<p>Thanks, Donna. Fingers crossed that the first day is representative of all the rest!!</p>
<p>PackMom and VeryHappy,</p>
<p>Great news! May things continue along that path.</p>
<p>Oldest D graduated with an MBA from Georgetown; her husband finished an MA at Johnās Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Sheās got a job and heās got some promising interviews. Youngest D (who graduated last year) got a part in a summer theater company play and sheās getting paid!! Husbandās new project made the Wall Street Journal. Iāve decided to retire and play in the garden. Life is good.</p>
<p>Very Happyāgreat news. Hope the new position works out for you.</p>
<p>Thanks, Bromfield. Congratulations to all your children, children-in-law, and DH!!! Youāve retired?? I am soooooooooooooo jealous!!</p>
<p>Wow, congrats to everyone! VH, Iām jumping in complete joy for you!!! Yay, a new job! Good-bye (good riddance ;)) evil bosses.</p>
<p>After many delays, D had her final interview (kinda hard to Skype with the other side of the planet which is exactly 12 hours ahead of us), which was very positive. Fingers crossed that the paperwork will not be delayed too much.</p>
<p>I got my first apartment! Itās not perfect, but itās pretty spacious and affordable. Fiance and I are both working at a factory together, me for the summer until I start grad school and him more permanently until he finds something better. </p>
<p>Plus, we went garage saling this weekend and picked up some fantastic furniture at dirt cheap prices! :)</p>
<p>Turned 60āI work for a small company that subcontracts with college textbook publishers (I do project editing); for the last 5-6 years, most of the publishers we work for have been outsourcing editorial work abroad, which means our work has been cut by 50%. Iām bored with the work thatās left and with my kids out of college, Iāve decided to let the younger people take the work thatās available. Told my boss to count me out starting in June. Not sure what Iāll doāI have some ideasābut Iām not going to think about doing anything until the summer is over.</p>
<p>Congrats bromfieldā¦believe me, you will find plenty to fill your days. Iām busier now than when I was working full time, but itās things <em>I</em> want to do when I want to do them!</p>
<p>I passed my credentialing exam! four hours and fairly complex questions, I am grateful I prepared as well as I did because it was challenging. aaaaahhhhā¦this gives me the opportunity to relocate if my job goes away or if I simply choose to relocate.
Feels good.</p>
<p>congrats, myturn! Having taken 2 four-hour exams in the past month, I know how demanding such exams could be. Now all I have to do is to pass an 8-hr long credentialing exam :eek: to be able to do what I recently discovered as my hidden passion.</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes, to all the great news! </p>
<p>BB, be sure to let us know the outcome for your D.</p>
<p>Personally I think this is one of the happiest threads on CC. It always makes me smile to see a new post. My bragā¦Iām glad I started this thread!</p>
<p>I have been reading this thread and it really is heartening to see the good news. I will throw in my own 2 cents worth now as my D has once again blown us away. She just finished her junior year taking a double major. She has been taking no less than 24 credits per semestre and is also an RA and this semestre she got a perfect 4.0 on every subject. She also been accepted into 3 national Honors societies. Her accumulated GPA for the 3 years is 3.95 and she is thriving on campus both socially and academically. We are so proud of her, now I am almost wondering who the milkman was lol 
as I was far from that GPA in college and my W was an average student. What gets me is that says she has never had to have an all nighter because we taught her young how to time manage. (I am a project manager and my W is a paralegal). I think it was worth the extra expense and not taking my retirement to let her go State side for college. Thanks for this thread as I think some of my co-workers are tiried of hearing me brag. LOL :)</p>
<p>Thumper, you should win some type of CC award for starting this thread. I love reading the good news and offer my congratulations to all of you who have posted. Gloworm, big congrats to you! Being a grandma is the absolute best.</p>
<p>Two of our Ds had very good news last week. My D who is an actor/playwright heard last week that one of her plays will get an off-Broadway workshop in NY next year. My D who is a lawyer and finishing up a Federal Court clerkship was hired by a well-respected litigation boutique firm which is her absolute dream job. Much celebrating to come when we can get everyone together!</p>
<p>Day Two of my new job: Now itās getting more complicated, but Iām still happy as a clam.</p>
<p>DS started his internship today, and DD has two part-time jobs this summer!</p>
<p>congrats to all for such well earned accomplishments.</p>
<p>thanks Bunsenburner and good luck on your 8 hr exam, cannot imagine the fortitudeā¦</p>
<p>also, shout out to my s who started his first job today, he is SO happy! A coworker signed him up to join the company softball league and heāll be playing tomorrow night. what a cool way to welcome a new college grad to the company! My thanks to the universe for providing my son with such a wonderful opportunityā¦</p>
<p>Congrats everyone!!!</p>
<p>My sās friend is in Vegas and just won $100K. I would be excited for him but it actually scares the bejeezus out of me, becuase my s is good (so he thinks) at some poker games.</p>
<p>Wow to all - great to read about the jobs, passed exams, top GPAs, and more. And good to hear that people actually do win big in Vegas. I take it this is a young guy kind of just starting out, jym? Any idea what heāll do with the money?</p>
<p>Here is my brag, which I really am proud of myself for. This afternoon I killed an enormous spider in our mudroom. Not a Daddy Long Legs - it was one of those fat, fuzzy jobs. I canāt imagine what itās been living on to grow to that size (and I donāt want to know, either). It must have come in through the garage from outside. Years ago, I would have frozen in place and shrieked. Today I was thinking that I did not want it coming one inch farther into the house and that Iād have to batter it to death before it escaped under the washing machine. So - personal growth!</p>
<p>I havenāt ābraggedā about my son for a while, but since heāll be graduating from the University of Chicago this Saturday ā even though his high school graduation seems not that long ago to me! ā I thought Iād mention how proud I am of him. For many things, of course, primarily for being such a truly wonderful, kind young man. But in the context of this thread, for his academic achievement. (Not that Iām the least bit surprised, of course!) The U. of C. isnāt exactly known for its grade inflation, so I think an overall GPA over 3.8 is pretty great, especially because itās gone up, I believe, every single term since he began. They donāt give Latin honors there (just something called āgeneral honors,ā for which you need, I think, a 3.2 GPA), but heās receiving what they call ādepartmental honorsā ā which, in his department, requires not only a high GPA in his major (his is just under 4.0; I think he got one A-), but ābeyond an Aā on his senior thesis, nomination by his adviser, and approval by the department. All of which he got. And deserved. He spent close to a year working on it, and traveled to museums and archives all over Germany last summer doing research, using the travel grant he was awarded. Without disclosing too much, this is a brief excerpt from the comments he received: </p>
<p>āYour thesis turned out beautifully. It is very, very impressive-- . . . an important achievement. Itās a great read, a compelling interpretive argument, and a consequential intervention re: XXXXās work and the limits of previous thinking about it.ā</p>
<p>Not that I didnāt have an idea, but a friend of mine whoās a professor in a humanities discipline at a university here in New York City explained to me just how superlative these comments are in an academic context, especially for an undergraduate, and especially for someone like my son whoās almost certainly going to pursue graduate study. So, yes, Iām extremely proud. And canāt believe Iāll be seeing him in another 48 hours!</p>