Wednesday, September 26, 2007
e-missed
The next evening, an email arrives bearing photos of her friends, with captions listing their names. She calls shortly after to talk us through them. The photos show fresh-faced youth, boys and girls, hiking across dunes with skim boards to the coast, building beach bonfires at night. They appear to be a decent crowd, not highly hipped out, no dreds or obvious piercings (though one has a cigarette). The girls live in her dorm (her age), the boys are "transfer students" (older).
Now if we could get academic detail I'd be in heaven (chimes in the perennial worrier and wanter). But (saith the wiser letting go-kine parent on my left shoulder) ... this is a lot; a thoughtfully crafted gift of a glimpse into her new life, something to savor and celebrate. Mazeltov, mama! a good omen for the new year (Yom Kippur).
advice from the parents network
Freshman year in 5 stages:
from Champlain College website
http://www.champlain.edu/portals/parents/five.php
Stages freshman go through during their first year (or so): Advice to college professors on the subject. article is 20 years old, but it still seems timely to me
For parents on letting go:
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/ca/670
Empty Nest Syndrome: a British doctor's advice to mums...love the lingo.
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/womenshealth/features/ens.htm
I was thinking......broke, poor, destitute for the parent stages! :)
Recommended Books: I'm currently reading Letting Go, and it's great...recommended by multiple sources; haven't read the others.
Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years, Fourth Edition
Karen Levin Coburn & Madge Lawrence Treeger (bought used on Amazon.com). Note: Be sure to order the 4th edition.
Empty Nest ... Full Heart: The Journey from Home to College
Andrea Van Steenhouse
Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years [Paperback]
Helen E. Johnson & Christine Schelhas-Miller. Note: this one has scripts to help parents through every kind of issue, concern, emergency, not just
with freshmen but also older students.
anything to add, dear readers...?
Monday, September 3, 2007
dog dragging you down?
I'm flying. As it always is, flying is fun and exhilarating, and a bit precarious-- although I know how to stay up, I can easily decsend quickly--it's like I can never quite take it for granted. So this time I was practicing flying, there was some effort involved, and I was doing ok except this little dog kept grabbing onto a piece of cloth and pulling me back down.
Yesterday, Jonah joined Mark and I for breakfast at the Hau Tree Lanai, and spoke of his desires to move to the Big Island after he graduates, to work at the new restaurant in Waikoloa that Sensei, his current employer, is opening up there, to live on our property in Waimea, to get a teaching degree, to travel for extended periods, to teach English for 3 months in China...what to do with his stuff...what to do with his puppy, Milo?
We puppy-sat Milo for 5 weeks over this summer. He is adorable and loveable and a rambunctious handful, not predictably housebroken in our house yet, chewing everything he can get hold of in his pug/bull-dog jaws, needing to run and rough-house, jealously demanding attention, and making life plenty busy for his more sedate elders, ie: our dog, our cat and us.
So, pretty straighforward symbolism: Here I am, starting to take off, or at least doing some practice runs, and I don't want this little dog (hey, I typed "god"--s'pose that means anything?) or anything else to be dragging me down.