Easter Sunday found us dashing back from a restful weekend at the beach. We had a few hours to unpack, launder clothes, re-pack and then head to the airport. Us being myself and chica uno who by years end has to apply to Universities and know more or less in which direction her education will continue. So we decided a mini Uni tour would get the ball rolling and where better to start than the Big Apple.
I thought I had prepared well in advance in doing research and booking a short trip to the North East coast to take in some State, private and Ivy League schools to get a good cross section. It all looked so easy on map quest and the virtual tours I took on the web pages. We started in New York, drove to Connceticut, Rhode Island, Boston and back again. If I were to do it all again I would probably take the train!
It felt a little like the blind leading the blind. Chica one is feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of the task ahead. Not just getting good grades and writing the perfect essay but actually knowing what she wants to do and where. It all sounds good on paper, looks great on the web page but I am new to the college applications process State side and had to buy various books and swot up on lots of new acronyms.
The tours were all conducted by bright, smiling, intelligent young guns who presented a good cross section of academic and social information. The college information sessions leave one feeling as if they would love to have us all apply and how earnestly they read the applications. Then comes the shocker of cost, gulp!
Where does one begin and how to convince said chica of what a smart, engaging, young lady she is and that any where would be happy and lucky to have her enroll. Then comes the task of how to apply a modicum of reality and end by saying you need a reach and a safety school. How to bolster but not over inflate, guide not push. I suppose as in all parenting milestones she is my first so by the time chica dos steps into the arena I may yet have mastered the terminlogy and process.
It would not be a Bon Bon story if the trip went smoothly wihout a little fracas at the airport where one portly gent tried to advise me on immigration requirements. Let's just say I did not take him seriously.
The most stressful part of my trip was driving back in to New York and being side swipped by a Juggernaut. He would not stop and claimed I had run into him. Yeah buddy it's a hobby of mine running into trucks 10 times the size of me. Well now I have a bill to settle with the rental company. The probelms with that and insurance could take up pages of blogging but are too boring to repeat!
To end the story my flight was late due to storms and my flight was re-directed. It took chica uno less time to get back to the UK than it took me to get to Texas. We are still undecided on which universities. Sigh and so the search continiues........
I thought I had prepared well in advance in doing research and booking a short trip to the North East coast to take in some State, private and Ivy League schools to get a good cross section. It all looked so easy on map quest and the virtual tours I took on the web pages. We started in New York, drove to Connceticut, Rhode Island, Boston and back again. If I were to do it all again I would probably take the train!
It felt a little like the blind leading the blind. Chica one is feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of the task ahead. Not just getting good grades and writing the perfect essay but actually knowing what she wants to do and where. It all sounds good on paper, looks great on the web page but I am new to the college applications process State side and had to buy various books and swot up on lots of new acronyms.
The tours were all conducted by bright, smiling, intelligent young guns who presented a good cross section of academic and social information. The college information sessions leave one feeling as if they would love to have us all apply and how earnestly they read the applications. Then comes the shocker of cost, gulp!
Where does one begin and how to convince said chica of what a smart, engaging, young lady she is and that any where would be happy and lucky to have her enroll. Then comes the task of how to apply a modicum of reality and end by saying you need a reach and a safety school. How to bolster but not over inflate, guide not push. I suppose as in all parenting milestones she is my first so by the time chica dos steps into the arena I may yet have mastered the terminlogy and process.
It would not be a Bon Bon story if the trip went smoothly wihout a little fracas at the airport where one portly gent tried to advise me on immigration requirements. Let's just say I did not take him seriously.
The most stressful part of my trip was driving back in to New York and being side swipped by a Juggernaut. He would not stop and claimed I had run into him. Yeah buddy it's a hobby of mine running into trucks 10 times the size of me. Well now I have a bill to settle with the rental company. The probelms with that and insurance could take up pages of blogging but are too boring to repeat!
To end the story my flight was late due to storms and my flight was re-directed. It took chica uno less time to get back to the UK than it took me to get to Texas. We are still undecided on which universities. Sigh and so the search continiues........
2 comments:
At first I thought, "Another college trip!" And then I realized that I had already enjoyed hearing about this trip first-hand (with margarita).
Biking trip is coming up soon! Have you been training? I just started doing something hideously difficult called Body Pump.
This has been in my drafts and I never posted it mainly because 2 weeks without internet would not allow me to do so. But more than that my social life day and night has been taking presidence.
Also in heavy training mode (who am I trying to kid) Some days those hills laden with flora and fauna with a little church and bodega on the horizon are a little too hard to conjure up. Especially when the beat is pounding in your ears and another in your head form too many Champeritas from the night before. Tequila and champagne a deadly combo, lesson learned!
Body pump sounds beastly hard but may knock those quads into the shape you need for scaling those hills.
Still toying with the idea of team shirts for us all as a laugh or maybe von trapp style head scarves andmmathcing ensembles. though that does seem more fitting for Austia than Catalonia.
Must go spin.....
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