Hey all. You may recall me asking about Chicago last year …we have just done our long postponed train trip on the California Zephyr. Chicago is now a firm family favorite and I find myself thinking that between the large quantity and quality of museums and those wonderful beaches (soft sand and calm lake), this could be a regular early summer trip. Weather was warm and slightly humid, just perfect.
12 Likes
So great to see more updates! D19 still did not get a local job but she did sign up for a summer class that goes towards her minor and that is every day from 12-1:30 so kind of messes up the day. She says she is going to look at restaurant jobs because they seem to all be hiring and might be more flexible.
She did get a one week job at the Newport Folk Fest in July which should be fun. My husband and I go every year and she has always mentioned wanting to volunteer. I emailed a woman I know who has volunteered with them for years and she connected her with an actual paying job which is a bonus! We always combine that trip with a visit to my family in MA so it works out pretty well. If any of you are at the festival go see her at the merchandise stand. 
9 Likes
When we went to UIUC back in the mid 1990’s for grad school, we took the old Desert Wind line, which started in LA and connected to the Zephyr in SLC. Train from CA to Chicago is an amazing trip.
Glad to hear that you guys like Chicago - it’s a great town.
3 Likes
My daughter just finished her spring quarter at University of Washington, and it has been a highly successful year for her. UW seems to offer so much more in the humanities than she had originally realized. A year and half ago when she was unhappy in NYC, I could not foresee such a bright, positive future.
Right now the only dark clouds from my perspective are that she’s taking a 4-week intensive language course starting on Monday, and we are struggling to find a new student apartment in an extremely competitive market.
Update: She likes the language intensive, and the apartment is procured!
5 Likes
D is finishing her first semester of Russian for the summer tomorrow. There is no break, they roll right into the second semester, but she has an A+ for the first semester and she’s enjoying it even if she’s she’s ever so slightly starting to get burned out on sitting on zoom all day every day again. Luckily she’s been able to go back to gymnastics after about 8 months off and that’s really gotten all the excess energy out.
She got a formal diagnosis of ocd this week that she wants to try to address with her psych soon- they’d been brushing her off for a very long time but a full neuropsych work up and report now backs her up and she hopes to be taken seriously finally. Appts are still a pain to get though. It’s weird to not be starting her visa process yet- it feels like we should be- but she is still waiting on the paperwork from Oxford that she needs to get it going.
Four more weeks and her “real” summer starts. Which means that in four weeks and two days she’s gonna be bored as heck. Ha!
7 Likes
Well, I’ll back-to-back myself! D finished her second semester of Russian today. Ended with an A+ still, but this semester was harder for that than the first one was- she’s definitely burnt out and ready to relax for awhile. She applied for her visa yesterday too, so everything is moving along on that front.
6 Likes
Good job for her @milgymfam! Glad she gets a break now.
DD is surviving camp, but definitely not loving it. She’s had 17 hour days sometimes and even on shorter (12 hour!) days it’s pretty physically and emotionally demanding. It has its good points, the directors are great and she enjoys some of the other staff and has had some funny kid stories to tell. She’s been given additional leadership opportunities and such for the resume. She can build a fire, is certified in several more things, and is even in charge of feeding the rehab hawk and owl. Yep, she chops a frozen quail in half with an ax every other day for the birds to eat. The kid continues to surprise me.
She is ready to go back to school though!
5 Likes
Hi All,
Nice to hear the summer updates. S19 has been very busy lately with his internship and working out (often twice/day if he can manage) and then doing a lot of case prep in the evenings with friends/peers. He’s recently submitted applications for consulting internships for next summer and has a bunch more to go. He’s trying for the top consulting firms and some others, and we’ve been talking about realistic expectations since they are incredibly hard to get and he knows the odds are low. Still, I’m impressed by how hard he’s working and how much he’s learning on his own to get ready for potential interviews. Either way it seems to be good experience.
He and I had our passport appointments yesterday and S has been researching study abroad plans for the spring. At this point the program in Barcelona seems to be his top choice. He was a little hesitant at first because he wasn’t sure that was the best option for reaching fluency, but he thinks he can make it work. He may also end up taking an Economics class or similar taught in Spanish and hopefully things like that will help. S is trying to get his best high school friend to also study nearby which would be great fun for them. I’m definitely envious and hoping that I will be able to visit.
Only a few more weeks until we head back to Nashville. Hard to believe his college experience is halfway over!
8 Likes
Great update!
Just out of curiosity, when were those apps due for consulting internships for summer 2022? Since S19 took time off, he can’t apply yet. Won’t have junior status until after next school year. But it would be good to know the dates. Sounds like some might be due this August for next summer?
Good luck to your S!!
Thanks! It looks like the MBB consulting internship deadlines are in July with another option for submitting in September. I’m guessing firms other than those three have similar or a little later deadlines. Fingers crossed for getting some interviews!
1 Like
@whidbeyite2002 So happy to hear your daughter is loving UW!
@milgymfam Wow, A+ in Russian is amazing. When does she leave for Oxford? D19 sent in her applications for her student visa about a week ago but who knows how long it will take. They aren’t doing in person appointments at all so this was the only choice.
@bjscheel Chopping a quail in half - what an experience! 
@elena13 Sounds like your son really knows how to keep himself busy - that is great! Good luck with the applications.
D19 finally did get a job - she is working at a commercial real estate company where she worked a few weeks last summer. The job is pretty boring, doing lots of online research and putting the information into a database. Not anything she is really interested in long term but they are very flexible and she needed to do something once the summer class was over.
We head up north next week where she will work at the Newport Folk Fest for 6 days then spend some time with my family. When we come back she will have a few more weeks of work, probably at least a week in New Orleans to see her friends before she leaves, then she is off to Italy in September. She is excited and nervous at the same time!
8 Likes
True story: I passed Russian 101, but only because my professor told me he’d give me a passing grade if I promised to never, ever, ever take Russian again.
I’m a linguist and have always done well at all the other languages I’ve taken (English, German, Swedish, both Nynorsk and Bokmål Norwegian, Danish, Italian, and Hungarian as my non-Indo-European one), but Russian? Well, at least I have the excuse that I had a lot of personal turmoil going on that semester.
9 Likes
@momtogkc she leaves at the very end of September- we are still hoping quarantine rules will lighten prior to then. She starts on October 3rd, but right now she needs to quarantine at least 5 days, I think.
@dfbdfb, she said that Russian was the hardest language she’s taken so far, by far- that’s Spanish, ASL, Italian, Latin, Macedonian, and Russian (and self study Swahili). She actually bombed the exit interview (non-graded) to assess how far she’s come over the two semesters. Apparently you’re automatically placed at the lowest level if you use English at all. She accidentally said one word in English, but also three or four in Italian. Ha! The teacher didn’t even notice the English but my D called herself out after.
@dfbdfb That is hysterical! My grandparents were born in Norway and I never knew there were different dialects!
@milgymfam My D19 leaves early September and finishes December 16th. We are hoping to be able to visit her but it is getting very confusing because all three kids have different schedules.
1 Like
We are sad that we won’t see our D from end of September until the following June, but the money just isn’t there for any of us to visit her. We’d hoped to send her sister for Christmas so she wouldn’t be without family, but it just didn’t work out. I’m hopeful that she’ll be her usual magnet self and make lots of friends to spend the holidays with.
I love the updates! D19 is in MA right now doing a week-long EMT practical class. She did all the “book” learning virtually in the spring. She loves the combination of understanding the human body, and hands-on helping people.
The pre-orientation adventure trips for freshman will be running as usual this summer! 
D19 is so excited to lead hers. It does mean that she needs to be at school the second week of August.
I also can not believe they are halfway through college. Parenting seems to accelerate with each stage going by faster! I’m grateful for any time that we can slow down and just be together, doing some of our favorite things and traditions. We should get a little more of that when D19 returns, and D21 isn’t working.
Best wishes to everyone!
10 Likes
Ha! Posted in the wrong group!
But either way, just saying that yeah, things are crazy, glad to hear from everyone, and, um, now off to the one I intended to post the really long college tour report I’d originally posted here…
6 Likes
Thought I’d check in - the format change has thrown me off for a while! S19 is doing well at UAH. He got an internship at the last minute for this past summer and just finished that - it was in Huntsville, and he was able to stay the summer in the apartment-style dorm he’ll be in this fall. We haven’t seen him since May and won’t until October during fall break, when he’ll fly home for a couple of days.
Great to see how everyone’s 19’s have been doing!
11 Likes
DD is heading back right now. She was able to fit her bike, new tv and her tons of clothes in her Jeep so we don’t have to go (she’s in the same apartment as last year). She just met me for lunch in the park before going the rest of the way. Unfortunately someone stopped by and he doesn’t stop talking so we didn’t get any conversation of our own. We did get to walk & talk last night at least.
She has an on-campus job interview in the morning which I think would work great for her schedule and major, and she might get to work with her roommate. So here’s hoping on that one.
She’s ready to be back with her college friends and in her apartment.
7 Likes
Update: She got the job! Says it sounds like she and roommate will be scheduled together which is perfect.
She pays her own rent, and about 10 hours a week should keep her afloat and be easily manageable. Excited because it’s hard to get jobs there and she won’t have to resort to fast food work.
13 Likes