<p>The good thing about NYU is that you are so totally exhausted by the end of move-in that there is no time to process any emotions. I only got to meet my S’s roommate briefly in the hallway…the suitemates were coming and going…the RA popped over for a second…S wanted to try to get his ID but it was too late (no worries, they said)…we weren’t going to wait for the elevator again (and there was NO WAY that I was climbing 16 flights of stairs)…so we did our goodbyes and I texted S to remind him about the floor orientation this evening (but no response).</p>
<p>5boys - at my D’s college, they have separate social events during orientation week that are only for the transfer and gap year students. The college is aware they probably have some different needs/interests than all the other first year students at orientation. I don’t know if the gap year students get roomed together or with transfer or other older students but it’s very possible they aren’t roomies with the younger first year students. For some of them, that could be good and bad, I guess. I’m not sure for how long her college continues to do anything special for those students or if it’s just during orientation. Maybe the college only does it during O-week and then expects those students to make their own connections amonspgst themselves and others. I thought I’d read somewhere that they aren’t housed in the regular freshman dorm buildings but I could be wrong about that part.</p>
<p>Katie93mom … Your D = best roomie ever!</p>
<p>Our NYU move in went better then I ever thought. I couldn’t believe there was an easy move in possible in New York! Her dorm has four towers so we waited maybe ten minutes for the elevator. I had a harder time leaving tonight as the dorm meetings were starting on her floor. The elevator wasn’t coming, I had 3 suitcases (including one duffle with 2 more in it) and I was joking I was staying. Luckily, my d was laughing too.
She moved in with a year’s supply of clothing and toiletries, bins, shoes galore, small tv, printer, well, you get the idea. Her roommate lives an hour away and maybe brought stuff for a week. Mine is teasing her room is a pink Broadway Barbie dorm room.
For whoever was worried about nyu and acting, si far I’m impressed. Her floor is themed, there are only 26 kids on it, they do theater stuff together. Her studio has 60 freshman and so many other schools have small programs. However, they split them into groups of 10-12.
Their orientation is all week. The interesting thing is all years have activities for welcome week.
So far, so good. She’s a drama filled kid in every way so I’m sure it all won’t be sunshine.
She does share a double suite with the RA. But I think they’ll be better friends then her roommate. Time will tell</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
<p>W, S, & I helped D get moved into dorm at Barnard today. They had things pretty well organized, though wait for someone to come with a cart to transport belongings from the space we’d been assigned on the sidewalk was quite long. There are 4 girls in the room (L-shaped, used to be a study lounge). Roommates seem personable and self-sufficient, which is promising. Small space, but I think it’s going to be great to look out the window at Broadway and Columbia. She’s in one of the relatively rare air-conditioned rooms. We spent last night in CT, drove back home today. Parents holding up well. No concerns about D.</p>
<p>Am I the first Wackaloon to send cookies to my kid-at-college? </p>
<p>This afternoon D2 and a friend (whose sister launched even earlier than my D1, to an Atlantic-seaboard LAC) baked chocolate chip and banana-almond cookies. They’re all boxed up, USPS priority mail flat-rate, silly messages enclosed. Ready to go in tomorrow morning’s mail, one box to head north and the other winging east.</p>
<p>D1 phoned this morning with a scary tale. The previous evening three of her suitemates (large suite with 28 kids in mostly double rooms, most of whom she likes alot but a few not-so-much) had gone together to a frat party. After awhile, two of them decided they’d had enough, but they couldn’t find the third girl. So they left without her – they’d thought maybe she’d left before them. Anyway, they got back to the suite and the girl wasn’t there. Several other folks from the suite went to the frat to look for the missing girl, but couldn’t find her. She stumbled in several hours later – minus her purse, with her phone, money, student ID/mealcard, and room key in it. She wasn’t sure whether she’d lost it or if it had been stolen. She’d had too much drink, and was upset about the purse, but seemed OK otherwise.</p>
<p>D1 was pretty upset about the incident. She felt the girl had been in the wrong to get separated from her friends, but the friends had also been wrong to leave the frat without her. She felt bad for the girl about the lost purse & stuff, but also realizes that it could have been much worse. D1 and I had a long talk (again!) about friends and trust and not putting oneself in dangerous situations.</p>
<p>I’ve since heard from D1 again – a happy text reporting that the first week’s math problem set only took two hours (the opening bit of this class should be review for her, but I expect it’ll ramp-up quickly). Not another word about the suitemate who’d lost her purse. It amazes me how kids this age can be so resilient!</p>
<p>My ex-husband, my son and I moved my D into Barnard today (yesterday now, I guess?) It’s a 10.5 hour drive so we drove most of it Saturday, stayed in the Poconos overnight and arrived in time for our 11-12 move in time. The drive was awesome and the kids were totally scrunched in the back seat with a ton of stuff but it worked out. At one point, we were all laughing so hard we could barely breathe. </p>
<p>Move in went smoothly. We thought we’d be waiting forever but some people gave up on waiting for the Orientation Leaders to come with a rolling cart and assist. Since they gave up, when an OL showed up to get those young women, they helped us instead. As a result, we had a much shorter wait. D freaked out when the second cart of stuff arrived at the room and announced “You’re going to have to take half of this stuff back home.” I told her it wasn’t that bad and started helping organize everything, starting with making the bed. We arranged most of her things and then went to find some lunch. Since we had a late move-in time, the family lunches were pretty much gone, except for tuna (ick) so we wandered down Broadway to find something else. It was about an hour before parents were officially kicked off campus so that orientation could start and we ended up leaving then. We did meet her roommate who was startling similar to my D in many ways. D said goodbye to her dad outside because he was going to get the car and bring it around. There were a few things (a floor lamp and a rolling shelved cart) that we brought home because there just wasn’t anywhere to put them. She was getting tearful when her dad left and we got to her room. Her roommate was gone and she told me to close the door. We were both having a hard time keeping it together and there were tears. She hugged her brother, then we hugged and cried. She asked me to close the door behind me because she wanted some private time to cry it out, I think. She had some time to get her clothes put away… that was the only thing we hadn’t done. I suggested she put her ipod in her Ihome, blast some of her favorite music and leave the door open. I don’t know if she did that. </p>
<p>She had orientation activities from 3:45- 10:30 pm. She was already tired and hot (not lucky enough to be in the dorm with A/C, but does face Broadway and Columbia) and has a summer cold on top of it. I sent her a text at 10:25, while we were driving home, to ask her how the rest of her day went. She said “I dunno… overwhelming. I don’t know how to make friends. :(” I told her “You will. It just takes you time. It will happen. What was convocation like?” She said “How do you know? And it was alright. I was reeeeally tired.” I said “Because you always make friends. Just not the first day. You were tired and not feeling well. Try to get some good sleep tonight. Take a Benadryl if you need to.” She said “LOL, no way do I need benadryl…” I said “And tomorrow, make a point to talk to people. Love you and will check in with you tomorrow.” She said “Love you too”</p>
<p>She is slow to warm up but she once she feels more comfortable, will make good friends, I’m sure of it. Her roommate does have a best friend from high school who is at the same school so that might make it a little tougher. She was also tired and overwhelmed, 600 miles from home, just saying goodbye to her family and friends, etc. I know she’ll be fine, but I know it will take time before she gets close to anybody. </p>
<p>When I think about it, I get teary. My ex-husband called his dad while I was driving and while they were talking, he suddenly said “I have to call you back” and hung up and sobbed for a few minutes, then called him back. After hanging up, he said “She should have gone to Michigan” and I said “I agree, for selfish reasons, but this is her dream and she needs to spread her wings and fly now.” </p>
<p>I might have sobbed it out before hand, but I’m sure there will be some teary moments again.</p>
<p>Grumbly morning. S’15 accidentally set his alarm for 5:20, not 6:20. He rolled over and went back to sleep. Me, not so much. Grumble, grumble…</p>
<p>Cookies going in the mail today here, too.</p>
<p>My guy called last night just as I was getting ready for bed. He’s having a blast and has been nominated for hall rep in their school gov’t. He’s also met PN’s son and they played 3 games of chess together (each had a win, loss, and draw, so I guess that’s fair! 
). Today he puts in applications for a job at their job fair and signs up for his classes officially. His adviser liked what he had picked out and pre-registered for, so all is well there. I’m glad we’ve already bought books. If he doesn’t end up signing up for too many things, all should go well.</p>
<p>Me? I’m off to school this morning. No students today - they start tomorrow - but it seems WAY too soon for summer to be over. I have two years until my youngest is off and those years are going to fly by.</p>
<p>Glad to hear of all the good move-in stories.</p>
<p>If anyone is in Isaac’s path (life or college)… my prayers are with you!</p>
<p>So call from DD from the wilderness at 10 pm last night. Always a worry when they start with the words Mom don’t freak out. Apparently she got sick on the trail and ended up very dehydrated. The paramedics hiked in and gave her IV fluids in the woods. They got her well enough to hike out and she called when she arrived at the hospital ER at 3 am. No calls since then so I assume she did not get admitted. I did speak to the paramedic who thought the main problem was dehydration and that she was going to be fine once they got some fluids into her. My guess is thay are letting her sleep in the ER. Someone from the school is meeting her at the hospital this AM. </p>
<p>I of course did not sleep much last night. At least we have physician friends about half an hour away from where she is if we need some help. So that is launch story number two. I am just hoping she is OK today and that we have no more excitement in this launch!!!</p>
<p>Finally returned home early yesterday evening after our eleven day drive to take S to college and visit D in her college town. Still catching up on eleven days of laundry.</p>
<p>So here are the real texts I received yesterday from S while in the car:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>and later, after laundry was explained:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I haven’t read the coddling thread, but am probably guilty. I’ve attempted to show him how to do laundry several times. He finally “watched” me do it the day before we left. I figured he would be smart enough to read directions and/or ask other people for help.</p>
<p>My texts to him gave generic basics and then told him to read directions and/or ask other people for help.</p>
<p>1012 - I’m guessing once they hydrated her she passed out and is sleeping soundly.</p>
<p>Creek - funny your son met PN’s son, and you knew it was him</p>
<p>college - during the “expo” when the kids got their id’s and po boxes they had different booths set up, one of them was their washer and dryer so we got to show him how to use it. Even though he knows how to do laundry, this was different.</p>
<p>Today is my d’s first day of school. At 16 she’s taking the bus for the first time in her life. Time to get back into the swing of things!</p>
<p>Guilty here of sending cookies already. I wanted him to realize I was missing him as he knows I sent cookies to D when she was in college. He saw me many a time making cookies as mom-therapy, and I’m not one to cook unless I really have to cook.</p>
<p>Back from launching and still processing. Took D to Franklin & Marshall by myself because H was launching S the same day. Her launch was reasonably uneventful. F&M was beautifully organized for moving in (maybe easy w/ only 600 kids moving in) but I will say that ordering all parents to leave at pretty much the same moment in time is not smart).</p>
<p>Roommate had already been there for 5 days for a preorientation program but most of her stuff had not spread into Ds side of the room (although it did appear that she had a LOT more stuff than D who was able to put everything away easily. I do want to know how the kid across the hall got his bike to hang over his bed w/o putting holes in anything but didn’t feel comfortable asking) Roomie already seemed to have made bosom friends and while not excluding D, she feels awkward. They have 5 days of orientation, which is too long for D, I think she will feel better once classes start, but right now is quite homesick. </p>
<p>I think S2’s launch was equally successful, H says it didn’t even seem very crowded. although S did move into an intergrated 150 kid dorm on the other side of campus from the 10 floor freshman dorms, so that may have had something to do w/ it. I had heard that it was a mob scene, so told them to get there very early. They got there an hour early and were second in line. H called to ask about etiquette on choosing space and I told him I thought S could choose what he wanted which turned out to be a good thing as Roomie #2 didn’t show up for 4 more hours and Roomie 3 and hour after that. S chose the single side of the room and they were unpacked and bumming around for hours waiting. H says all three kids were very quiet and introverted and he didn’t forsee that any of them would have trouble getting along. S is also kind of homesick, his orientation is definitely not overscheduled and he has been hanging around a lot. His classes start today which should help. </p>
<p>Funny story. Yesterday after I finally got home from PA, H says, “what’s a duvet cover?” I had left him detailed instructions on what order the bed should be put together. Turns out it never got on the blanket, nor did the sham get on the second pillow, they all thought it was just extra sheets. I called S to explain what to do, and he located the items, looked at them and said, “Do I have to?” …men!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Cool! I haven’t heard from S. I guess he’s too busy playing chess? I’m sure he’s thrilled to find a good match - much more fun than someone over your head or an easy win! I know they’d played online some, but it’s cool they met in real life!</p>
<p>1012 - I hope you get good news from D soon.</p>
<p>I feel like we should have wackaloon bingo cards with squares like:</p>
<p>good roommate
bad roommate
sent cookies
call to say thank you for cookies
call from ER
call asking how to do laundry
call for more money
no call or text or email for over a week
got all desired classes
didn’t get all desired classes
got an A on a test
didn’t quite pass first test
lost ID
lost key
professor knows S or D’s name</p>
<p>First person to yell BINGO gets…???</p>
<p>I think my S has BIN so far:</p>
<p>B = good roommate
I = sent cookies
N = professor knows S first name</p>
<p>He already knows how to do laundry (I think I should get a “B” for that) and he said thank you in person for the cookies because I brought them when we came back to campus for the matriculation ceremony. </p>
<p>I think this week will be a processing week for wackaloons, and especially those wacks with fully empty nests.</p>
<p>I love this idea, PN! ^^ I’m trying to think of things to add. We are having such high anxiety here; I wish our launch date would just come already!!</p>
<p>LOL, Pinot Noir!!! 
Just filled my “wondering when kid will call/txt” spot on the board.</p>
<p>Just learned that S called yesterday but I was out at a gig. So we’ll need to add a square for “missed first call home.” 
I think he signs up for classes today, and the last time I talked to him he knew what 3 out of his 4 main classes are going to be. I’m eager to hear what the 4th is.</p>