<p>Thanks for the congrats.</p>
<p>I believe I have 2 more decent refunds still to come. Hope I’m right.</p>
<p>That is some serious overbilling!</p>
<p>Yes, it is.</p>
<p>Billed four days of ICU. Was able to be moved to a regular room, but there were none. Not our fault!</p>
<p>Doc was admitting name used, but he billed for visits he never made. I think it was the hospital really doing this.</p>
<p>The others are “services” normally given in ICU that were automatically billed, but D never had any of them after day 1. Once I got the first refund I felt good the others would follow. Let’s hope I’m right.</p>
<p>I learned from gloworm what the acronym of PBK stands for, and discovered son is TBP. Must be a generation skipping thing.</p>
<p>As to me, I attended 152 more weeks of college than dear old mom, who said college was the greatest 8 weeks of her life. I think she could burp the alphabet and more like others on the thread.</p>
<p>D2 just called today to let us know she’d received her PBK letter. Typical middle child, so she was excited to be catching up with her big sister in one more way.</p>
<p>BTW, there are no expectations for any more of this at our house! S just submitted his 2 apps., two weeks early the way he figures. Not due til March 1! I have tried to explain the difference between a deadline and a due date but to him it’s the same thing.</p>
<p>Congrats to your children, FOB and zoey. </p>
<p>TOB, I like your mom’s sense of humor.</p>
<p>I am so excited! My son just called to tell me that he got an awesome internship with a major communications company. He interviewed on Wednesday and they told him they would not be making a decision for two weeks. They called this afternoon and told him he was perfect for the position. I am just so happy for him, it seems like we are always celebrating something for his younger sister, I am so thrilled to be celebrating something special with him!</p>
<p>Congrats fishymom and fishyson! Sounds like he is on a roll to a great summer and job!</p>
<p>Fabulous! Quite an accomplishment!</p>
<p>Thank you both! My son is a great kid but has always been the square peg trying to fit in a round hole his whole life. It hasn’t helped that his sister is a high achiever in many different arenas and has garnered the lion’s share of attention since she was born. I have said since she was a toddler that I would hate to be her sibling! Thanks again, I am so happy for him I can hardly stand it!</p>
<p>Yay for fishyson!</p>
<p>I’m here to say that I survived yet another week at work!</p>
<p>Also, D surprised us last night at 10PM. Her coaches rearranged some practices/cancelled a couple others to go recruiting, and her only Friday class was cancelled because the prof had to attend a conference. She flew home and we get her until Sunday night!!</p>
<p>My D was selected as the Overall Director for Dance Marathon 2012 at her state U. It has been designated the largest student run philanthropy in the SE United States. She was on the Overall Committee for 2011, when they had a 40 hour even with 1500+ students on their feet during one of two 20 hour shifts. With a 4 hour gap in between events, and with an 8 hour prep and 4 hour breakdown, it is over 50 hours for those on the committee. They raised $490,000, with most all of it student raised in that they have no big corporate sponsors, just a few small ones. They have a faculty adviser who has minimal involvement. I am so proud I could burst. Comments from others: “An amazing, classy, poised 20 yo who is going places” "A dedicated, charismatic leader. " Thanks for letting me brag.</p>
<p>Sometimes if feels so good to let it all out in a big brag! And it’s so hard to do in our regular lives!</p>
<p>Conrats to Sunnyflorida and daughter! That is a huge accomplishment and something to be very proud of. And what wonderful compliments, you should be bursting with pride!</p>
<p>My brags: I dated the psychiatrist on Private Practice and one of the reoccurring judges on The Good Wife. I also had one date with Walter Cronkite’s son Chip.</p>
<p>This is my favorite thread on CC. It always puts a smile on my face to read everybody’s good fortune. :)</p>
<p>I worked out 5 times this week. (Also ate Mexican food and pizza, but hey, I would have done that anyway!)</p>
<p>I’ve saved over $250 in Grocery coupons and store specials in 2011. (Only going to 1 store - I don’t really feel like hitting 3 or 4 like some people do.)</p>
<p>I saw a TV show about couponing and that’s what got me started. Some people are SO into it - they have garages or rooms in their houses that look like little grocery stores. 200 tubes of toothpaste, etc. I’m not going to be that into it - but I do have a large case of paper towels in the trunk of my car. lol.</p>
<p>I am so happy and excited for my son right now. He called me a little while ago to tell me that he just found out that he was awarded a $3,000 “F. Champion Ward Third Year International Travel Grant” by the University of Chicago for this coming summer, to do research in Germany for his senior thesis next year. (The description on the U. of Chicago’s website is at <a href=“https://frogs.uchicago.edu/fellowships/award_description.cfm?key_opportunity=378[/url]”>https://frogs.uchicago.edu/fellowships/award_description.cfm?key_opportunity=378</a>) It was quite an extensive application process; he had to submit a very detailed research proposal giving all his plans for traveling around by train (with Berlin as his base of operations) to visit different museums and archives with collections relating to the particular German artist who’s going to be the subject of his thesis. And I guess they were impressed, because I know that they only give out 20 of these every year, and he’s pretty sure a lot more apply.</p>
<p>Now all he has to do is figure out exactly when he wants to go (a lot depends on trying to make sure he goes at a time when all the places he plans to visit are open), and how many weeks he can squeeze out of the grant. (Not that I can’t help him out a little, obviously, but his own expectation is to rely primarily on the grant money.)</p>
<p>Wow. He is very pleased, and I am as well. It’s been a long time since he’s sounded quite this ecstatic. It’s a big relief for him, too, because now he knows what he’ll be doing this summer, and doesn’t have to worry about continuing to apply for internships, etc., with no guarantee of getting anything. And doing this will also be a wonderful opportunity to use and improve his German, even though he won’t be studying it formally. He’s already pretty fluent, even though he’s only been studying it since the fall, so I have no doubt that he’ll be able to get by just fine.</p>
<p>And he really deserves it; at least I think so!</p>
<p>Plus, now I know what I want to do for a vacation this summer: visit him in Berlin for a week or two. I’ve never been there, and have always kind of wanted to. It is, after all, where my mother was born, and lived until she was 15, and where her father was born, and where the family had lived since the mid-19th century after moving there from a couple of small towns in Pomerania. Nobody in my family has been back to Berlin since my grandparents finally managed to get out (in the nick of time) in June 1941, via Portugal. They took with them the brass doorplate with their name on it, from the building they lived in, at 6 Niersteinerstrasse in the Grunewald section. I still have it, and perhaps I’ll visit that building, which still exists.</p>
<p>Donna–A HUGE congratulations to you and your son. That was a great brag and a pleasure to read.</p>