they’re being pro-active. I think we all get caught up in the manageable tasks of move-in and don’t want to think about the reality – our dear sweet son or daughter could get into trouble, or get caught up in something, and not be willing or able to share it with us.</p>
<p>The one thing I keep trying to tell D is: tired and sad are cousins. Because I remember being severely sleep-deprived at school, and it really affected my mood. Everything looked black. And you’re too young to stand back and tell yourself ‘you’ll feel better if you get some sleep.’</p>
<p>Good to <em>see</em> you again.</p>